the pod bay door

:: While leaving Sobey’s late this evening, I noticed a large amount of water on the road while driving on 23rd Avenue just east of 142nd Street. When I arrived home, I called the City of Edmonton and reported it. What I didn’t know was that a flood was happening in my house at the same time.

Those who know me know I am not a “tool time” kinda guy. I look forward to doing home renovations and repair in the same way I look forward to contracting a terminal disease, sticking needles in my eyes, or eating Ratatouille. Nonetheless, much progress, with the help of friends, has been made since last Friday regarding an overhaul of my living room. The walls have been painted, the carpet removed, the baseboards stripped from the wall, the front entrance tile ripped out, the carpet underlay torn up and bagged, staples pulled from the floor, and those small pieces of 1″x1″ pieces of wood with carpet nails pulled out of the floor with a prybar. All of this, in anticipation of Geoff’s visit tomorrow afternoon to begin installing the laminate flooring.

This evening, I worked hard to complete the removal of the underlay, the wood pieces, staples, and tile. After three hours of work, I rested a bit, then went to Sobey’s to buy something to eat. Upon returning home, I unpacked the groceries, opened a can of meatball stew, and prepared to watch a bit of tube before hitting the sack. Nature called, and I slipped into the downstairs washroom for a moment, only to find the floor covered in water. Not yet in Panic Mode, I checked around the toilet to see if there was a leak, and then felt a drop of water hit the top of my head. I looked up, saw that the ceiling was soaked, so I ran upstairs to the other washroom to find the toilet there overflowing ever so quietly, plugged up and still running for some reason. I grabbed the plunger and used it quickly, the water retreated and the toilet flushed, and I grabbed a whack of towels and tried to mop up as fast as possible. The water had leaked onto the adjoining rug at the bathroom door. I grabbed more towels, returned to the downstairs washroom, covered the floor with them, ran to my office where I had two large plastic bins that were once part of two separate paper shredders (long gone), and took them to the downstairs washroom to put one under the ceiling leak.

I notice then that there were other wet spots on the ceiling, and that the paint on small sections of the wall near said ceiling had expanded, having filled up with water. I decided to tap the ceiling where it was dripping with a very small nail, and the water began to flow out in a steady stream. When it began to subside, I mopped up further, and grabbed the heavily soaked towels to take to the washing machine in the basement. Little did I know what was happening down there.

I went down the stairs to the basement, only to discover that the water had seeped through the main floor, and soaked a large section of the basement, wetting cardboard boxes, soaking sections of the parquet flooring, and parts of the false ceiling. Grabbing more towels, I continued to clean up as much as I could. Realizing that few clean, dry towels were remained, I grabbed my sponge mop to continue the work downstairs.

The walls and ceiling in the bathroom are a mess, as is the basement. I’m too tired to be angry, but it does suck when you live alone and are without home repair and maintenance abilities when something like this happens. All I knew to do was to unplug and flush the feckin’ toilet, and clean up as much water as possible. Now I have a bathroom with a hole in the ceiling and parts of a wall that look like shyte, and a basement that has been flooded for the third or fourth time, and looks like double shyte. For all I know, the upstairs toilet had been ever-so-slowly overflowing all day.

At least the living room floor is ready for laminate flooring. Adding the laminate will increase the value of the house, so I’m told. Then again, having a three-level water leak will probably bring the value back down to what it was before the laminate is installed.

Ha ha ha. Oh what bloody fun it is to own a house.

What a crock a’ shyte. And how was your day today?

:: The living room walls are painted. Yesterday I ripped out the rug from the living room. It sits in pieces in my car port at the moment. Today I began tearing out the underlay, lifted staples from the wooden floor, and removed a few of the pieces of wood (with the tiny nails that cling to the underside of the carpet) that surround the perimeter of the living room. More to do tomorrow, and Friday, and Saturday….

:: Help, my web site is drowning!

:: Most of the living room painting was done today. The east half the room was painted a shade of dark blue, the other half a shade of light blue in the same colour range. Kathryn came by around 10:15 or so, and was an enormous help throughout the day (as she was last year when the pink wallpaper was removed and the hall painted Scotland Road green.) We stopped at lunch for bowls of her homemade seafood/fish soup, with some delicious Pugliese bread from Sobey’s, plus a bottle of Stewart’s root beer for me. Then it was back to work, with most of it completed by 5:30 pm. The goal is to have the walls painted before Heavy G comes by to rip out the carpet and install laminate flooring.

I am tired, my hands are dry and cracked, and my back is sore, but the hard part is over. See a short video recap of the day’s efforts here.

:: A four-day weekend begins. Tomorrow, well, later today actually, a friend and I will paint my living room. I hope we can get it done by dinner time. Then, in a couple of weeks, Geoff will come by and help install laminate flooring, after ripping out the carpet. Wishing you all a Happy Easter weekend.

:: Word is out that President Bill Clinton has been added to the list of general session speakers at SLA in Toronto. From a post on SLA-ENG today:

This morning it was announced to the Board, that former President Bill Clinton recently agreed to be a general session speaker for the SLA Toronto meeting. He will speak on Wednesday morning , from 9:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. This is really exciting news! We wanted the conference planners to be among the first to hear. Promotional and PR Information is being developed and will be sent out as soon as we are able to the entire membership. We do not foresee this conflicting with any division programming, except as mentioned earlier, Wednesday morning sessions will now begin at 7:00 a.m.