Never Saw That Coming

It has been a pretty busy week with all sorts of unusual activities.  Mostly good, some challenging, all requiring me to stop and think about how to proceed.  One thing I am trying to learn is stop a bit quicker - before I start getting stressed and nervous - and ask God to help.  Many times I think I have exhausted all of my options, and I probably have exhausted all of MY options.  Invariably, the plan and approach I think of, if I have a plan or approach, is not how it actually works out.  And when it works out (after a lot of prayer), it works out in a way I never saw coming and in a way much better than I could have thought of.  

Without going into specifics, I had two challenges this week where my standard resources were not available and I had nowhere to turn to get these particular jobs done.  Out of the blue, I got a call from someone affiliated with one of those resources who said that not only could he help me out with one of the issues, he could handle the other one as well!  Perfect.  And that was just one of the week's challenges.

God knows I have enough past experiences to reference.  Now it is just a matter of moving them up in the memory priority list...

But Where Did The Water Go?!

A couple of weeks ago I took a look at the pool through the mesh cover and my heart sank straight to the bottom.  The first two pictures in the top row were what I saw:  9 inches of standing water (there should be 5 feet) and the liner falling in.  Never before has this happened and I didn't know what to do.  I pulled the cover back, threw on my hip waders and jumped in expecting the worst.  I looked around for a tear, hole, or leak - something that would explain what happened.  For some reason I never even looked under (through) the cover this year to see how it was doing. Sometimes in winters past, I would need to drop a submersible pump in and pump out the excess water.   Never has there been a decrease in the water level.  I grabbed a garden hose and slowly started to re-fill it.  Googled and researched and contacted the local pool company - no explanation could be found.  We are talking about 10,000 gallons disappearing without a trace.   Over the next few days, the pool re-filled, the liner smoothed out, and not a drop has leaked (see last picture, bottom row, for current status).  I haven't opened the pool so the water has not been filtered nor the bottom vacuumed.  I have welcomed any and all explanations and theories but none, well, none really hold water.  (The pool liner still has some silt in it but I have swept it all over and turned on the pool light at night looking for any indication of leakage.  Nothing.)  We have heard stories of Jesus performing miracles at the Pool of Bethesda.  Now I can tell the story of the miracle at the Hale pool.

Needs & Wants

If you look back through my posts, you will see several instances where I documented how God had come through and met our needs.  Sometimes at the last minute (or so it seemed) but it always worked out.  Lately I have been noticing how He gives us some “wants” too.  A few months ago, I saw on the Acura Owner’s forum that people were changing their license plate bulbs to LEDs.  Makes the plate show up whiter and brighter and looks pretty cool.  But each bulb (there are two), were about $10 each!  That is an extravagance we don’t need.  So I filed it away in my mind and went about my business.  Wouldn’t you know that about two weeks ago, in my daily “super special electronics sale” email, there was a set of TWO LED bulbs on sale for $3.99 including shipping?!  Ha ha  I thanked God and bought them (and they look great!).

I have to be respectful to the Creator of the universe, but at the same time, I often think of Him as “one of the guys” who feels what we feel and knows what it is like to have wants – as frivolous and unnecessary as they may be.

Ghostly

We had this house built so I know it is not built on an Indian burial ground, no workers were killed during the construction and no little kids were walled up inside.  That being said…  Many times at night we hear walking sounds above us while we are in the living room downstairs.  Both dogs are with us and no one is up there.  No one up there.  Of course it is the house settling or something but we laugh nervously and move on.  About a year or two ago, I went up to bed and found that a small picture frame that is kept on top of the bed headboard was on the ground and there was a dent…  in the ceiling!!  How in the world did that thing jump up on its own and leave a mark in the ceiling?  Weird.  Last night I finished a book so I set it on the credenza to put away on the bookshelf in the morning.   I put my bookmark on top of it to put in the next book I was going to start.  (see the picture that I "ghostified")  When I got up this morning, the bookmark was gone.  I clearly remember putting it on top of the book when I set it down.  I looked high and low.  I even thought maybe it got caught in Mocha’s tail as she walked by so I re-traced her steps all the way outside thinking maybe she carried it out there.  Nothing.  Weird. I started tearing things apart looking for it.  Finally I found it – under the comforter at the foot of the bed.  But the strange thing is, the comforter was off and on the floor last night when I got into bed to read…

Online Shopping

I have had some hits and misses lately with online shopping.  Overall a big hit, but not without it's issues.  Before Christmas, I purchased something from Best Buy and later called to see if they would price match a competitor's lower cost.  They wouldn't but that call led to a two-month ordeal that never did fully resolve.  After multiple calls, emails, and online postings, we finally determined that the BB rep who took my call left my account information open on her screen and then took a call from someone else placing an order.  His information ended up on my account history.  To make a long story short, BB determined they couldn't remove it from my account, sent me a generous gift card, and the guy who placed the order (that ended up on my account) is now my email pen pal...  Another miss:  rebates.  I bought several computer items that were on sale after rebate and each one of them requires cutting the UPC code off of the item box and mailing it in along with receipts and forms.  What century are we living in that we have to do that?  Surely there is a better way.  Out of about 10 recent rebate submissions, 8 have worked out fine, one was lost (luckily the box actually had 2 UPC codes so I was able to re-submit and confirm it was received) and one is probably not going to work out - there were actually two rebates for the same item but each requires an original UPC.  I will send the original UPC to the bigger rebate and a copy of it to the lesser one and hope for the best.

