Every so often life throws me a little curve ball, and it tends to like to do this on the weekends.
I’m more then convinced that the universe some how knows there are two days where I really try to do as very
little as possible. As a matter of fact, if I could just lie as a big lump on those days life would be perfect
for me. Sadly this isn’t healthy, the universe knows it, and will always give me something to do on these days.
Over last weekend, when my lovely bride and I awoke, everything was normal. The sun was shining, the birds were
chirping, and all was good. Shortly after we woke up, however, there was this bizarre sound coming from seemingly our
neighbors yard. I went into the backyard to investigate, heard the sound, and was convinced from the small bit of
evidence I had they were in fact doing something next door that was making this strange noise. A few hours later, however,
my lovely wife asked me what the noise was and I went out to investigate further. As I got closer to the side of the house
next to our added on master bathroom, I noticed that the ground was very wet. Yes, that’s right, the water heater for our
bathroom had died and was spraying out of the top much in the same way a whale blows water out it’s blowhole with the
exception that the water heater wouldn’t stop.
Now, I’ve never had to replace a water heater in my life. I have, however, broken a water line or two in my day so the
basic concept of having to switch out a water heater didn’t seem to intimidating. I’ve also hooked up a gas range so the gas
aspect of this little situation also didn’t seem so bad. With my basic plumbing knowledge I decided I’d be damned if any
plumber was going to get a single bit of my money when I knew I could do this myself. The quest was now on to see if I could find
any information on line that would help me (because everything there is to know seems to be on the Internet).
Lowe’s web site is probably one of the best resources on line for finding
information about projects around the house involving hardware. They’ve built this entire on line library of information for you
to use as a service to their customers. This is certainly a gigantic step above anything I found at the
Home Depot web site. I was very quickly able to ascertain that everything I suspected I’d have to do was true and that
I could very easily handle this project. I also had the benefit for looking on line at the different water heaters that they
had available.
Let me take this moment to tell you a little bit about water heaters. There are two different kinds: electric and gas. Electric
costs more money, gas is what I had. Both usually use tanks that store a certain number of gallons. The dead water heater was a 40 gallon one, for example.
There is also a new type of tankless water heater that uses gas that seems to flash heat the water as it passes through the unit. These things are amazing and save you even more money then just using a gas heater, but their minimum cost seems to be in the $500 if you are lucky and I wasn’t interested in a new installation. Gas 40 gallon water heater is what I got.
You will notice, dear reader, that in the beginning of this little story I mentioned that the master bathroom was an add on. I didn’t add it on. It was done by one of the previous owners. This really doesn’t have much bearing on the story yet, but I wanted to mention it to get it out of the way.
So, there I found myself in my backyard draining the old water heater, turning off the gas, disconnecting the water feeds and hauling it out of the way. I went to Lowe’s, bought another 40 gallon gas heater, and whistled all the way on the drive home. This would be the last time I’d whistle for about three days.
I won’t bother you with the finer details, let me just break it down for you. Day 1 was pretty much taking out the old water heater and putting the new one in to place. Day two was looking at the connections on the water pipes, realizing that they weren’t the standard type, coming up with a plan to work around this, trying that plan, having it fail, trying another plan, having that fail, then giving up. There was no way around it, I was going to have to cut the original pipes and solder on new connections.
This all brings us to day three and also brings us to the moral of todays little tale: always do things the right way because it will also be the easy way and save you lots of time. I stopped by the hardware store on the way home, bought the male 3/4″ threaded ends that I needed as well as a pipe cutter. In the course of 1 hour I was able to cut the pipes, solder on the new ends, connect the water heater, connect the gas, hit the pilot light and was able to pat myself on the back for (finally) a job well done. Had I just bit the bullet and conceded to having to cut and colder some copper pipe I could have sat on my duff after work on Monday.
Lesson learned… have a nice day.
-WW
Once again I realize that another month has gone by and I’ve only done one entry in the
previous month. I’m either one of those people that really lacks focus, but I think the reality
is that I really don’t have all that to say.
To those of you out there that have asked me time and again over the past several months “are
you still doing shows?” I just want to say thank you for caring. The truth is that I am probably
the biggest hypochrit to walk the face of the Earth. Every day I look at the other people that
are Hotcasts and I even ask myself why I’m not doing shows as well. It’s not that I don’t want
to do shows, believe me. I’d love to do a show. The big question that weighs me down every time
I think about it is what show would I do? The truth is I’ve been very blessed so far. I’ve got
the gear to do a broadcast quality television show, I’ve been able to do talk radio, and I’ve
been able to meet people I never would have before.
So, the question is what type of show to do? As things are now I don’t have things set up for
doing a pseudo-television show. Sure, I’ve got all the gear but I don’t have the space to set up
the green screen, the desk, the camera etc. without totally destroying our current home office.
Sure, we’ve got a much bigger house then we used to have but it’s a lot harder to convince my wife
that we don’t need a guest bedroom because I need to have a studio for something that I don’t get
paid for. Now, I could really go old school and move everything out to the garage the same way
that I had it set up in Antioch but then if I ever just wanted to edit videos or what have you
I’d have to do it out in my garage. (Then again when the heck do I edit anything and if I just
cleaned out one corner of the garage I’d easily be able to do this and get rid of some of the crap
in my computer room giving my wife more room for other things.) The other side of the coin is that
just because I have the gear doesn’t mean I can just magically create a show. There has to be
something of substance there before the lights and the cameras come on.
What about just an audio show? That’s a good question. Why not? I have to admit that there are
some reasons why I haven’t just done this. The first is that there has to be something a little bit
more to the experience then just the sound of my voice (it’s the Internet after all). A great
example of this is The Owl Prowl
with DS Bishop. Either
Bishop brings us an incredible look into his radio studio while he’s doing the show or, on the
rare occasion it is audio only, we get a slide show during the program that makes us still feel
connected to him and feel like we are getting more then the incredible radio show he’s already giving
us.
Another problem with an audio show is that my experience at Comedy World, although as short lived
as it was, spoiled me to some degree. If I do just do an audio program I really want to have a few
telephone lines, an 800 number, and I’d really love to field questions from folks to help them with
their computer problems. Aside from the financial responsibility, which I can’t really undertake without
a way for it to pay for itself, there is also the added complication that if someone is on a dial-up
connection (yes, there are still those out there) then they have to disconnect to call (let’s not
forget that there has to be an effort to get an audience to come to the site). Am I just using this
as an exscuse? Not really. If there is any type of show that I want to do, that show is a computer
help program.
There is one other reason I’m not doing a show, and it’s the most important one: time with my
wife. As it stands right now I work from 10 to 7 every day, and I’m more often then not home no sooner
then 8 PM. When you factor in dinner time, and the fact that my wife gets up a good three hours before
I do, I hardly get to spend any time with my wife as is. This means that sacrificing the time with my
wife to do a show just isn’t worth it to me. This means that the only time that I’d ever have to do a
show would be once a week on the weekends, but even now that feels like an encroachment on my personal
time with the woman I love.
So, there’s the who, what, where and why about me and doing webcasts. I hope soon to find some
way to work this back in to my life without sacrificing the other things that are important to me.
Just don’t give up on me.
-WW
