2003-01-02 - 9:43 a.m.
Well...if the first 33 hours are any indication, 2003 is going to be a doozy...NOT!
Yesterday was good and slow. We didn't do anything special to celebrate New Year's Eve (umm...actually...we were in bed and snoring by 10:30...exhaution takes it's toll), and I celebrated the New Year by sleeping away the first 11 hours of it...and actually woke up almost feeling human.
Played entirely too much PlayStation football for my own good, watched Rhiannon warp and start weaving a scarf on her loom, and watched the Iron Chef "Upsets Marathon" (Yes, 12 hours of the Iron Chefs getting their butt kicked...although they actually won a couple of the battles...not sure what about that makes it an upset...but oh well).
Also got the December Heraldic submissions posted to the Commentary page. That was my "This is what I'm going to do to make the job easier and better" idea when I took over Golden Dolphin...and...well...I've managed to make it happen about 5 out of 12 months. Could be worse I guess...but this month and the fresh start of January means I'm actually *on* schedule for once. Wow...
Oh, did I mention that it rained most of the day? This will be important later, especially for those of you who recall that we have a septic system with a fancy alarm that rings when the septic well (not the septic tank, the place the stuff gathers before being pumped *into* the septic tank) gets too full.
See...it works like this...all of the water we use (and everything else that flushes or goes down the sink drain) is pulled by gravity down the pipes into a well in our backyard (at least, I think it's gravity...there's no pump or anything). There it sits for a period of time (up to an hour) when the timer goes off and initiates a pumping cycle wherein a pump in the bottom of the septic well pumps the water (and associated byproducts) into the septic tank out in the back 40, where it does whatever it is good septic tanks do...
Now, I'm sure you're wondering...what happens if there's too much water being used in a given hour and it would overflow the septic well? Wouldn't that suck? Well...yes...it would...so they devised this nifty system that allegedly takes care of the problem...there's a float that rides on top of the water and if it reaches a certain height, it triggers an "emergency pump", pumping the septic well into the septic tank, and resetting the timer.
This would be a fine and wonderful thing...except...they also determined that there needs to be an earsplittingly loud and shrill alarm, so that you know "Hey...dummy...you're using too much water for your septic well settings, so I'm bailing you out (literally...) and you might want to consider either reducing the water flow or turning up the frequency of the septic pumps.
By "Loud and shrill" I mean 115 decibels up in that octave that you have to be able to reach to sing the Star Spangled Banner correctly. Why yes, it's an annoying noise...which is the goal, I'm sure.
One problem...the septic well also sucks the moisture from the surrounding soil into it, as all wells do (that's how a well works). This is accounted for in the usual "how many gallons per hour should the well be getting?" calculation...except for when it rains heavily.
like...oh...it did in Petersburg yesterday...
on top of the already saturated ground from the ice storm of a couple of weeks ago and the traces of snow and rain we've had since then. That water hadn't drained anywhere yet (there really isn't anyplace for it to drain to...)
So, the septic well is sucking water in like it's going out of style...and it's ringing the alarm every 44 minutes for 4 1/2 minutes each time (yes, I measured it). It did this at 10:14 last night.
and at 10:58
and at 11:42
and at 12:26 this morning
and 1:10
and 1:54
and 2:38
and 3:24
and 4:08
and 4:52
You should be detecting a pattern here...yes...the pattern continued into the morning.
So, this morning, a bleary eyed me decides that we're going to set the levels on the septic pump to pump every 30 minutes instead of every hour (you can adjust this...there's a dial...)hoping beyond hope that this will resolve the problem and maybe we'll get sleep tonight.
so Rhi and I are in the backyard, running late for work already, while I read the manual for the septic pump...as translated from the original Korean by a spanish speaking German fellow who learned his English watching Sesame Street and includes such gems as "Adjust the large dial using your hands to adjust the dial around the dial settings circle until you desire the time you have set to be your desired frequency of the tank being pumped" and "The unit selected on the selection of the unit screw is hours, minutes, or seconds, depending on the position of the unit screw on the unit screw selection axis"
Oh...did I mention that the units on the dial are numbers ranging from 0 to 3.0? So I've either set this thing to pump every 0.5 hours, 0.5 minutes, or 0.5 seconds...I'm curious as to how the switch would handle pumping for 45 seconds every 0.5 seconds...but I'm sure that's what they were warning me against here:
"When adjusting the adjustment of the unit selection screw, be aware of the unit of the on time selection must be not more than the unit of the pump frequency selection or else the pump will function not correctly."
Either that or this is the secret pass phrase for the $1,000,000 giveaway on the local radio station...one of the two.
During this process, Rhiannon is distracting the dog by playing fetch so he doesn't jump all over me and get mud on my work clothes...until she decides to trip over a hole in the ground and get mud all over *her* work clothes.
So she goes in and washes up, and we're a good 40 minutes late to work...and I have a report I had to run no later than 9:00 this morning...
So we pull into a pay phone and call a co-worker of mine to start the report while I get in to finish it...and fill up the gas tank since we're running out of gas.
So now I'm at work, the report is done...and I'm going insane...and the year isn't even 1% done yet...
But, at least we've got jobs...and heck...even got a raise effective yesterday...only barely cost of living adjustment, but still...when others are losing jobs...it beats nothing.
And to top it all off, this weekend will be the first football weekend in two years that the Patriots aren't playing in a meaningful game...they aren't playing at all...thank you oh so &$(&%#) much Green Bay...sigh....it was a nice run.
So...is it 2004 yet?
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