DENNIS' SOAP BOX

Dennis' Soap Box

Monday, August 16, 2004

My gripe today: The President of the United States. Of course, it's not the office of the President. There have been some fine Presidents in the past. But, I have to be honest, I don't like John Kerry and I don't like GW either. I think they're both crooks. I would like to see John McCain as President. I think he's an honest and honorable person who would do credit to the office. With GW, it's all this behind the scenes stuff, like the Haliburton contract, the connections to between the Bush family and the Saudi Royal Family, their connection with the bin Laden family (maybe that doesn't matter, because Osama's family doesn't like him either), his arrest for cocaine possession and his daddy getting him off...I guess it's more his family and not him. Maybe he's just caught up in the political machine, but you really can't tell these days. Even with all our new methods of instant information, no one can tell if what is said is true or not. Then I come John Kerry. I'll tell you this, between the two, I'd rather kick back and have a beer with GW over Kerry anytime. I think Kerry's a bullshit artist who'll say anything to make whatever audience he's speaking to happy. Like when he says: "I share your values." What the hell doesn't that say? Who's values? He doesn't know what my values are. No one ever asked me what they are, so how could he know. I say this to Mr. Kerry; why don't you tell us what YOUR values are and I'LL make the decision on whether I share YOUR values. He's a dipshit, who obsiously thinks that no one is listening to his rhetoric. I'll get off my soapbox now. Maybe I'll vote for Nader or do a write-in vote for McCain.

¶ 11:28 AM

Tuesday, August 03, 2004

Well, I've been busy so, there hasn't been much time for blogging my gripes. Mostly, things have been revolving around work, but every so often my personal life rears ups its nasty face and provides me with a sanity challenge. For instance; this was my weekend (please bear with how the story jumps around):

We had been planning to go away for a long weekend in the Pocono Mountains. For those of you in the Western U.S. or Central Europe, I apologize for my lose reference to the Poconos as mountains. Anyway, I had scheduled some time off and had made arrangements with my parents to meet and get keys and so on for their place in the mountains. Well, I got home around 5:30 Friday evening and was greeted by my wife, Gina, who informed me she had to take her Mom to the hospital. Her Mom had pains in her chest, arms and neck. She had an angioplasty procedure performed some months ago and based on the pain it seemed the procedure had failed. Well, this normally would have been taken in stride except for the fact that her Mom was supposed to go see the Dr. on Wednesday, but she procrastinated until Friday evening. So, being that Dr's here don't work anymore than they have to, they sent her to the hospital. There go our plans to go away...I know I'm a selfish bastard. Anyway, Gina was in the hospital until 2:30AM Saturday morning trying to get here Mom admitted. The Dr's told both Gina and her Mom that she has pneumonia (remember this part). So, she gets admitted and Gina comes home just as happy as you can imagine.

Jump to Saturday; I spend the day fixing a few things (like a sprinker head that was leaking) and spackling and sanding our bedroom, which I'm renovating. I finish around 4:30 and Gina is putting Johnny (my youngest son) in for a tub before she gets herself cleaned up to go to the hospital. That's when she tells me that there's no hot water. I go downstairs and adjust the thermostat on the hot water heater, which I had turned down on Friday night after almost scalding myself doing dishes. So, I turn it up and nothing happens. I check things out and find the breaker has turned off the power. I look things over and turn on the breaker again. All seems well, but in about a minute the breaker goes off. I figure it's the thermostat since first the temp went up, then is went off. But, by now it's 5:30 and any store that sells things to fix a hot water heater is closed. That's when I remember (being the pack rat that I am) I took the thermostat and heating elements off the old hot water heater when we had this new one installed six years ago...yes, the one I'm repairing now is only six years old. Well, I check out the thermostat and they seem to be different. So, I figure I'll go to the hardware store or Lowe's or Home Depot on Sunday morning, since it’s still too late in the day to do anything. I try to get cleaned up...remember I was spackling and sanding most of the day and am covered with stuff. Gina gets the kids fed early because she has to go back to the hospital and I head for the fridge to get a cold brew. The evening went basically uneventful, except my clean up of the kitchen which was reminiscent of early pioneer days when water was boiled on the stove for cleaning.

Jump to Sunday morning, I finish breakfast and head down to the hardware store. The thermostats they sell look just like the one I took off the old unit. So, I go home and switch thermostats, which takes about 20 minutes. I turn on the power and the hot water heater starts working...YAHOO...then CLICK, the breaker turns off. So, now I'm pretty sure it's the heating elements...my hot water heater is electric. So, I go back to the hardware store and find out there's about six different size elements that "could" work and per the guy: "I'd better make sure I have the right one". So, I buy this special wrench to take out the heating elements and go home. I want to point out to everyone that on this particular Sunday, my part of the world is experiencing torrential rain. So much so that I get soaking wet just running to and from my truck and some of the roads in the area are impassable. After partially draining the tank...I couldn't wait anymore, because the hardware store doesn’t stay open all day on Sunday...I remove the element, which results in about 2 gallons of water to spill out on the floor. I clean up the mess and drive back to the hardware store and buy two heating elements. I get home and tried...did you see I wrote "tried"...to install one of the heating elements. They don't fit. I come to find that my hot water heater takes special elements with some f-cked up thread on them, which no store that's open on Sunday carries. So, in the hopes of squeezing a few drops of hot water out of what I have, I take the elements out to my workshop in the garage and with the use of my grinder, my Dremel, and some Muriatic Acid I clean up the old elements. I notice the lower element has a hole in it. So, I get out a torch and solder it. This process takes about an hour and a half. I then go back into the house and install the elements back into the hot water heater. I turn the water back on and find the top element is leaking. I turn off the water and I THOUGHT I let the pressure out of the tank...I got a little bit distracted by my oldest son, Michael, who is trying to help me. Anyway, I start unscrewing the top element and BOOM, the unit comes blowing out with about 15 gallons of water under 60 lbs of pressure. I had water on the ceiling, walls, on the TV, all over the floor, etc., etc. My little soldier, Michael, helps me clean it up. Thankfully Gina had gone to her Mom's house to take a shower and Johnny was sleeping. We got it cleaned up and I reinstalled the element in the tank. I turn on the water and get the tank filled and turn on the power. As of 5:PM on Sunday, I have hot water...at least temporarily.

That night, Gina is late getting back from the hospital. She calls around 10:30 to say she had to wait 2 hours for the Dr. who was making his rounds. The Dr. knew she was waiting but didn't stop to see her until the end of his rounds. Anyway, the Dr. says that they've scheduled a new catheterization for her Mom. When Gina asks about the pneumonia (I told you to remember the pneumonia), the Dr. knows nothing about it. It's not even on her chart. Gina is livid and doesn't know what to do. I tell her to take her Mom someone else. Where? I don't know, but maybe somewhere where they don't use a catheter to fix pneumonia.

Jump to Monday morning. I make about a half dozen calls. No one carries the heating elements for my hot water heater. Lucky me. I finally get through to the manufacturer. They sell them direct for $40 a piece plus shipping.

So, there's my saga. OH, one thing else, as we're cleaning up the mess, Michael says to me: "You know Dad, this has got to be the worst day ever." I couldn't agree more, but at least I had a hot shower and a cold brew.

¶ 9:00 AM