I learned to solder copper pipe in 2002 when I bought my house, initially from my father-in-law Bill and then more from my friend Luther. It’s been very empowering not having to call a plumber all these years. I’ve renovated both bathrooms and the kitchen since then, replaced the water tank twice, and patched up issues like when lightning arced through the pipes under the sink and blew up the water line.

The last few weeks have been a trial. Water seems to be the bane of my home-ownership existence. We had rain related flooding in the basement during the summer, tile-sweating water accumulation from the humidity, a toilet tank line burst and flooded multiple rooms, and then yesterday, during a rainstorm, water dripping from the ceiling in the boiler room, coming from somewhere in the bathroom above. I noticed it in the evening, after running out of heating oil earlier and dumping 5 gallons of diesel in the tank to get us through the night. So, my first thought was that the cooling of the hot water feed caused some condensation or even a crack in a joint.

But the joints were inaccessible from the bathroom. I had renovated that room when I was young and inexperienced. To open the wall, I’d have to either take apart the shower tile on one side or the wainscoting and drywall on the other. This was to be avoided at all costs. The ceiling in the boiler room below was much more expendable. I would need a tool to cut the subfloor away just to learn more about where it was coming from. My circular saw would not fit between the rafters, so I called a friend to borrow some tools. I heard a scream when they arrived.

“When I opened your door, a snake fell out of the sky and onto my head.”

“What?!!?”

“I think it might have been in the porch light overhead.”

“Where is it now?”

“It went in the door and somewhere in the house.”

“So, there’s a snake in my house?”

When it rains it pours. It was literally raining, pipes leaking, and now a snake was running rampant in my house. Chasing the snake only resulted in it burrowing into a channel under the threshold. So not quite out of the house, but not quite in the house. That will have to do for now. If I don’t get the pipes fixed the floodwaters will flush out the snake.

After cutting away the ceiling I found this:

The pipes were dry, the dry wall behind them was dry, and instead I could see a misting vapor seemingly emanating from the crack in a two by four 6 inches away from the pipe. I couldn’t believe it. My first thought was that the roof was leaking and running water down this crack. So, I went into the attic and found no evidence of water. Then I noted how the wetness only goes up to a certain point. I thought maybe cold air is coming down while warm air is going up and I’m seeing the condensation occur right where they meet. But that seemed far fetched, and if so, then why only in between these studs and not others. There are two joints on that pipe, and ultimately, I concluded that the topmost joint must be leaking, but the leak was so miniscule that the water was being sprayed out in very fine particles such that they did not get the pipe wet or even the drywall around the pipe. That dry wall was in fact dry. The water was aerosolized as it left the pipe and moved as vapor, only collecting as water drops when it hit an obstruction, namely the two by four. I could not feel the mist by putting my hand up there and it didn’t immediately get wet, the vapor just moved around it like fog. I proved my theory by wrapping a paper towel around the joint and noting that the mist stopped. I inspected the paper towel after I removed it. It wasn’t wet. It wasn’t there long enough. But the mist had stopped while it was in place, and sure enough when I turned off the water, the mist also stopped.

So now I had to fix it.

Fixing it the old way would have required opening up the wall in the bathroom and resoldering the joint. Fortunately, they make these new joints called Shark Bite. I’d used Shark Bite before, and I think they’re great. No soldering. They work on the same principle as the old Chinese finger trap gag. As pressure pushes them apart, the structure gets tighter. I went to the local Home Depot, they were still open this late, got the parts, got home, and realized it was the wrong size. I can’t recall if I picked it out or the Home Depot employee who was helping me did. I’m going to give myself the benefit of the doubt. Regardless, my Home Depot was now closed, but two towns away one was still open for 15 minutes. I could never make it in time. So, I called a friend who lived near it.

“Hi Mike, how are things?”

“Yeah, good, no time to catch up, do you live close enough to the Home Depot to get there before it closes in 15 minutes?”

“Yeah.”

“Good, get in the car and get going, I’ll text you along the way and tell you what I need, then I’ll meet you at your house afterward to make the exchange.”

That worked out well, things were looking up! Got the part, got home. It’s now 11:45 PM and I’m ready to start this project!

Still, it wouldn’t be easy. I had to cut the pipe with a small manual rotating pipe cutter above that higher joint, at the full extent of my reach. This required me to be on a ladder with my knees bent because any step was either too high or too low. Then I had to lean back as if to fall off the ladder but catch my weight with my head as the top of it pressed against a rafter.

At times like this, I always remember this gym machine they had in the wrestling room in high school, where you would work out your neck muscles for bridging, which is supporting your weight with your head and neck while keeping your back arched and off the ground. Amazing what pops into your head at strange times!

