End of June
2019-Jun-25, Tuesday 22:41![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
texxgadgetIm looking forward to pride this weekend, its 50 years since the cops of NYC underestimated the regulars of a certain bar in Greenwich Village in NYC.
It should be a real corker.
So Im a month into my new gig, relearning a bunch of stuff as Im dealing with Unix versions nobody has seen in years (HPUX AIX Sloaris)
It turns out they are still out there.
Im also working for a rather dodgy agency and have yet to be paid.
I exhausted the bank account at the start of May.
Financially Im in deep doo-doo
Dad came back from a tour the night before fathers day, having picked something up on the plane home.
This week Dr confirmed my suspicion, its either pneumonia or legionella.
Hes slowly improving.
This morning was my first time talking to him in nearly a week.
I hear him coughing and as long as I hear that, I know hes OK.
He was very quiet one night and I got very nervous.
Sharon wishes she could afford to pay me.
Meanwhile, a couple more trips to her Dads place have happened.
We are now able to do overnights, so we go up Friday night and that gives us 2 full days.
We have a vague idea where the septic tank is in front of the guest house.
The wood roof is starting to fail and I have to keep reminding people not to walk over it.
"If you go swimming in there, Im NOT going to go in after you !"
Interestingly enough, the toilet goes to a 4in dia iron pipe and goes through the foundation, presumably towards the tank.
The sinks & shower drain to a separate galvanized 2in dia pipe that goes off at a different angle and heads off behind the guest house.
Apparently not into the septic tank.
Her step bro & his GF are in Sharons grandads art studio.
GFs 3 grown sons live in various trailers on the site.
1 of them works. The other 2 play video games all day.
They used to put on a show of appearing to be working on the place when they knew we were coming.
The one who has a job actually gets stuff done during the week after work.
The other 2 its just a pretense.
There are a couple tall wind rows of trash bags, about 10 years worth of household garbage.
The "boys" are complaining about being asked to load the trailer and do a dump run every week.
Ive got enough of the blackberry chopped down, Ive exposed a couple cars, and now Im running around with a mattock to dig out the roots.
They have cut them down before and the vines just grew back.
They dont understand that if you remove the roots they wont grow back.
One complains about his back and how hot it is.
Im usually up a tad before 6am and its nice and cool.
Im self treating a couple infections, could really use a few painkillers a week, have about 30 years on those bums and am doing this after working 50 hrs a week on my day job.
And they complain about 5 or 6 hrs a day...
Ive pointed out that if you start at 6, its cool and easy, then you knock off from 11 to 2 and get back into it after the peak heat of the day.
I usually work through it, but they come out for about 2 hrs, then disappear and then you hear the heavy metal blasting.
So, we have water in the guest house when we connect up the garden hose.
The sink in the bathroom didnt work, even though the toilet flushed.
Don was sanding floors and I took on the sink.
I shut off under the sink and dismantled the valve.
Then I slowly turned it back on so see if anything came up.
"KA-BANG" as something ricocheted off the ceiling and I closed the valve.
It turned out the screw holding the washer had let loose and the washer was jammed into the bottom of the valve.
Proper reassembly of the valve returned the sink to operation.
The drains in the kitchen and bath seemed to be backed up.
No luck with a plunger or a snake.
Fortunately, all plumbing is in the front wall of the house with external access panels.
This week, Don was scrubbing walls in prep for paint, I waded in with a blow torch.
There was a clean out under bathroom and kitchen sink but they were sealed in lead.
This allowed me to snake further down the line before hitting an obstruction.
As long as I leave both clean outs open, sink water drains into the weeds in front of the guest house.
On the downhill side of the guesthouse, I started digging up the blackberry Id cut down before.
I found a blu tarp under the dirt.
I was afraid Id found an old dump.
I peeled back the dirt covered tarp and found concrete panels 2 in thick 3ft long and a foot and a half wide.
Apparently the sinks drain into a settling well, and it lines up with the sink drain line.
The tarp was to keep rain from filling it up.
OK....
The first weekend we were up there overnight, I noticed a hose bib with a leak on the downhill side of the guesthouse.
It turns out the riser had a pipe leak.
I tried to remove it, but the pipe broke and the wrench just wouldnt budge what was left of the riser.
