I’m here to tell you that I’m bona-fide expert on the inner workings of Bloomfield Model 9012 coffee maker. I really am, and I’m really sorry I didn’t become an expert on it far sooner. You see, for years the church ladies have been mopping up water that’s been leaking from it, and complaining about how it doesn’t brew a full pot of coffee. It just didn’t work like it was supposed to. With my newly acquired expertise I discovered that the problem was three aging silicone tubes that cost a total of $14, including shipping. Over the years the ladies have probably mopped up 3 times that cost in wasted water. So, if you happen to own a non-functioning Bloomfield Model 9012 coffee maker, I bet I can fix it. Maybe not for $14, but I can fix it. Some of the parts cost $150 but they are stainless steel and not likely to fail unless someone, you know, hits it with a nail gun, or maybe it gets dropped in the parking lot just in time for the garbage truck to run over it. Things like that. Something unusual. Something rare. I know I’m getting all cocky about this, and I’m just guessing because the parts are in transit and have yet to be installed. I know, however, deep down in my troubleshooting soul, that they will solve the problem. Here’s the coffee maker when I had it all ripped apart …

Now, about that hot tub. I’m sure you are all wondering what’s going on with it, right? Well, it’s been driving me nuts for about a week. Really. Absolutely nuts! I don’t know if I mentioned that I got a new pump for it or not, but I did. It arrived very quickly after I ordered it online. I love shopping that way and it’s surprising how often I order the right ‘stuff’. This time, it was the perfect fit and the pumps went back in just great. I plugged everything in, energized it, and watched it go through the start-up process then actually start priming. I was more than excited, as I’m sure you can all imagine. The tub has been unusable since mid summer because of many error codes, and the one of the pumps failed in a magnificent, really noisy manner. I still kinda worked, but you needed earplugs if you had any desire to sit in the water. Then the error codes stared up. I got new temperature sensors hoping to resolve the error codes, because that’s what the internet told me to do. When I replaced them water squirted up out of the holes in the heater, which is located inconveniently directly below the circuit board that controls everything, and drenched it. Yes, I had the power disabled, and tagged out so I could be reasonably sure I wouldn’t get electrocuted. Still, I was careful, except for the water. My compressor was upstairs, in the garage, and the hose wouldn’t reach anyway, so I could use it to blow the water out of, and off, the circuit board. Working with computers, however, has caused me to ensure I always have a can of compressed air lying around somewhere, so I used that to dry things off. In my experience, you can recover from things like that if you clean it up quickly. After blowing it all out, I left the cover off and didn’t go near it for a few days. Finally, I couldn’t wait any longer and had to turn it on to see what would happen. Sadly, it worked just like before, but with more noise. That’s when I ordered the pump. I guess that brings us up to today, in a roundabout manner. As stated above, everything appeared to start-up properly, then I got the dreaded “dy” error code which the internet told me means the heater doesn’t think it has enough water in it. Then I started playing with the wires, switching them around, trying to make the new motor run at both speeds, but couldn’t. I spent a lot of time on the internet researching this, moving the plugs all over the place, but couldn’t get it to work like it used to. It would heat for a bit, then error out and stop. Frustrating. Then I did a really brave thing and swapped the pump connections on the circuit board as a last-ditch effort before emptying the tub, pulling it out into the yard, and giving my chain saw a little workout as I cut it into tiny little pieces that would fit in the recycle bin. But, wonder of wonders, it worked. I was hung up on the belief that the motor I replaced was Pump 2 when, in fact, it’s apparently Pump 1. It’s been running for a few hours now, and last time I looked the temp was up to 88. So, there’s a very distinct possibility that Diane is going to get her one and only birthday wish. All she wants is for the hot tub to work. She just loves that thing and sits out there in the freezing cold, reading books on her iPad as it floats around on the styrofoam float I made for her.

Her birthday, incidentally, is tomorrow, December 20th. I forget how old she is but it really doesn’t matter because she’ll always be 21 to me. That’s how old she was when we got married, I think.

I learned something new today when I fell up the stairs. Yeah, I know. That’s pretty lame, but it’s less damaging than falling down the stairs, believe me. What I learned was that in a fraction of a second you can hurt multiple parts of your body at exactly the same time. I was carrying something, apparently heavy, and when my right foot slipped, I simultaneously stubbed my left big toe really hard, smashed my right thumb between a step and whatever I was carrying, and slammed my left elbow into another stair. All at once, and they all hurt equally so I couldn’t figure out which one to be more concerned about. Ultimately, I just serenaded them all with the sucking ‘S’ noise you are supposed to make when you get injured. I was unable to get up and hop around, so I just sat there making that noise. I don’t know why because there was no one around to hear me. Still, it’s the right thing to do, and it helped give me something else to concentrate on while the pain subsided, as it eventually did.

Then I went on about my business, doing whatever it was I was going to do, whatever that was.

This afternoon I made a trip to ACE to get “stuff” and got to talk with Jack for a while. That’s always a plus when I got to ACE. Some times he’s not there so I have to find things all by myself. One of the things I needed was a large wood bead-type thing so I could repair a nut cracker Diane got for Jeran. It needed a new hand, which are made from large wood bead things, and it needed something to hold. So, I got dowels at ACE, too, to make that happen. Now the nut cracker is holding a staff atop which sits a brass fitting used to unite two pressure hoses, a wire nut, and a silver bell-shaped piece of metal I found. Here’s the result.

Yes, his right hand is way bigger than his left.

On the way home from ACE I stopped at Diane’s Mom’s house to fix the lights I strung up for her. She wasn’t worried about them, but I was and, by golly, I was going to fix it. Oddly, I knew exactly how I was going to do it, too. The problem was I had six of strings of lights connected in series and the first string kept blowing those tiny little fuses in the pronged end. So, I got an adapter that would accept three plugs and hooked them up so only two were connected. Now they work. Then I helped her clean her bathroom fans. The one in the bathroom she uses was a little dusty, but the one in the guest bathroom looked brand new. I didn’t find that odd at all.

After getting all that stuff fixed, I decided to start tearing my work bench apart. I took out almost two dozen lag bolts from the boards then pried them off. Under the first couple of boards is a two foot section of a beam that was placed, I presume, to add substance to the 2×6 planks above them. There may be another couple of spots that have a beam underneath, but I haven’t checked, yet. To get the back surface board off requires me to remove the peg board. To get the peg board off required me to remove all the tools on that side. Additionally, I had to relocate the shop light that’s been hanging from a couple of peg board devices for a couple of years. I was attempting to nail it to a beam in the ceiling when it ripped itself from my manly grasp and smashed up against the wall, shattering both lights and covering the old Playboys I forgot I had with tiny pieces of glass. I could see the Playboys once I removed the top boards. Once the light fell, I just called it a day and quit. It was almost 2200 anyway.

Here’s how I left it …

Oh, ya, almost forgot. Today was the day that Panzee’s PCP said we might be able to remove her cone of shame. The doc never called back so we just decided to do it and see how things went. Instead of being really happy about getting it off, so she could lick her butt, or scratch her neck, she immediately went to work on her knuckle and quickly had it all irritated again. So, I put the cone back on. She sat very calmly through the process as if it was something we do every day.

Also, here’s a photo of the little gloves to which I added beads. Normally I just work in solid colors, so the designs on these posed a singular problem with regard to bead colors. Still, I think they look OK … as little beaded gloves go …