The architect poorly designed these buildings at work. The Bradford Pear trees were placed too close to the buildings. They don’t get enough light. And the high winds knock them down. And they never get replaced!
It seems that two were taken down recently. Too bad they wont let it grow back…
It seems that water problems come in threes. The first leak was an easy one to fix. One of my old, above ground sprinkler heads broke.
The second one took a day to fix. I noticed that water was coming up from the ground next to my driveway. I thought it was from the sprinkler system side. But, when I shut off the master valve on the backflow preventer, it still kept leaking. I could tell because my water meter was running. I tried turning off the valve on my side of the water meter, but no luck. When I turned off the valve on the city side, it finally stopped. Great. I also have a broken shutoff valve. I also like how the city can install a padlock when the water is off. Nice.
Now, I had to track down the leak. Unfortunately, it was not a straight run to the house. As you can tell by the amount of earth I had to dig up. It seems that the 90 degree elbow bend split on the inside of the bend. It was thankfully easy to cut it out and replace it with a 45 degree bend.
My friend and I installed the backflow preventer (and the rest of the sprinkler system) ourselves. Now I am wishing that it was hooked in better. It should have been a simple T-connection. But as you can see that it is higher than the main pipe and also on top of the main pipe. There are a number of twists and turns. I wish I can just rip everything out and start over again. But that’s not going to happen…
The third problem was that my shower head started to leak. I really hate my Moen faucets! This has been the at least third time that I have had to replace the faucet cartridge. Unfortunately, it was not doable by me. I tried and tried to pull the old plastic cartridge out. But it was wedged in tight. I had to resort to calling a plumber out to the house. It cost me 128 dollars for five minutes worth of work. Sigh. But what can you do?
This time I used some Plumber’s Grease to lube up the insides. I also learned to not push the cartridge in by the copper stem. But to use the plastic removal tool to push it in by the plastic middle.
Our group at work got together and held a pot-luck picnic at Emma Long Metropolitan Park. I decided to make a cold, black bean salad. It was pretty easy to make and turned out tasty. I cooked the beans and diced the remaining ingredients. It was a mixture of beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, and mangoes. Unfortunately, only a tiny bit was actually eaten by people. I kept a couple of meals worth for me. But threw out 95% of it because it sat out all day. Oh well, I guess I won’t go to the effort to make something from scratch again…
My Grandfather owned a Keuffel & Esser Co. Slide Rule 4092-3. There is a patent date of December 22, 1908 on it. It seems pretty old. I wish we had talked about it when he was alive. I bet there were some interesting stories involved…
Some times the program’s automatically generated taunts just happen to fit the bill.
It’s cool that a big wildflower area is right next to the parking garage at work!
I like the Domain’s multi-colored sign. Too bad for all the power lines around it…
Evelyn R. Hamzy, 89, of Palm Beach Gardens, died Saturday February 6th, 2010.
It’s a shame I had to find out like I did. But at least I got to see you again when I went to Florida.
I think its included in the documents you sign when you move to Texas. You must take a picture in a Bluebonnet field…
I came across this recipe from SmittenKitchen about an easy way to make biscuits and I had to try it. There are just five ingredients (well four if you don’t top it off with melted butter). You sift together flour, salt, and baking powder and then mix in heavy cream. The only problem that I have with this recipe is that it doesn’t mix smoothly or evenly. At least when I tried it by hand with a spatula. I’ll have to try it on a stand mixer the next time.
The first time I made this, I just plopped down the dough onto a pan, sliced it with a knife and then put it into the oven. Unfortunately, it is not easy for the steam to escape using this method. The cooked biscuits are easy to stick in the freezer and the reheat later in a toaster oven.
The next time I tried freezing the raw dough after I cut out a circle and topped it with melted butter.
You place a single frozen biscuit in a preheated toaster oven set to 350 and cook for 10-15 minutes. And it comes out like this! Which is best topped by sorghum syrup.
These biscuits are extremely tender. Perhaps too tender. I think you need to mix the batter more to encourage development of gluten.