We needed hardware any, so we added a "nipple extractor" to the list.
This thing goes inside the broken pipe and grabs from the inside.
We hit it with liquid wrench, but no luck.
This meant we had to keep the water off until we could plug the line.
Several more doses of liquid wrench and overnight.
Don suggests next morning we try both wrenches at once.
The problem was that the extractor had been slipping.
I put a wrench on the outside and gave it a pull to set the grip and partially crushed the pipe.
DOH!
Well, that was what it took for the nipple extractor to stop slipping, so we got lucky.
With 2 of us, we had the remains of the broken riser out and a plug in its place.
This gave us water again.
I found another clean out on the sink water drain under the house, Im certain the remaining clog is there.
Next trip Ill chase that one out.
Don & Sharon will finish paining next weekend and start laying flooring.
Plumbing is almost functional at this point.
Considering the pipe condition, drinking from it is not wise.
Need to fix that.
While I was chasing drains between the sink and the elbow into the final drain run, the water pressure dropped abruptly.
That had me worried that we had pump failure coming up.
The next morning, one of the "boys" pointed out that we had a hose running near the main house.
Thats when I realized that when Don turned on the hose I was using to rinse all the rust in the drain,
hed initially turned on the wrong hose and failed to turn it off when he finally got the right one.
Pressure is back to normal.
This leaves 2 problems.
First, where is the incoming water line to the guest house and where is the master shut off.
Sharons grandad was very good, and would not have half assed this detail.
This has been driving us mad for over a month.
Next to last time we were there, Don & I were checking the pump and wondered about this capped off pipe nearby.
I joked about Dirty Harry "Do ya feel lucky...punk?"
We took the cap and got a geyser.
This was just about the same time we realized that when the guest house had water, so did the main house.
So now we knew where to pressurize the line to bring house and guest house on line.
The next problem is how to turn off guesthouse when not there so burt pipes wont raise havoc.
The water line comes in very close to where the toilet goes to septic tank.
It then turns 90 degrees al the way to the access door to the cellar.
Another pipe leads back up to run the rest of the guest house and the 2 pipes are joined at the cellar door.
There is a faucet there, obviously a drain line for the house.
This past weekend, closer inspection revealed a second valve.
Water comes in, down to cellar door through shut off valve, past a drain valve and then back up to run the rest of the house.
OK, now we can shut off and bleed guest house as needed.
At this point, we just need to figure out how to do a swimming pool shock treatment on the water line before permanent re connection.
Tenants from hell a number of years ago, stuffed the guest house with trash from floor to attic and underneath.
Sharon and her brother had cleared the inside of the guest house pretty much, but ti still needed the cleaning weve been doing lately.
The had most of the trash out from under too, and Ive pulled a half dozen demolition bags out from under there.
I think another 3 or 4 will finish the job.
We still need to have a session on the electrical.
The place had an electrical fire some time back, but its not totally repaired.
Ive now given roofs a leaf raking theyve not seen in a decade.
Saturday night, I did a bunch of picking up and floor sweeping of the print shop.
I found a new package of type that was still tied, but over time, the string had failed and it had "pied" all over the top of the type cabinet.
I did a number of little cleanup in there.
It still needs more.
I also did a rough diagnosis of the Ludlow typesetter.
It looks like the last time it ran, the lead pot was still a bit cool and the casting operation stalled
midway, thus jamming the machine solid.
Ive got a vague idea what it needs to run again, but no time to do it this season.
We werent sure if there were any "mats" for the Linotype.
Ive now found them.
Sharon always wanted to learn to run a Lino.
We need to get the bats out of there.
They are pooping on everything.
The main house needs a good cleaning out.
Tenants from hell left a mess in there too.
Don & I boarded up a few windows to make it weathertite until we have time to fix them.
Sharon took a nap before we left on Sunday.
Shed mentioned that on of the first things she wanted to do when she started on the main house was to retrieve her coffee mug from the kitchen.
During her nap, I wiggled etc and got both her and Dons mugs from the main house kitchen.
She cried when she woke up and found it on the bedside table.
This adventure has been eating every weekend, but I can see it slacking off to once a month next year.
We have a number of things to get done before Rennfaire starts.
Its been great for me to work off some nervous energy.
After pride, its the 4th of July in El Cerrito where Ill be on production crew again and manning the studio back haul for KECG-FM.
