plumb irritating

I still haven't finished the damn "plumbing job," though I'm finally telling the story. I had a couple of leaky knobs which could actually be kind of fun in the right circumstances, but when it's your bathtub, you worry.

It shouldn't have been anything like a plumbing job. It should have been a simple turn off the water, twist the wrench a couple of times and slide off the o-ring, and shit don't stop being a little dirty.

I ended up making a huge job out of what shouldn't have been nearly as involved. The knobs came off, the faucet came off, the weird ass laminate shit that is a stand in for tile came off, and finally, with the introduction of the vise grips, the plumbing parts that actually were the very simple problem (I'm pretty sure) came out.

The dripping seemed to have stopped when I reassembled the myriad bits and pieces that made up the whole. I'm a little concerned about some things I noticed in the initial testing phase that was giving the boys their baths tonight. I'm not sure if there's a problem or if I just saw one because the job so traumatized me. I'll know tomorrow when I check it out a second time. I ignored it tonight to get the baths taken as it had already grown late.

The worst of this whole deal is the options that I must admit exist. I like to think I know how little or how much I know given various situations. I would have readily admitted that I didn't know shit about plumbing sorts of issues had I not been faced with one. As it turns out, I really don't, and I was.

I wouldn't have pulled the chunk of wall off if I hadn't found more water than ought to have been there. I never figured out where it came from, and I'd like to think, regardless of my knob fixing acumen, I can find wet. I've actually done that a few times, if you know what I mean. And if I'd come up with the idea of using the damn vise grips I'd have saved myself a couple of swears and some nearly rounded off edges. I could easily have done the job any number of ways and likely done it quicker. I haven't even brought up the silicon sealant that I got to squeeze into some cracks, which isn't dirty even though I did say "cracks." I think it may have dried finally, though I did fill some pretty big gaps.

The issue of concern involves the actual shower itself. Our shower is a handheld kind of thing that attaches to the underside of the tub faucet. It's not the greatest deal I've ever run across, but it's worked well enough, so . . .

The true beauty of the hand held shower thingy is that you can more easily rinse the tub when you have to wash it. Okay, the real true beauty is a little light spray on the undercarriage, but again, this post isn't getting that dirty, no matter what you bunch of pervs think. It is also nice to make sure that the crack gets a good final rinse as well.

In the end, I'm still certain that I most likely fucked something up. I don't want to have of course, but no way could any normal person have distended the job as I did. I'm sure I missed putting something back or the glue holding up the wall won't hold or the sealant is quite all the way in a little part of the crack (heheh, crack) and it will grow into a huge pit of mold just under the fake tile laminate stuff.

amber ale

Rules were meant to be broken, and I've broken one of my own by purchasing, not once, but twice recently, an amber ale. I believe that brewers generally make ambers as an easy couple of extra bucks to people who won't drink their good beers but want to drink something cool. I know, in that situation, my presumptions make me the asshole, but I'm not much concerned with that. Me and being an asshole go together like beans and cornbread.

Truthfully, I would imagine that an amber seems less than to me mostly because my taste in beer runs to different extremes. I love an American pale ale that's completely overhopped, especially the more floral and aromatic varieties. I want my stouts and porters to be part meal. Shit, I've even almost given up on brown ales as being lacking. A good amber should really be nothing more or less than an honest beer, and a good brewer should be able to make a good one.

The one word printed across a bottle that can always make me stop and consider is Rogue. They just keep making good beer, and they like to make it interesting once in a while as well. If you can find it try their chipotle ale.

The Rogue amber is a good beer. I really can't complain about it in any way. Maybe it's not the one I'd steer toward more often, but that doesn't make it a bad beer. It's what beer should be at it's basic, a little malty, a little hoppy, a little cold, wet, intoxificating.

That isn't the only beer I'm enjoying tonight. I had a Rogue Dead Guy earlier. Following that was a Pyramid hefeweizen, and now the amber. I'm certainly dancing all around the beerological world tonight.