Tuesday Tidbits...
Good morning and welcome to my humble slice of the blogosphere. If you like your Tuesdays a bit on the damp side, you might prefer today, as the Hoosierland will see spotty showers part of the day and sunny the rest of the time.
High temps will remain around the upper 70s again, before we warm up into the 80s tomorrow.
With that said, let's take a stroll into this day and see what awaits...
First up, it's time for:
Bobby G's This Day in August History!
August 6 - 1945 - The first atomic bomb, nicknamed "Little Boy" was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan by the American B-29 bomber Enola Gay. Seventy thousand people were killed immediately, with tens of thousands dying in the years following from burns and radiation poisoning.
Meanwhile, back at Los Alamos...
*** Okay, so yesterday we left a few things rather unresolved, regarding our female cat Penelope, and my "Batmobile".
-- First, I am relieved to say that our cat's blood work came back, and according to the doc, she's got a LOT of positive returns for her age. No trace of feline leukemia, or hyperthyroidism, or diabetes (whew).
Glad to hear that.
She did show anemia and a high white cell count, attributable to the infection she's had.

I'm feeling better - Thank you everyone!

Yesterday, she was actually making the rounds about the house, coming out to eat and get some milk. She even came in when I was brushing some tangled hair off of the male cat to get "her" brushing...and that's a very good sign.
She still has a swollen lymph node, but otherwise seems to be doing better.

Is Penelope back watching me AGAIN?

We are very hopeful.
-- Next, after taking the car into the shop, I am pleased to say that it's only a battery that needs replacing, and I had it swapped out this morning.

Thirty years old..and still looks good!

Yeoman's diagnosed the charging system, and found the "parasitic draw" to be ONLY 10 Milliamps, well within specs.
This is the electrical consumption in every car (since the mid 70s) that drives such items as the radio presets, onboard computer and so on. Today's cars most likely draw more due to ALL the gizmos that are sitting there, waiting for the turn of the key, or the push of a button, like the "entertainment system", the GPS, and so on.
So, that was two problems that were addressed in a manner that didn't suffer our lives too badly.
But, is that the end of the tale?
...Not on your life.
-- Last evening, after 7PM, our toilet was making a "moaning" noise, and I could hear it from the living room, so I went in to see what the problem was. This has happened before, but only sporadically, and such things as opening the bathroom door was enough to stop that noise...weird, huh?
Anyway, I take the top of the tank off...nothing. I then see the water feed line below the tank and I grasp that. Amazingly, the noise damn near goes away, so I figure THIS must be the culprit (somehow). I flick the pipe with mu finger a few times, and tap it with the palm of my hand...

Don't let THIS happen to YOU!

(bad move)
The pipe cracked and about 50 PSI of water shot out at me!
(impromptu shower-time)
I dashed downstairs (didn't know I could STILL move THAT fast) and cut the water MAIN off, which left only a 1/4 inch of water on the bathroom floor. Yeah, it comes out THAT fast.
Wifey called Korte for an emergency repair, and within 90 minutes, all was fixed.

Now THIS is more like it.

Apparently, that water feed line was ready to rupture (like an old appendix), and all it took was for me to tap it.
While this was a costly mess (after hours emergencies ALWAYS cost more), it's a lot better than having that pipe crack when we're NOT HOME.
That's all we need is to find a nicely saturated first floor raining into our basement...not to mention the following month;'s WATER BILL!
The really GOOD news here is that the replacement pipe is rated at TWICE the pressure the old pipe was (100 PSI), is made of a poly-compound with pressure fittings (no brazing required) AND we NOW have a SHUT-OFF valve on that line, where before, we had none.
Now, any future fixes at the toilet can be handled without running up and down stairs...I like that.
Yep, these post-war houses CAN have their issues from time to time. You just have to be ready for them.

My "hero".

The lovely Mrs Bobby G. encouraged me after the repairman left to "not touch anything else tonight"...LOL.
I had to second that, saying to her that if she heard any noise coming from within the house, to not bother me, and if something else broke, I didn't want to know about it.
Anything else is still fair game.
Oh, the joys of being a homeowner...!
I will say one thing...it does provide a very comprehensive education regarding such things as carpentry, plumbing, appliance repair, pruning, lawn care, landscaping, gutter-cleaning, window-cleaning, painting, caulking, insulating, carpet-cleaning, electrical repair, and other assorted things that might arise.
Tends to keep one "engaged" both physically, and...more often than not, financially.
Got it's own "job-security" built right into it. You just have to love it.
*** Next up, I 'm not going to mention anything about the 3 kids that hopped a train from Ft. Wayne to Findlay Ohio, and having one fall asleep ON the damn tracks and die...that's pointless to argue the level of stupidity there.

-- Nor, will I talk about the Ft. Hood trial set to begin today, when the shooter, one Army Major Hasan SHOULD have been taken the hell out when we had the damn chance. Would have saved a LOT of money there.
-- I won't belabor the point that while this nation's economy is TENUOUS at best, both Congress AND the Prez decide to go "on vacation", while they ALL should be trying to find a REAL solution to this country's financial woes (and it's not to create more dumbass stimulus crap).
That's not worth my time.
Shame on THEM ALL!
-- I won't talk about Al-Queda being decimated and on the run, when in fact, they are ramping UP their activities, and as Greg Gutfeld mentioned yesterday, DECIMATE means to kill every TENTH soldier (from Roman antiquity) so that means that NINETY PERCENT of Al-Queda is STILL intact...
-- And I can't be bothered with knowing that the University of Iowa is this nations BEST "party college".

Hell, I went to college (at night no less) to LEARN (even if it was only for one year)...not f$ck around...that's for the weekends, right?
-- It's even beneath me to pontificate about how Ft. Wayne is ONLY the 232nd best city out of 433 surveyed (with Camden NJ being number 433, and Detroit right behind that), even IF Fisher's Indiana is rated number ONE.
Nah...I have bigger fish to fry, just on my own mundane life.
Not to mention, I'm probably not finished finding things to break accidentally...LOL
Let's hope I can get a handle on that last thing.
*** Lastly today, life is all about choices...and opportunities...and very often, something called fate.
We make good choices, and we can pretty much predict the outcome. We seize an opportunity and we can be somewhat assured of the result, but fate tends to be the hairball in the mix.
FATE is the thing that tosses something at us from far left field...no predictability about it at all.
When certain things, be they tangible or intangible converge to a singular point in one's life, THAT become fate.
And fate can be affected by our choices and the opportunities that present themselves.
It can be good OR bad, depending on the particular parameters by which an event is set up.
It can be the World Trade Center on 9/11 or it can be a simplistic break in a bathroom pipe.
Thing is, fate is something that is always in flux...it can be changed by what we do...or do not do, as well as the way we choose to handle it.
This all sounds mystical or philosophical in nature, but time and again, we find the cause and effect of such things in life something that was bound to happen, given the circumstances leading up to the event.

If anything, we should learn from it, make sure what WE do has purpose, and that as many choices as we make each day have their basis in reason.
That way, fate can work with us, rather than against us.
Therein lies the lesson for today.

Be well, make a difference to someone, and...
Stay SAFE out there, America.