On a positive note, I have found that purchasing online for store pickup can be MUCH cheaper than buying the same item off of the shelf.  Wal-Mart is my favorite for this.  Bought something online for $50.  Same item (that an employee went and pulled off the shelf for me to pick up) sells for $88 in store.  Just last night I bought an HDMI cable online for $10.  Hanging just feet from the pickup counter is the same item - $17.  I think I am on to something here...

Start With The Basics

Yesterday I was working on Lucie's laptop - I made a rescue CD to use to restore her computer if something should go wrong.  I figured I better test it while things were working to be sure all was in order before I needed it.  So I put it in and rebooted the computer.  The laptop SHOULD have read the CD and booted up from that into recovery mode.  Nope - skipped right on past and booted up like normal.  Which is not what I wanted.  So I tried again.  Nope - goes right on past it.  So I checked the usual settings and the laptop was set up properly to read the CD before the hard drive in the boot up sequence, etc. etc.  I took the CD and tried it in another laptop - worked fine.  I re-made it anyway.  No better.  I put in a music CD and it played just fine.  Hmmm.  Now I am getting a bit concerned.  So I updated the BIOS and drivers and this and that.  Uninstalled and re-installed the CD drive.  Nothing.  I went onto the forums and did some research and posted my dilemma.  Others who had the same problem wound up sending in their computers for motherboard replacement.  I wound up calling the manufacturer and had to go through the usual checklist that the rep has to go through.  Bear in mind that each time I try something new, I have to re-boot the computer and wait for it to get fully operational - which takes a lot of time.  During that whole troubleshooting process, I took a look at the disk and another one I was trying.  Remember - I had tried them with success in another laptop so I was sure they worked.  But they were a bit smudged so I rinsed them off and on a whim, I took a quick swipe of the CD drive reader lens and blew out some dust.  Wouldn't you know that fixed it?!  Only took 5 hours of my time to try the basic, 3 second fix...  Then I went back to the forums and made my post of shame.  Maybe it will help someone else.

The Elements of Surprise

Today is laundry day and I noticed that after one load of laundry, one bath (to soak my sore neck), and one shower, we were out of hot water.  That isn't right.  Gotta be the water heater.  A few years ago I replaced the thermostats so I figured they were OK - now it was time to check the heating elements.  There is an upper and lower element - pretty easy to get to and test with an ohm meter (YouTube is my friend).  So I tested them and one was reading on the low end of the approved range.  I figured I might as well change both if I am going to change one.  The guy on the video said there was no need to drain the water from the tank - just get your pieces ready and a towel and you can swap them out lickity split with minimal water loss.  He even showed how simple it could be.  So off I went to Home Depot and got the replacement elements ($12 each) AND I got the special element wrench to take them out.  You can see in the picture above what an element looks like (the new ones are nice and shiny).  I shut the power off and opened the panels and flipped the relief valve to let off the pressure and turned off the water supply.  All good.  I figure I would start with the top one so I would be practiced when I went to do the bottom one - which, theoretically, would have more water to drain out.  I removed two wires, put my wrench on and slid the screwdriver through (which served as wrench handle) and lifted.  Ugh.  Nothing.  Lifted and lifted.  No budgie.  Come on!!  Off to get the all purpose tool (the rubber mallet) and I proceeded to offer some persuasion.  Still wouldn't budge!  As my brother Lowell, and some guy named Archimedes once said, give me a lever big enough and I can move the world.  So I got my pry bar and started leveraging.  All that did was bend my screwdriver.  Alrighty then.  Another trip to the garage for the Liquid Wrench.  Gave the element a good hosing down of that stuff and started in on the lower one.  Same process - remove the panel, remove two wires, and start with the wrench.  But looky here - it is coming out nice and easy!  I got my replacement piece all ready and my towel and unscrewed it right on out.  And you would think I released Niagara Falls!  Water came shooting out like from a fire hose!!  So now I have to feed the new element in - against the tide!  It didn't take too long actually and it went right in.  Tightened up nicely. Put the wires back on (left the panel off to dry) and went back to the upper one.

I gave it some more encouragement with the rubber mallet, put the wrench to it, and gave it a whirl.  Loosened right up and started unscrewing!  Well isn't this nice?!  I figure most of the water was drained out from the bottom so this should be easy peasy.  Wrong again.  Had my replacement piece all lined up, pulled the old one - and the dam let loose again!  This time at chest level and she is a gushin'.  I am trying to get that new piece in but of course it won't get started on the threads!  If I cross thread the female threads inside the water heater, it will be time for a new water heater.  I am screwing and screwing and right when it is pretty finger tight - it spins free.  Uh oh  This is not good.  Backed it off, with the water jetting out, and tried it again.  And again...  Finally she took.  Tightened it up, hooked up the wires, and turned on the water.  It wasn't long after it started filling that I see it was leaking...  Dang!!  Ran upstairs for some Teflon tape fearing it was stripped.  Shut the water off, took off my soaking wet clothes (at least it was relatively warm water), and prepared for the immersion.  Undid the wires and backed the element out.  Lucie had been throwing towels to me like a Western fire brigade so I stuffed one in the hole and wrapped the tape around the threads.  Oh but looky here - there are TWO rubber washers on this one.  Turns out the old washer got left behind which made for the difficult threading and prevented a tight seal.  So I pulled that off, the towel out, and threaded her right back in there nice beautiful.  I was able to tighten it right up.  Turned the water on - no leaks!  Flipped the breaker on - no short circuits!  It is filling now but seems to be working.  Good for another 17 years I hope.

The guy on the video made it look so easy.  And so dry...