It should be a real corker.
So Im a month into my new gig, relearning a bunch of stuff as Im dealing with Unix versions nobody has seen in years (HPUX AIX Sloaris)
It turns out they are still out there.
Im also working for a rather dodgy agency and have yet to be paid.
I exhausted the bank account at the start of May.
Financially Im in deep doo-doo
Dad came back from a tour the night before fathers day, having picked something up on the plane home.
This week Dr confirmed my suspicion, its either pneumonia or legionella.
Hes slowly improving.
This morning was my first time talking to him in nearly a week.
I hear him coughing and as long as I hear that, I know hes OK.
He was very quiet one night and I got very nervous.
Sharon wishes she could afford to pay me.
Meanwhile, a couple more trips to her Dads place have happened.
We are now able to do overnights, so we go up Friday night and that gives us 2 full days.
We have a vague idea where the septic tank is in front of the guest house.
The wood roof is starting to fail and I have to keep reminding people not to walk over it.
"If you go swimming in there, Im NOT going to go in after you !"
Interestingly enough, the toilet goes to a 4in dia iron pipe and goes through the foundation, presumably towards the tank.
The sinks & shower drain to a separate galvanized 2in dia pipe that goes off at a different angle and heads off behind the guest house.
Apparently not into the septic tank.
Her step bro & his GF are in Sharons grandads art studio.
GFs 3 grown sons live in various trailers on the site.
1 of them works. The other 2 play video games all day.
They used to put on a show of appearing to be working on the place when they knew we were coming.
The one who has a job actually gets stuff done during the week after work.
The other 2 its just a pretense.
There are a couple tall wind rows of trash bags, about 10 years worth of household garbage.
The "boys" are complaining about being asked to load the trailer and do a dump run every week.
Ive got enough of the blackberry chopped down, Ive exposed a couple cars, and now Im running around with a mattock to dig out the roots.
They have cut them down before and the vines just grew back.
They dont understand that if you remove the roots they wont grow back.
One complains about his back and how hot it is.
Im usually up a tad before 6am and its nice and cool.
Im self treating a couple infections, could really use a few painkillers a week, have about 30 years on those bums and am doing this after working 50 hrs a week on my day job.
And they complain about 5 or 6 hrs a day...
Ive pointed out that if you start at 6, its cool and easy, then you knock off from 11 to 2 and get back into it after the peak heat of the day.
I usually work through it, but they come out for about 2 hrs, then disappear and then you hear the heavy metal blasting.
So, we have water in the guest house when we connect up the garden hose.
The sink in the bathroom didnt work, even though the toilet flushed.
Don was sanding floors and I took on the sink.
I shut off under the sink and dismantled the valve.
Then I slowly turned it back on so see if anything came up.
"KA-BANG" as something ricocheted off the ceiling and I closed the valve.
It turned out the screw holding the washer had let loose and the washer was jammed into the bottom of the valve.
Proper reassembly of the valve returned the sink to operation.
The drains in the kitchen and bath seemed to be backed up.
No luck with a plunger or a snake.
Fortunately, all plumbing is in the front wall of the house with external access panels.
This week, Don was scrubbing walls in prep for paint, I waded in with a blow torch.
There was a clean out under bathroom and kitchen sink but they were sealed in lead.
This allowed me to snake further down the line before hitting an obstruction.
As long as I leave both clean outs open, sink water drains into the weeds in front of the guest house.
On the downhill side of the guesthouse, I started digging up the blackberry Id cut down before.
I found a blu tarp under the dirt.
I was afraid Id found an old dump.
I peeled back the dirt covered tarp and found concrete panels 2 in thick 3ft long and a foot and a half wide.
Apparently the sinks drain into a settling well, and it lines up with the sink drain line.
The tarp was to keep rain from filling it up.
OK....
The first weekend we were up there overnight, I noticed a hose bib with a leak on the downhill side of the guesthouse.
It turns out the riser had a pipe leak.
I tried to remove it, but the pipe broke and the wrench just wouldnt budge what was left of the riser.
We needed hardware any, so we added a "nipple extractor" to the list.
This thing goes inside the broken pipe and grabs from the inside.
We hit it with liquid wrench, but no luck.
This meant we had to keep the water off until we could plug the line.
