Spring Break / Spring a Leak

Delkys has Spring Break this week, so I have been neglecting some other activities in favor of doing things with her.  However, I have continued working on the kitchen as well.

I have now relocated everything out of the soffits except for one wire - the 240V line to the current range.  The cable construction looks rather complicated, so I am not sure about cutting and splicing it like I have with the other electrical lines.  Also, I am going to run a new line for the new cook top anyway.  Since I have to open up the wall for the latter, I will at the same time move the plug for the range up, so then I will have enough slack in the wire to move it as well.  Clever, huh?

In the interest of ongoing education I tried an experiment today.  Did you know that if you touch a live 110V line to a water pipe that before the circuit breaker can trip it will burn a hole in the water line?  I may not have conducted the experiment on purpose, but the results were rather spectacular - a shower of sparks followed by darkness and a shower of water.  It was a dead enough short that it tripped the main breaker for the house.  Very impressive.  Since both water lines were right together I couldn't figure out how to get a pipe cutter in there, so I thought I was going to have to use a hack saw and risk cutting both lines in order to repair the pipe.  However, just before I started cutting I realized that the reciprocating tool (or whatever they call that multi-purpose cutter) would cut it very accurately, so I was able to repair it fairly quickly.  Whew!

Pipe Fittings and Prophets

So I got all the plumbing in the one side of the kitchen relocated up into the floor.  I still have to get the electrical out of there, which may be another adventure.

While making a connection with the pipe I had a previous connection just fall apart in my hand.  Talk about your basic cold solder joint!  That made me extremely nervous, so I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised that about 20 minutes after turning on the water another joint started to leak.  Got that fixed, then discovered the toilet leaked when it was flushed.  After a while I realized that was an old problem, not anything I had caused.  A few strange parts from Home Depot got that stopped.  Sheesh.  I may not go into plumbing as a second career.

The new cook top I ordered came in today.  It is a marvelous thing.  It was not clear to me from the installation instructions whether it needs a 120V or 240V supply.  I finally found someone who could tell me, it must be a 240V supply.  No problem.  That just means that I need to add a new subpanel for the house.

Yesterday during the training meeting in the temple the temple president talked about obeying the prophets.  He commented how we feel like we would be able to do some great thing if they asked us, but usually what is required is a few very simple things repeated over and over, like attending church, reading the scriptures, having personal prayers, etc.  I suddenly had an insight that had never occurred to me before.  Doing some great thing sounds wonderful, because all it requires is doing something.  What the prophets are requesting from us is not really about what we do, but about what we become as a consequence of doing it.  So the stakes are much higher on the simple repeated actions than they are on the one big task.

Of Kids and Grandkids

Carter and Levi drove over from Utah yesterday.  Actually, since Carter is only 3 he let his parents drive, so Daniel and Ashley are here as well.  Daniel has been helping me on the kitchen this morning - that has been really nice.

So, in our last adventure I had gotten the cold water pipes reinstalled.  Wrong.  Well, it turns out I had installed them in the wrong position.  So I spent all of yesterday figuring out how to remove them and reinstall them.  And yes, now I am working on the hot water pipes.  Fun, fun, fun.

I realized I was having troubles starting this morning.  I would rather be holding Levi than working.  It suddenly became clear to me that I just don't have enough grandchild time.  It's fun to talk to them on the phone, I love the pictures, but there is nothing like having them here in person.  Oh well - Back to work.

Fire the Bird!

I got most of the water pipes done yesterday.  I think I can finish today before going back to the temple.  However, I had one bad experience related to this.

As I was working I decided I wanted to listen to Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony, so of course I just turned on YouTube and played it there.  Well, YouTube now apparently auto-plays if you don't kill it, so it went on to the second movement of Dvorak's New World Symphony - not bad at all! From there they went into Scheherazade.  A little Rimsky-Korsikov is good for the soul.  And then... They started playing Stravinsky's Firebird.  Well, I was trying to finish, and then clean up, and I didn't want to take time out to go to the computer, and it was going to have to end soon, anyway.  Right?  I just discovered a new definition of eternity: Anything by Stravinsky.  AAUURRGGHH!!  It never did finish, and so when I was done cleaning up I finally got a moment to go kill the silly browser!

One experience like that is almost enough to make me think I will just go back to 70's and 80's popular music.  What's that you say?  Tony Orlando and Dawn?  Right!  Stick with classical.

Pie Day

I was in the grocery store the other day listening to them advertise special prices on pies for Pi Day, and it just really seemed to take the fun out of a nerd holiday.  Oh well.

Yesterday I bought all the parts necessary to reroute the water lines in the old soffit space.  Of course there was a little additional destruction to do, but that is all over.  I cut the two water lines leading into the soffit, and capped them, so I can leave the water on while I redo all the piping in there.  The final step will be to reconnect everything.  I'm hoping to finish that today, then I will just need to reroute the drains and the electrical.  In the area that runs parallel to the floor joists the electrical will be very easy - just a matter of lifting the lines higher.  The drains and electrical that run perpendicular to the joists will be another matter.  I am not entirely sure how I will reroute that drain.  I'm sure the inspiration will come to me.  Hopefully it comes before I try anything stupid.

