Day 1496

We woke up this morning to a cold house. Yup, the furnace has gone out again. I know exactly what is wrong. The flame sensor has gotten dirty  and it no longer senses the gas flame. The pilot light ignites the burners, which shut down again two seconds later when the flame sensor doesn't detect anything. This used to happen seven or eight times a year with the old furnace. Surprisingly, it still happens at least once a season with our relatively new furnace. When the HVAC folks come out to fix things, they always tell me that the flame sensor shouldn't be getting dirty like this and blame the gas company for delivering bad gas. As you might expect, the gas company denies this and tells me that there is absolutely nothing wrong with their gas. The furnace always seems to go out on a weekend or holiday too. It never fails. Hopefully, I can get a repair crew out tomorrow.

I managed to get my two large poster projects printed. Unlike the furnace, the printer seemed to be working fine today. Most of the problems I had with these posters originated in the computer, not the printer itself. Back when I was doing a lot of print work for clients, I had a full suite of professional monitor and printer calibration tools. Unfortunately, none of this sophisticated hardware and software works with my current computer. Pre-press software is expense and I just don't do enough print work anymore to warrant upgrading to the latest versions of all this stuff. I wing it now, and it's harder to get a really good looking print. Today's prints aren't perfect, but the color looks pretty close to the original photo and I did finally figure out how to force the printer to make borderless prints again.

Dot and Dash loved their trip to the dog park today. We ran into a friend from our Wednesday training class, and Dash seemed delighted to see a familiar face. The dogs all played for a while while Janet and I walked around enjoying the sunny day. At least it was nice today. On a really cold day, it would have been a lot worse to have the furnace go out.

I finally made it back to the gym this afternoon. I was so busy last week that I only had time to go once during the week. The running track at the gym has a sign that says you are supposed to go one direction on even days and the opposite direction on odd days. Nobody knows why this rule is in place, but everybody follows directions. Today, one woman started walking around the track in the wrong direction and everyone else followed suit. I jogged in the even day direction too, even though it was clearly an odd numbered day. I think people were just embarrassed to tell the first woman to change directions, and admit they took the stupid rule seriously. By the time I left, there were dozens of people running in the wrong direction. Maybe this is how revolutions start.

You know all those list of things you see on your Facebook timeline? Yesterday I clicked on a list that said "17 things that a depressed person should never do."Yikes! I was doing all 17. Don't expect me to change my ways any time soon though. I've grown very comfortable with my grumpy behavior.

Daisy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1047

Janet and I went over to the neighborhood health food store to get our blood tested this morning. The store has these cholesterol screening events four times a year and they are dirt cheap, especially compared to what your doctor would normally charge. The huge price differential for lab work sums up the whole health care delima for me. When my doctor does my blood work, Labcorp bills my insurance a minimum of $400. Hey, why not. They know that my insurance will pay. When essentially the same labs do these public events for seniors, the test costs $20. That's what they know people will be willing to pay using their own money. I'm sure the lab makes a profit in both cases. It's just insane. So why is medicine so expensive? Because the money is there. If everybody was paying for healthcare with their own money like they do when they take their dog to the vet, costs would be much, much lower. Yeah, I know. Some people don't take their dog to the vet, because they don't want to spend the money. Some people wouldn't go to the doctor for the same reason. In general, medical costs would be much lower without insurance though. The only fly in the ointment would be that more people would die.

I wonder why I hate health insurance so much? I'm perfectly fine with car insurance. Homeowners insurance isn't so bad either. Maybe car insurance just seems more fairly priced and health insurance seems like a rip off. All I know is that a simple blood test should never cost $400.

I opened the filter drawer of the new furnace today to measure the filter and discovered that the filter was already filthy. It needed to be changed. How did that happen so quickly?  When I went to look for a new filter, I discovered that my filter was a very odd size. It couldn't be 10x20 or 20x20 like most furnaces. That would be too easy. No, it had to be a special size. I finally found a filter that would fit, and as you might expect, it was more expensive than the other filters. Hopefully, this fancy new energy efficient furnace will save me enough in gas to pay for all the filters I'll need.

After our blood test, Janet and I went out for breakfast at the restaurant with good bacon. She couldn't believe that I'd already tried everything on the menu. Hey, aren't there 52 Friday's in a year?  That's a lot of breakfast choices. 

