Quick update

[adelheid_p]

Most week days are just the same stuff different day. Well, this week we had a major clog in the sewage line that serves our laundry room and first floor bathroom. On Friday, I stayed home in the morning to wait for the plumbers to come snake out our mysterious and convoluted pipes. It took them a couple of hours and the exercise of trying to send their router/snake machine through every drain-type hole in our basement floor. Finally they did find the clog and were able to break it up. Afterward we had the entire plumbing staff of the company that I call, minus the secretary, in our basement checking it out (the owner, his son and the two guys who actually did the work). Now, a couple of years ago, we had them stick a camera down the pipes because we knew that there was a major (thousands of dollars) problem with the system as we had been calling them more frequently than we thought we should for clogs. It turns out that pipes go the wrong way and we have the risk of getting sewer gas from the municipal line in our basement. On Friday, the owner of the company suggested that we needed to cover every drain in our basement because of this sewer gas risk that posed a health hazard not to mention the potential fire hazard from methane. Well, we also have a problem with water in the basement so if we cover/plug the drain then we basically have a flood in our basement. So, I called him later to see if there was a "low cost" solution. And for $500-$600 we can have a pea trap put in instead of the drain that will keep the sewer gas from coming in the basement. So they're doing this during the day on Tuesday. I'm pretty sure this is reasonable. The owner used to do work on The Klingon's grandfather's house in Forest Hills (outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) so we are familiar with him and he has been willing to work with us on stuff before so I'm confident he's not gouging us.

In addition, this weekend, I attended a church youth conference in Columbus, OH. It was a good conference but the drive home was a challenge. Luckily the person who drove (not me) had driven in Boston, MA record snow storms so I was glad he was at the wheel of the van even though it was a rented vehicle. He was also a pretty neat guy to talk to which is always important on long trips. It was his first conference as an advisor and I really hope he continues as an advisor for conferences.

Finally, I'm sick. It's either a head cold or sinus infection. Probably from the stress of last week's household problem and lack of sleep from the youth conference.