A little bit of cold

It was 28° when Charlie and I left to walk this morning.  It is nice to see sub-freezing, even if just barely sub-freezing.  Doesn't look like the forecast is giving me much hope, either.  One low of 32° in the next couple of days, then all above freezing for the next week and a half.  With rain forecast for a week from today.  I know that a forecast a week out is pretty meaningless, but it is disappointing to see rain instead of snow in March.

That reminds me of when we moved to Colorado.  Delkys and I were on a house-hunting trip about this time of the month, and it got up to 90° one day.  We were coming from Southern California, where Spring was a distant memory, so I didn't think much about it.  My first day of work was the 20th or thereabouts.  As I sat in orientation I looked out the window at the big fluffy flakes of snow falling, and thought "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas any more."  Then I enjoyed snow for the novelty of it, now I'm addicted to cold and snow.  What a difference 20 years can make.

Temple Day

Yesterday's work in the temple reinforced something that I have observed before - time in the temple can have a great softening effect on me.  The temple provides a holy atmosphere, where I feel closer to the presence of God.  The ordinances emphasize the role of the Savior in our salvation, and bind us to him through holy covenants.  And the people in the temple, both workers and patrons, are among the best that you can hope to meet anywhere.  So I came home last night with a great feeling of peace and joy, and that has persisted this morning.  I am grateful for the temple, and for being able to work and attend there.

Agency

We widely recognize the truth sung in the hymn, "God will force no man to heaven."  But I have heard people wonder (and I have wondered myself) why the Lord intervened so mightily in the cases of Saul of Tarsus and Alma the Younger.  He may not have forced them to heaven, but he certainly slapped them back from their hell-bent behavior.  Why those two, and not so many others?

This morning something in Mosiah 27:13 struck me differently than it ever has before:

For the Lord hath said: This is my church, and I will establish it, and nothing shall overthrow it, save it is the transgressions of my people. (Italics mine)

It occurred to me in that context that Alma may have been so effective in his persecution of the church members that he may have been able to completely destroy the church.  Since God had promised that the destruction of the church could only come from within it was necessary to stop this external threat.  In this connection the end of Verse 16 makes even more sense:

...seek to destroy the church no more, ... and this even if thou wilt of thyself be cast off.

It sounds to me like the heavenly intervention was not primarily for Alma's benefit, but for the benefit of the Church.

In Saul's case there it seems pretty safe to conclude that the Lord's visit was inspired by a desire to save Saul, since the Lord immediately tells him what he should be doing.  Also, there is no evidence that Alma immediately recognized the Lord, but Saul did as soon as the Lord spoke to him.  But I also feel that Saul's persecutions may have been organized well enough that he could have destroyed the church from without.

You Can't Have Too Many Walks

This morning I was in kind of a rotten mood, so I decided we would walk farther than usual to see if that would help me shake it.  So we walked for about an hour and a half (somewhere over 5 miles).  It didn't help shake the mood, but I certainly did feel like I had walked some.

After a shower and breakfast I sat down to work on some code I am building to support my online class.  I left my shoes off because for some reason all of my shoes have started pinching my little toe.  Just a couple of minutes ago I decided I had better get going on construction (well, technically destruction), so I started to put my shoes on.  Charlie immediately jumped out of his bed and started getting excited for the upcoming walk.  A veterinarian told me that an unconstrained boxer would walk something like 80 miles per day, so I guess from Charlie's point of view it makes sense, but I told him he was dreaming.

Incidentally, working on the code got rid of the funk.  Who knew?

The Future

Last night I found the phone number for some friends we haven't talked to in a long time.  I talked for a while, then handed the phone to Delkys.  Then I was going to go sit down and read my scriptures, but I realized Delkys was talking on my scriptures.  The future is weird.

It snowed for about three minutes this morning.  Although it was falling pretty hard, that wasn't enough even to cover the ground.  Still, it was pretty, and certainly better than no snow at all.

Windy

Normally there is very little wind around my house, but it seems like the last few weeks there has been more than usual.  This morning when we started out on our walk it was about 34° with a good stiff breeze blowing.  I was starting to think about cutting the walk short - I realized I really don't enjoy walking with the wind when it is cold.  However, I persevered.

Charlie stopped to roll in something this morning in the same place he did a couple of days ago, but today I saw what he was rolling on.  It was a little garter snake.  It must have come out on one of our warm days and then frozen to death at night.  Curiously I felt no desire to roll on it.

I got the heating duct all connected up where the stove is going to go.  Today I resume removing the soffit.

Warning Messages

So, I bought these little candles in a jar from Walmart - they were 10¢ each on the clearance rack, and I like candles.  I don't know if you have ever paid attention to the warnings on these little beasties, but I include a shot of the bottom of the jar for your reading pleasure.

You can see the large warning at the top, but the fine print also contains other warnings.  If you look carefully about three lines under the barcode, you can see a warning about not allowing them to burn for more than 3 hours.  I'd seen that before and never thought about it much, but consider the second picture below, including the one I took the picture of above, plus the (cleaned up) jar from one I let burn for more than three hours.  I'm a believer!