Day 3005

I certainly didn't accomplish much today. I did my grocery shopping and filled the car up with gas, but that was about it. Janet was away at a Dalmatian Rescue event today. Dash usually follows Janet around like glue on weekends, but he didn't seem to notice she was gone. I suspect he just thought it was another work day. We ate breakfast and took our morning walk just like we did yesterday and then I started my Saturday errands. When I returned Dash was asleep.

I spent a long time trying to figure out where to store a huge box of toilet paper I got at Sam's Club. Buying in bulk does save money, but it sure is difficult to store the stuff when you're living in a small house. I guess I could have done some house cleaning, but I got distracted looking for a technical service manual for my refrigerator online. There are all types of sites that will sell you duplicate service manuals, but I wanted to find a free one. I eventually found what I was looking for and started reading the diagnostic section. It's probably not helpful that I want to figure out what is wrong before the service technician arrives on Monday, but that's just the type of guy I am.

I suspect that one of the two remaining original thermistors has gone bad. Hopefully that's all it is. If the mother board I replaced a few months ago is already defective, I've got a big problem. Truthfully, I have no idea why the refrigerator isn't working. It should be working perfectly. When I read through the technical service manual, it appeared that the previous technicians had done exactly what the manual recommended.

While I was searching for the cause of my refrigerator problem, I started looking up the side effects of some some of the meds I'm taking. That was a mistake. A hypochondriac should never start reading about side effects. It's easy to imagine that you have all of them. I'm trying to decide whether a brand name drug I'm taking is worth the extra money. The brand name and the generic are similar, but for some reason the side effects are different. After comparing both, I felt like someone was telling me to pick my poison. I miss the days when I didn't even have a doctor and took no meds at all. As you might expect, those days were a long, long time ago.

We were going to go out for pizza tonight, but Janet ended up getting a free pizza at the grocery store.   We thought about going out anyway and then it started to rain. Once I started to hear thunder, I knew we were staying home. We've learned that it isn't wise to leave Dash alone in a storm. The free Tom Thumb pizza wasn't bad, but it didn't come close to the pies at our neighborhood Italian restaurant. Who knows when we'll have the urge for pizza again. Usually, both of us eat amazingly healthy meals. Sometimes you just crave pizza though.

I hope I wake up tomorrow with more motivation than I had today. I could have easily stayed in bed all day. Luckily, I don't need motivation to go to the gym. I've never been motivated to go to the gym. I just go because that's what I do on Sunday.

Allie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2875

I feel vindicated. They sent out a different appliance repairman today and after doing some checks, he told me that I needed to replace the evaporator thermistor. "I happen to have a brand new one right here," I told him. This was the part I had ordered myself several weeks ago and that two previous repairmen had told me was unnecessary. The first guy told me that these parts never fail and the second guy told me that it wasn't even part of the defrost circuit.

The repairmen couldn't find an electrical schematic that was supposed to be attached to the refrigerator somewhere, so I found the technical manual online and downloaded the pertinent sections. We worked as a team. Why didn't the first two guys even bother to consult this readily available manual? It clearly said to test the evaporator and freezer thermistors before replacing the mother board. It even showed exactly how to test them. It's still unclear whether this new guy solved my problem, but I'll give him an A for effort. Of the four different repairmen who have been out to the house in the past month, he is the only one who even bothered to get a multimeter out of the truck and run some electrical tests.

When I went out to check the mail today, I noticed that there was a container of silicon roof coating sitting on the front porch. It would have been nice if the roofers had dropped off this material before I'd gone and bought a bucket of the expensive stuff myself, but I guess it's better late than never. I'll definitely use the stuff. I was hoping that I could show the roofers what was happening on the roof, but they clearly wanted to just leave the coating material and go. Truthfully, I think I'm doing a better job of repairing things than they did, but it's a horrible, messy job and I wish I didn't have to do it.

I guess I should have voted today, but the only thing on the ballot were a bunch of bond issues I didn't understand. I hate the way they word these bond issues. It really seems at times like they are trying to be purposefully confusing. Several times I've discovered later that I've voted exactly the opposite way that I meant to vote because of the way the initiatives were worded on the ballot. I probably would have voted to improve city and county roads. This was the one issue that wasn't confusing.

When I was taking Dash on his evening walk, a cyclist stopped to warn me that there was a large coyote just around the bend up ahead. I tried to get Dash to turn around and go home, but he stubbornly wanted to continue heading toward the coyote. This is why I don't like walking at night. I finally managed to redirect Dash to the shoreline where the coyotes seldom venture, but I kept thinking that something was following me all the way home. I've really got to figure out how to get Dash walking earlier while it is still daylight.

The roof repairs I made yesterday seem solid. That's a good thing. There is a 100% chance of rain tomorrow. I cleared my tools off the roof and used a leaf blower to remove as many leaves as possible. I hope the elastomer will have had time to cure properly before the rain arrives. We'll just have to wait and see. I'm sure there will be more problems to fix later, but I've done what I can for now.

Chase id today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day