Dash is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1034

Today was such a beautiful day that my grumpy side didn't stand a chance. I was in an uncharacteristically good mood all day long. The dogs had a great time at the dog park. There was a nice breeze and temperatures were in the seventies. When Dot and Dash were finished with their off leash outing, I got busy on a few things I'd been putting off for months. I washed the car for the first time since my birthday and even used some rubbing compound to polish out a few scratches on the door. I cleaned the toilets, put a fresh bag in the vacuum cleaner, and got all the water from yesterday's rain off the roof. Since the roof has survived two major rain storms without leaking, I also started preparing the damaged areas on the ceiling to tape and bed and paint again. It was a day of making things look nice.

It wasn't all work today, however. I also watched Felix Baumgartner’s supersonic parachute jump from 128,000 feet over Roswell, New Mexico live on the Internet. If you ask me, this is the future of marketing. Why even bother with broadcasting something on television if you can get eight million live viewers on YouTube. There weren't any commercials, or maybe the whole thing was just one big commercial for Red Bull. At any rate, it was a whole new way to look at advertising. If Red Bull can underwrite a supersonic parachute jump, and Virgin America can build the world's first commercial spaceport, maybe Apple can take us back to the moon. Apple's probably got enough money to finance the entire journey themselves.

The presidential race is starting to look a lot like the Texas senate races. Everyone is apparently a big fat liar. Both sides make reasonably convincing cases that the other side is lying. Then the "fact checkers" come along a few days later and people accuse them of lying too. It's probably a good thing that everybody's made up their mind about this election anyway. You certainly couldn't learn much from all the dueling "liar, liar" claims. I'm disgusted by the whole circus. I don't want to throw my vote away, but apparently it doesn't matter anyway. According to all the pundits, the whole election will be decided by the swing voters of Ohio.

We haven't used the new furnace since it was installed. The air conditioner certainly seems to be working well though. I think this is what they call an Indian Summer. I'm enjoying these unseasonably warm Fall days. I do hope we have a hard freeze this Winter though. Another warm Winter like we had last year and the bugs will overrun us.

Abby is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1032

What a long day. The furnace installers were at the house from 9 AM until almost 4 PM. Since current furnaces aren't the same size and shape of those twenty years ago, most of the installers time was spent fabricating custom sheet metal work so that the new machinery would line up properly with the old vent system. When I first bought the house, it came with an ancient furnace that was quite large and very noisy. I quickly replaced this antique with a much more efficient model that ended up lasting over twenty years. The new furnace that was installed today was the smallest and most efficient of the three. Everything in life appears to be getting smaller. Cars, phones, computers, and now even furnaces are getting smaller. Hopefully, this is the last furnace I will need. I don't want to go through this ordeal again.

When the installers first removed the dryer and then the old furnace, I was appalled at all the dust that had accumulated in the utility room. There must have been an inch of dust under the clothes dryer. The dryer vent was full of dust too. The intake sheet metal ahead of the filters was coated with a thick layer of dust. I tried to vacuum and get rid of all this dust before the HVAC guys could put all the new equipment back in place again. Most repair people and installers could care less about dust. I knew they would just hook up the new furnace to the old dusty vents if I didn't clean them when I had a chance. I cleaned everything up while the installers were fabricating sheet metal out on the carport, but the room was so dirty that I completely clogged the vacuum cleaner. I had to take the whole thing apart to get it working again.

It's a good thing I boarded the dogs today. It would have been a nightmare with seven hours of non-stop barking on top of all the construction noise. The installers were in and out of the house all day long. I would have worried that the dogs would have gotten loose and disappeared out the front door. They were safe at the vet, but I don't think either of them enjoyed their little vacation. They were frantic when I picked them up at the end of the day and Dot pooped in the car.  One more mess to clean up.

Ironically, after an entire day was spent installing the furnace, the air conditioner is on now. A late Fall heat wave swept through town yesterday and the temperatures are in the high eighties again. It will be cold soon enough though. I'm glad everything is working now, before Winter arrives.

Since I was trapped in the house all day, I got a lot of writing done. There wasn't much else to do and I had some looming deadlines anyway. It all worked out pretty well. I'm going to take it easy this weekend though. Wouldn't you?

Kuuipo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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