I know, I know...how can one develop a readership if one only posts occasionally. And I understand that once every two months or so isn't even occasionally. I have posted a little more than that over at my top secret blog (read totally anonymous so I can really say whatever I want, no matter how...ahhh...inappropriate), but even there I have been less than prolific of late. You know, I've been writing on the Internet in one form or another since 1991...I think my 17th anniversary was in January...but I have never touched the zeitgeist necessary to develop a decent readership. I know...there are a couple of you out there who check in from time to time...and my daughter gets a feed, I think, but that's about all I have been able to build over 17 years.
Aside: Growing old sucks...You get aches and pains where there were none before. It is your body's subtle (as a sledgehammer) way of letting you know that the clock is, in fact, ticking. Right now I have a sharp pain near the knuckles of my fourth and fifth fingers of my right hand. My pinkie hurts when I type. Like I said, growing old sucks...End aside
It is now about 12:45am, and I have been going since 7am what is now yesterday morning. And I have to be up and ready for my granddaughter at 7:25am this morning. And why do I have the duty tomorrow, you might ask? Well, let me tell you: My wife, who usually has the granddaughter duty at that time of day, is upstairs, in bed, with a good case of pneumonia. Not only is she down for the count, I am trying to get the inch plus of water that currently is lapping around my mother's basement outside where it belongs. However, doing that entails numerous trips up to her house (which is about 12.5 miles away) because she is no longer capable of going down into the basement to check on the pump. So, that means I can't leave it running until the water is down to about 1/8 inch...
Another aside: So, the pumps the plumber put down there on Saturday turned out to be pretty worthless...one of them only works sporadically--very sporadically and the other just doesn't move all that much water...so I went out and bought a 1/4 horsepower Rigid pump. In the instruction packet, it says that the pump needs 1/4 inch of water to prime itself...that it will remove water down to 1/8th inch of the surface upon which it (the pump) is sitting and that it should be unplugged when the water level is at 1/2 inch. My question has to do with which one of those numbers is reliable. The outside of the box mentions the 1/8th inch number, and that is why I bought the damn thing. However, it could be that the 1/2 inch number is actually the relevant one, and that would suck big time. If this pump can't bring the water level down to under 1/2 inch, that means I'll have to get rid of the rest of the water using the wet/dry vac, and that would not be a lot of fun.
So, as I was saying, I have to be there when the pumps are running...or at least I have to be able to get there within a few minutes to check on the water level so as not to burn them out by running them without enough water to cover the impellers. This is beginning to burn both my energy and a lot of gasoline (25 mile round trip 3 or 4 times a day). Thus, between work, keeping up this house, acting as general contractor for the restoration of Mom's house and all the other stuff I get roped into doing, I have little time and even less energy to devote to writing online. And the thing is, writing is one of the things I really enjoy doing. All I can do is hope that external circumstances change enough to allow me the opportunity to start devoting time and energy to this avocation as well as the other things I enjoy.
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