Several more doses of liquid wrench and overnight.
Don suggests next morning we try both wrenches at once.
The problem was that the extractor had been slipping.
I put a wrench on the outside and gave it a pull to set the grip and partially crushed the pipe.
DOH!
Well, that was what it took for the nipple extractor to stop slipping, so we got lucky.
With 2 of us, we had the remains of the broken riser out and a plug in its place.
This gave us water again.
I found another clean out on the sink water drain under the house, Im certain the remaining clog is there.
Next trip Ill chase that one out.
Don & Sharon will finish paining next weekend and start laying flooring.
Plumbing is almost functional at this point.
Considering the pipe condition, drinking from it is not wise.
Need to fix that.
While I was chasing drains between the sink and the elbow into the final drain run, the water pressure dropped abruptly.
That had me worried that we had pump failure coming up.
The next morning, one of the "boys" pointed out that we had a hose running near the main house.
Thats when I realized that when Don turned on the hose I was using to rinse all the rust in the drain,
hed initially turned on the wrong hose and failed to turn it off when he finally got the right one.
Pressure is back to normal.
This leaves 2 problems.
First, where is the incoming water line to the guest house and where is the master shut off.
Sharons grandad was very good, and would not have half assed this detail.
This has been driving us mad for over a month.
Next to last time we were there, Don & I were checking the pump and wondered about this capped off pipe nearby.
I joked about Dirty Harry "Do ya feel lucky...punk?"
We took the cap and got a geyser.
This was just about the same time we realized that when the guest house had water, so did the main house.
So now we knew where to pressurize the line to bring house and guest house on line.
The next problem is how to turn off guesthouse when not there so burt pipes wont raise havoc.
The water line comes in very close to where the toilet goes to septic tank.
It then turns 90 degrees al the way to the access door to the cellar.
Another pipe leads back up to run the rest of the guest house and the 2 pipes are joined at the cellar door.
There is a faucet there, obviously a drain line for the house.
This past weekend, closer inspection revealed a second valve.
Water comes in, down to cellar door through shut off valve, past a drain valve and then back up to run the rest of the house.
OK, now we can shut off and bleed guest house as needed.
At this point, we just need to figure out how to do a swimming pool shock treatment on the water line before permanent re connection.
Tenants from hell a number of years ago, stuffed the guest house with trash from floor to attic and underneath.
Sharon and her brother had cleared the inside of the guest house pretty much, but ti still needed the cleaning weve been doing lately.
The had most of the trash out from under too, and Ive pulled a half dozen demolition bags out from under there.
I think another 3 or 4 will finish the job.
We still need to have a session on the electrical.
The place had an electrical fire some time back, but its not totally repaired.
Ive now given roofs a leaf raking theyve not seen in a decade.
Saturday night, I did a bunch of picking up and floor sweeping of the print shop.
I found a new package of type that was still tied, but over time, the string had failed and it had "pied" all over the top of the type cabinet.
I did a number of little cleanup in there.
It still needs more.
I also did a rough diagnosis of the Ludlow typesetter.
It looks like the last time it ran, the lead pot was still a bit cool and the casting operation stalled
midway, thus jamming the machine solid.
Ive got a vague idea what it needs to run again, but no time to do it this season.
We werent sure if there were any "mats" for the Linotype.
Ive now found them.
Sharon always wanted to learn to run a Lino.
We need to get the bats out of there.
They are pooping on everything.
The main house needs a good cleaning out.
Tenants from hell left a mess in there too.
Don & I boarded up a few windows to make it weathertite until we have time to fix them.
Sharon took a nap before we left on Sunday.
Shed mentioned that on of the first things she wanted to do when she started on the main house was to retrieve her coffee mug from the kitchen.
During her nap, I wiggled etc and got both her and Dons mugs from the main house kitchen.
She cried when she woke up and found it on the bedside table.
This adventure has been eating every weekend, but I can see it slacking off to once a month next year.
We have a number of things to get done before Rennfaire starts.
Its been great for me to work off some nervous energy.
After pride, its the 4th of July in El Cerrito where Ill be on production crew again and manning the studio back haul for KECG-FM.
Adventure?
Date: 2019-07-11 22:59 (UTC)All the best with getting those archaic typesetting machines operational.