I Hate Plumbing

Last week Kris sent me a message at work saying that the sprayer hose on the kitchen sink was leaking.  It had apparently developed a pinhole from rubbing against the water lines under the sink.  So when I got home I had to go look for a replacement hose.  

Living in a house that is now 60 years old, I expect to have to do upkeep on it.  But there are certain things I just dread doing.  One of them is plumbing (another being electrical work).  Doing the work isn't so much the problem as much as having to find the right size pipes and make sure that things fit up right, etc.  Having to make multiple trips to Home Depot, or Menards, is just not something I look forward to doing.  I would rather do it once and have things work our successfully.

I managed to get a hose for a decent price (who knew that the cost of the sprayer hose went up to $40?) and got home to start switching it out.  As with most plumbing projects, nothing is ever easy.  The fitting for the hose was in a space between the sink and wall that just barely wide enough for the nut to hold it on place.  This meant that I couldn't get a wrench in there to loosen it (and by extension, tighten it once it was changed) or even get my fingers in there to turn it by hand once it was loose enough.  So yes, it was a huge pain in the butt.  What was something that should have taken me about 10 minutes ended up being about an hour long job because of how long it took to get it out and the replacement back in.  

Then once I got it replaced and working I came across another problem.  Because of how I had to crawl into the cabinet to get the hose replaced and maneuver inside to get leverage, I ended up hitting the sink drain, knocking it loose.  I figured it wouldn't be a problem until I tried to tighten it back down.  The threads on the bottom of the drain to where it connected to the J-trap ended up getting stripped.  So now I fixed one leak, but created another.  See...  no home improvement projects ever go easy.  The good thing is that it wasn't leaking enough to drip all over under the sink.  It was only when the volume of water was so great that it would back up in the drain, such as if I had the stopper in to wash something in the sink, and then pulled to plug to drain it.  Then it would leak.  So I had time to go back to the store and find a replacement part, which I did today.  So it appears that things are finally all put back together and working properly.  Bring on the next project.  Maybe I should do the water softener next.

Happy Mother's Day

Today is Kris's Mother's Day #17.  I thought that this was the perfect time to finally upgrade Kris's phone.  So as her Mother's Day gift, we went to Best Buy and phoned-up to the iPhone 6 Plus.  Every thing was going well with it, contacts, and photos got transferred at the store, and then when we got home Kris tried to sync it.  I thought that Sunday would be a good day for her to just sit and go over it, learn to use all the new features, and just play around with it since there was nothing else that we needed to do.

 
Unfortunately, that is when the problems started.

First, everything seemed to sync OK, but then there was an issue with the contacts list, and then the ringtones from her old phone didn't transfer over.  Then the information for her online accounts were erased and she couldn't find her passwords.  Each time I got something fixed there was something else that wasn't working right.  I was beginning to wish that she had just stuck with the old 4S phone. 

But eventually I got things lined up correctly (at least I haven't heard any more complaints).  So now Kris is going to be spending the rest of the night playing with it, making sure she knows how to get around it, and make sure all the other settings are right.  At least when it is time to upgrade my phone (and Ali's) I'll know what to do.  Sarah never had these problems when she got her phone upgraded, but then again, Sarah doesn't use Outlook, or any other sort of mail/calendar program.

More College Visits

We got our visit to UW-LaCrosse scheduled (finally).  We'll be going around the end of June.  Unfortunately, that is just going to be a short tour of the campus.  They don't have a full tour like we had in Green Bay where we can explore the majors, get admissions info., etc... (like we had when we visited UWGB last month) so I don't know how much Sarah is going to get out of the tour.  But at least it'll be an introduction to the campus and she'll have an idea of whether she might want to go there next year.

There are a couple of those days in October, so if she likes the look of the campus and wants more information about the program she is looking for, she can take a day off of school in October to go visit.

So now in addition the UW-LAX I have to also call to get a tour of UW-Milwaukee set up as well as find out when we can go back to UWGB to have a look at their biology dept.  When we were there in April, we didn't get to go check out the building where all the biology classes are held, nor did we get to talk to any of the instructors.  We got the presentation on their biology program but it was very general, and Sarah didn't have any questions.  I suspect that she'll come up with a few by the time we get back there.  Maybe we can even schedule it during Packers training camp and go tour the stadium and watch practice in the afternoon.  

I am also looking thru the other schools in the state that might have biology programs that offer the types of focus that Sarah is going to be looking for, so we may have a couple others to consider.  I want her to have a short list come fall when it is time to start filling out applications.  I don't have much to offer when it comes to filling out entrance applications.  Back when I was applying, I don't remember filling out any sort of essays, but I understand that is a part of all applications now, so I would suspect that it will take quite some time to get them filled out.  Though with them all being state schools (at least currently) I believe she is able to fill out a single application that will get sent to all the campuses she is interested in.  So that might help.  But I want to make sure we stay on top of things so that she can at least enjoy her senior year.

NHS

When I got home from work today Kris informed me that we got a letter that said Sarah had been accepted into NHS.  No that isn't a new high school, she is now a member of the National Honor Society.  We will have her induction ceremony in a a couple of weeks at the high school.  It was like pulling teeth to get her to even apply, and honestly I wasn't sure she'd be accepted.  She has excellent grades, but NHS is also looking for other activities outside of school; volunteer type activities.  And I wasn't sure she'd have what they were looking for.   I am pretty sure that the teachers she asked for recommendations gave her glowing reviews.  Whenever we have conferences her teachers all tell us how great she is in class, and how hard she works.  Plus, I told her at graduation she'll get to wear the cool, gold cords with her graduation robes.  So I'll try an be sure to get some pictures from her ceremony to post.

Prom 2015

Sarah had her junior prom yesterday.  I guess this is the only one she'll have, there is no senior prom.  I am a prom novice since I didn't have one and I have no idea what you do at a prom, other than have your picture taken.  So with that said, we took a couple of pictures of Sarah and her boyfriend, Caleb, in the backyard first, then we headed downtown to meet some of her friends at the Milwaukee Art Museum for more photos.  There were a few other groups there also taking pictures, so we had to wait a little bit, and the wind was very cold, so some of the girls had to be just freezing.  Plus I thought about how much some of them must have spent getting their hair done and the wind was just going to ruin it.  Luckily Sarah had hers up so it didn't blow around.