The sun nears the horizon and the temperature finally dips under 80, welcome relief.
Insurance will not cover the sewer work. We're working on second calls to alternate providers for differing estimates and the like. On reflection, I am livid that we paid over $2k to a service company that left things more broke than when they arrived. That's just about $700 an hour of breaking my shit. And I do mean my shit.
In fairness, the (still unusable) toilet has been reset and at last ten dollars worth of new PVC pipe installed. What price arm deep in sewage?
I should note that it's not the whole house that's affected, only the upstairs, so we can still shower and use the can. Although the can in the basement also probably has a bad basal seal. Can you guess what company won't be getting that job?
Item: our plumbing sprung a leak.
Item: over the phone, I got a ballpark figure out of the plumbing company, five to seven hundred bucks.
Item: when the guy presented his quotes, they totaled just over two thousand dollars. What could we do? We okayed it.
Item: when the guy finished, he'd found that one of his line items was not enough to clear the sewer-line blockage.
Net result: two thousand dollars poorer, no working toilet or shower upstairs, and a new quote in hand for about seven thousand dollars, work which will entail a backhoe, a jackhammer, giant trenches in the lawn, and a torn-up expanse of concrete.
BONUS: I have diarrhea this evening and now must attempt to trot up and down the stairs with my own personal plumbing valves held firmly in the off position, no mean feat.
I am a less-than-satisfied homeowner tonight.
Kraken bulletin: I am still working this drink. I have tried three variations thus far:
Vodka, vermouth, lemon juice, lemon twist, oyster: drinkable, but the lemon diffused into the vodka and was too sweet. The oyster liquor diffusing into the vodka was, to my surprise, quite divine.
Vodka, vermouth, lemon twist, several drops of aged Tabasco sauce: Quite good, but not ideal. The Tabasco diffused into the vodka, overwhelming the delicate oyster liquor. The lemon twist was about right.
Vodka, vermouth, dash of worcestershire sauce, 1/2 tsp. horseradish: Similar to the Tabsaco Kraken. The horseradish floated up and throughout the vodka but was so diffuse that a mildly sweet radish flavor was the outcome, and again, that overwhelmed the oyster liquor.
I think what I'm seeing here is a need to increase the vinegary / savory side of the drink's flavors without killing the clarity of the oyster's flavor. Is there an Absolut Rice Vinegar? Stoly Wooster?
Hm, Stoly Wooster. It does seem that the People's Vodka would provide a celebratory preparation in honor of that favorite son of Worcestershire.
Mac mini R.I.P.? Jim, don't open that box. Eric suggests a Mac Nano or Shuffle would stanch his tears.
A quick google for "napoleon pascoe" reveals that University of Iowa prof Judith Pascoe's handwringer on the inappropriateness of collecting dead emperors' dehydrated naughty bits - or anyone's really, the party pooper - was, in fact, not originally titled Give Napoleon's Penis a Proper Burial, as it is headlined in today's Post-Intelligencer.
I must point out that his Highness would most certainly agree, although he would prefer that such action had taken place more or less two centuries ago, and preferably in the arms of a fetching young partner rather than the clammy embrace of Gaia.
The Kraken, in his natural habitat - Ivar's Lake Union.
I invented this drink at table and it was, um, a learning experience.
2 oz vodka
1 oz clam juice
1 raw, fresh oyster
Shake Vodka and clam juice over ice until clammy. Serve in martini glass. Garnish with oyster. Taste the upwelling fruits of the briny depths.
The history of the History Of Port Orchard Yacht Club includes a shot of a boat much like the Concordia the League passed whilst abaft, aport, afloat, or whatever it was. Here is another shot of a boat of the same name and similar design dating to the first half of the twentieth century.
On careful review of the pair of pics, employing my art-historian's eyes, my tentative conclusion is that aye, the Concordia we passed is a) a survivor of the Moskito Fleet b) formerly the property of a burgeoning social club based in Port Orchard (!) and c) depicted in all three photos herein linked. $1k for a boat! My word!
And while I'm on about music and recordings and the like, the March '07 US-released Amy Winehouse record Back to Black is epic. I can't get it out of my mind. Interestingly, the replay quotient is up there with Neko Case's second and third records, also audio explorations of heartache.
Viv and I spent a happy hour on Sunday visting with old homey Scott Colburn and his lovely wife Jaye in their Ballard recording studio. Scott's talking about getting back into making movies, and laid a copy of his latest side project, Wizard Prison on me. It seems the imprisoned wizards may attempt a jailbreak at a Lake Union arts facility within the month. Word to the wise, you see.
I'm excited! SIFFBlog has a scoop, regarding the launch of a new annual Noir City: Seattle festival at midsummer!
Last year, E. Steven Fried published what I think remains the most extensive interview with Seattle's own James Longley regarding his Oscar-nommed Iraq in Fragments. This year, we're just getting warmed up!
FastCGI installed! There is a noticeable speed bump. I did see a server-misconfig error thrown a moment ago on some pagebuild subroutine, though. Hm.
UPDATE: look at that, it happened again. Looks like the entries are getting written out, at least. Odd. Also it appears that editing the entry generated a double post.
Neil's World: Running Movable Type on OS X with FastCGI - written a while ago, but with a goodly set of server-side config instructions and troubleshooting. SixApart has a typically terse info sheet on working to the same goal.
Odd. 101-degree fever on waking, full-body ache centered in the joints. No snot or fuzzy head, just discomfort.
Hot Tipper Starfleet Ensign Sharman notes that a banner flogging the URL anhaltcondos.com just appeared, floating above the hedgery of our old, lamented, home. Ensign Sharman! I have some data discs for you!
UPDATE: Damn, that site is NOT ready for prime time.
I have had a low-level stress-induced head-and-body ache since January, when a blogger that relies on my spotty and unpaid hosting noted that comments were not working. After ages of struggle, I think I've resolved things for now, at a blown time (over 120 hours more than I hoped to invest) and monetary budget (about 200 in new gear). I may continue with part II, outsourcing the hosting component, as it looks like I can get someone else to do the dirty work (software upgrades, bandwidth, blackholing spambots) for about $15 a month.
The next card to flip in the deck, of course, is how to generate revenue on the labor.
A seamless upgrade to 1.2Ghz from what was formerly .4Ghz might speed the server up a mite. Phew!
How pleasant to hear NPR's coverage of the Ponderosa Stomp as I pulled in to the carport this evening and to end the night with Ahmet Ertegun's valediction on the PBS. Astonishing to be reminded that the Stax men, Booker's band, were Otis Redding's sidemen. How amazing to have been introduced to the persons playing the instruments via that silly movie, and to realize how ingenious it was of those comedians to insist on the players.
After a week more of bitter struggle, I was finally able to execute the upgrade I've been working toward. Unfortunately, the resolution of the problem is not apparent. The upgrade wasn't working, and then it did. Another week or so of fiddly bits will follow, I think.
