Hate to do this, but I’m heading back underground until October . . . not so much underground - really more to foreign countries until the end of the month.  For whatever reason, I’ve been a bit coy about my travel schedule lately so I’ll give the 30 second update:

I went to Ann Arbor on Saturday for a Monday job interview.  The company I interviewed with seemed to be a really honest, hard working engineering firm which is exactly what I am looking for.  Luckily for me, the interview went absolutely great and I believe i have a real chance of taking a permanent position there.

In any case, I’m leaving for Germany / Austria / Italy in about 6 hours.  I will remain overseas for the next 16 days having the time of my life (hopefully).  Anyway, bed is calling, so I’ll catch you in Oktober(fest).

Last weekend Mack, Jerry and I headed out to Brad’s after hearing the lake was really rough.  Our intention: surf some kayaks.  It was a blast.  The water was actually pretty nice (though I had a wet suit on).  Some of the waves were pretty large though with some 5 to 8 foot swells topping things off.  This is a picture Mack snapped as I was surfing into shore.  The waves look deceptively small there but I assure you it was quite large.

Haha, ok so I guess I’m back now. I’ve been sort of living in below the radar in Houghton for about two weeks now. I’d like to say I actually accomplished something other then some work and but I was really just pining over my bike’s absence (it has been stranded in Minneapolis for the last 3 weeks - but it returns today).

I figured what better way to resume posting than to tell a classic Massey Manor renovation story. I think I have a few too many of these . . .

So I returned home from work on Friday afternoon around 4pm and I was going to resume cleaning the house some more before the new house mates moved in. Suffice it to say, the summer crew here vastly underperformed even my lowest expectations. Anyway, I was going to mop the basement bathroom because so far as I could tell, that hadn’t happened in like a year. I carry the mop and bucket down the stairs, nearly falling in a tangled mess of hot water and cotton only to arrive on the shores of Lake Massey. Apparently while I was doing some vacuum pyrotechnics during my day job, the hot water heater had exploded. The great part is that since it was hot water that spilled out, the humidity was somewhere near 10,000%.

I calmly walk over and shut off the valves, patting myself on the back for so diligently installing them several years ago. My self congratulatory karma hit was about to come back and bite me in the face. Master of the universe, I begin to inspect the problem - ahhh, simple, leaky drain valve. I should be able to empty the tank, fix the leaking threads with some teflon tape and still make it to Double Bubble down at the DT. Hahah, jackass. Apparently I’ve learned nothing in all my years as Bob Vila’s stunt double. I begin to drain the tank and everything is going well - too well. I begin to inspect the valve a bit closer and attempt to see if I can loosen it while it is still draining. Then this happened:

Ok, now we’re playing for keeps. The once controlled trickle out of the attached hose is now a full on torrent blasting forth from the corroded depths of the tank. Oh, it is kind of hot too. Once I shove my eyeballs back into their sockets, I call Brad to seek advice. I’m screwed. I need a new hot water heater.

A quick glance at the phone- 4:30, odd how I can pretty much destroy my basement in a little less than 10 minutes. 5pm is the magic time in Houghton were all the stores close so I dashed out to my truck, wet, and tare off to an amazing array of stores all of which told me to get bent if I wanted a hot water heater today. They all offered to order me one, the fact I was dripping wet and the fact that the situation was well passed ordering things seemed to escape notice.

I returned home, moist and defeated. The solution to the problem was gently tapping on my shoulder with its 100 mile long finger: it was time to go to Menards again. Long story short, I made the marathon journey to Menards that night and returned around 10pm. I lugged the beast into the basement then went out on the town to see some friends who were in town. I’m such a terrible landlord.

In the morning I was up around 8am ready to leg wrestle this bastard into place. If everything went perfect, I would be done by noon no problem. So I hop down stairs in my finest blown out pants and dig in. First thing I notice - all my tools are gone. WTF? Someone has been shopping in my basement. So I ran into the lab and borrow some tools from there and bought a new pipe wrench as well since some had apparently been shopping in there as well. Once I got back I set up my lighting when it happened: the house scored and early victory and drew first blood.

A nice gash in the finger from some packaging material. Startled at the ‘take no prisoners’ attitude of the house, I get the familiar flash of terror that this is going to be a pain in the ass. Removal of the only tank was fast. Two plumbing lines and a gas line that against all odds, didn’t rupture and level downtown. I shimmed the new tank in there, installed the dielectric unions, reconnected the gas line, shrugged and started the water flowing into the new tank. By this time it was nearly 11 so I was actually cruising ahead of schedule.

Then I saw it, a faint glimmer in the corner of my eye. Did I really see that? Naw, these are all new parts and I’m a competent plummer. Or am I? Drip. Guess not. The leak was coming from the brand new dielectric junctions. Both of them. That’s odd. I entered tough guy mode and figured the best way to fix this is to just wrench the crap out of them. So I do. It helped but it was still leaking an unacceptable amount.

Fast forward through an iterative process over the span of a few hours and the situation was no better. What brought the situation to a head was when I was making the junction turbo tight again, I actually broke the solder joint on the valve above. At this point had to head out to Brad’s for beer and a conference paper reviews but I had decided that the dielectric unions would be no more. To hell with it, I’ll just replace the stupid things every 5 or 10 or 1,000 years.

I return from Brad’s with a slightly foggy head and figure there is no better time than now to finish this project. Blow torch a blazing I go to work. A half hour later, those unions are on the floor where they should be and the new ones are installed. No leaks either. Hahah, victory. I turned on the gas and after a bit of a struggle the pilot is lit and eventually the main burner is on.

I sort of slump into the nasty wall and giggle like an idiot. That job was terrible but it could have been so much worse.

As for my time in Los Angels, I’ll probably slowly tell some stories from my experiences out there.  I have some good ones.