So, with my head keeping me from falling off the ladder, I had to press with my legs to push my ear up to the ceiling, allowing the most amount of my arm and shoulder to penetrate the ceiling. Imagine a vet turning a calf in utero, but the cow was vertical. Again, the things that pop into your head! I was able reach the joint and it didn’t take long to cut the pipe by feel. But when I extracted my arm to peer into the orifice of the cow, I could see that I had cut it above the lowest joint, not the top one. So, I had to do it again, higher up, and stretch that position to the max. Even then I could only just reach, so the rotation of the cutter and the periodic tightening of it required using just the very tips of my fingers with no visual of what I was doing. Again, imagine the vertical cow, but now I’m reaching past the uterus for a lung.

After and arduous struggle the pipe was cut. I extracted my arm from the vertical cow, shook the water and splinters out of my ear, and observed the results.

That was the hard part, from there the joint was attached to the pipe (after running it through the ceiling), the pipe was flexible enough to connect to the source with no extra plumbing, and by midnight, we had water again. Twenty dollars and a few hours, no need to go all night without water, no need to call a plumber.

Thanks Bill and Luther.

Now to see about that snake…

I found an old boom box from the 80s in my father-in-law’s house when cleaning it out this past summer. It was broken then. I don’t know why he kept it, maybe he thought he could fix it. His house was full of stuff like that. He taught me a lot about fixing things myself. I was thinking of that when I made the decision to take the boom box across the country. Maybe I could fix it. It would be nice way to honor his passing, doing something we often did together, fixing stuff. It was one of the many things I packed into a van and drove across the country. Sadly, I could not fix it, so it sat on my workbench for months. I started thinking it would be there when I’m gone too, still broken. I shouldn’t have brought it here. I should just get rid of it.

My kids have a guitar amp from 2010 and it’s not a popular brand. The company is European, it went through a change of ownership since they made this model, and as a result, parts for this vintage are impossible to find. Especially the electronic parts and the specially made plastic bits that go into its construction. It has a socket for a proprietary pedal that stopped working. And they have a gig coming up and just a few days to prepare. I had about 6 hours today to fix it.

When I opened it up, the plastic enclosure that sandwiches the pins into the socket had come apart. Two plastic studs had broken and it no longer held together. Even if I could find a replacement part, it wouldn’t be here in time. Fabricating a replacement housing would require more time that I had as well. Nothing bothers me more that the idea that all these other good working parts would be rendered useless because some tiny little piece of plastic broke. Everything would continue to work if I could just secure the plastic part such that it could withstand the plug being pushed in. Glue would not hold up to that pressure. I kicked around modifying the faceplate to allow for some kind of clamp that would squeeze both parts together against the plate, or some kind of wire twisting, but nothing made sense given the timeframe.

I realized my best bet was to drill out the remained of the plastic studs, (without compromising the space in the socket where the pins go), and use some very unusually long, thin screws, that fit the enclosure without cracking it. Two screws. It sounds simple, but we talking about something just slightly larger than 1/16th of an inch in diameter, at least half an inch long, and with threads that were strong enough to grab the plastic but mild enough that they wouldn’t destroy it. I knew what I needed existed, but it was the kind of thing you find in very finely engineered electronics, not what you find at True Value. I went through all my I-might-need-this-some-day screws and didn’t have anything that would work. I was thinking I might disassemble and old hard drive, but then remembered the boombox. So I started disassembling it in the hopes of finding what I needed. After disassembling most of it, I had about given up. Most of what I found was too thick. What was the right thickness was too short. Or else the threads were too aggressive, or the head was too big. I resigned myself to going to a hardware store in the morning. But I wasn’t confident I’d find what I needed there.

Despite my lack of success, I took the pile and sifted through them again. I found one that I hadn’t initially thought would work and tried it again. It worked! Yet, I still needed one more. So back to the boom box and after removing every last screw from every part of it, I managed to find just one more the right thickness, but it was too long. Fortunately, I also found in there some plastic shafts used as spacers that just so happened to fit this too!

I fixed it! It cost me thing but time.

Had I been able to fix the boombox, we’d have a nice antique sitting on the shelf that no one would have used. It really would have just been a tribute activity to Bill and all he taught me. Instead I fixed something we use, with something he saved, and I think he’d appreciate that more.

A coworker of mine misspoke the word vicariously and said vicarelessly (vie careless lee), and we decided that it means to experience something through another’s actions, but not care about the outcome.

My bias showed itself today. I was doing a crossword puzzle and the clue was “sympathetic case”. I put “poor slob” because I had some of the first letters, it fit, and made sense. It jumped easily to mind and I heard it in my head in the voice of Daffy Duck. Bug and Daffy often described some unfortunate character as a poor slob, and I believe it was common language from the 40s.

Well as it turns out the answer was “poor soul.” So not only am I predisposed to seeing those in unfortunate situations as slovenly, but also I am unlikely to see a supernatural essence at a person’s core.

My teenager just said, “I may have to get on Instagram because it’s the only way Gen Z keeps in touch.” I thought I knew all his friends, but couldn’t figure out who this Jenn Z was.