Monday, August 10, 2009

[Mostly O/T] The Wiz

Sometimes it is the littlest of things that make you feel the best.

I consider myself reasonably handy. I can fix quite a few of the things around the house that break. I don't mess with natural gas and I don't get carried away with electric projects, but otherwise I can usually take care of "issues".

A few weeks ago I noticed that my kitchen faucet was becoming sluggish. I got less and less flow as time went on. I diagnosed the problem correctly, looked up the solution on the internets and eventually decided that it didn't apply to my model of faucet.

In other words: I didn't think I could fix it.

The stupid thing had almost zero flow tonight, so I revisited the solution. Moments before I had made up my mind to either post something on a forum or just give up and call a plumber, I took one more look at it. Grabbed some pliers, got a grip I hadn't had before, and voila. Clean it out, reassemble and test to see if I needed a new part and ...

Gush.

Oh!

Fifteen seconds of labor, one helluva rush. You want to feel godlike -- okay, how about Wizard of Oz-like -- for a few minutes, go figure something out. Even stupid home repairs can give you that feeling that poker used to give you.

***

Speaking of which ... On the poker front I'm limping upward and have cleared about 30% of my imaginary bonus. That leaves a ton of hands to play in the next 3 weeks if I'm going to reach my arbitrary goal.

0 Comments: