A Week Vacation

Took last week off from work. I was planning on working on the Living & Dying set for a few days but as luck would have it I got freaking sick!

So, in order not to make any of Jon's crew sick, I stayed away from the set. This really pissed me off, but it was the right thing to do. They've still got another week of shooting and didn't need me there taking out crew with my germs of contagiousness.

On the other hand, it gave me a chance to relax (if somewhat forced) and a opportunity to get a few things done around the house that have really been needing it.

I started off with some simple stuff. We hadn't been able to use the spa tub in the master bath because it wasn't on a GFCI and the motor wasn't grounded. The previous owners had probably been using it without any problems, but I didn't want to risk it. Anyway I put in a GFCI outlet and ran a ground line from the motor to the cold water pipe.

I also took the opportunity to add GFCI outlets to the kitchen. Two GFCI outlets were able to protect all of the outlets in the kitchen with the exception of the garbage disposal and the refrigerator.

I also took the opportunity to sniff out all of the outlets and make a complete electrical map of the house. Later I'll use that to re-balance the circuits and more evenly distribute the loads.

I had also noticed a few weeks back an unidentified motor noise when I was in the garage. The motor noise would come on and whine but would always shut off before I could find out what it was. While I was in the garage snooping the outlets, I heard it come on again. This time I was able to determine that it was the vent fan in the attic. The reason it was so loud is that the motor had seized up.

I took this opportunity to make my first foray into solar power. I purchased a DC attic fan and a 10W solar panel from Home Depot and got it installed. It works beautifully. Any time the sun's up, the fan runs. Free power! Gotta love it!

I also replaced the toilet seat in the front bathroom. The old seat had a hard edge on the inside ring making it very uncomfortable to sit on for any length of time. The new seat is padded. Woo Hoo!

Other than that, I watched a bunch of TV and gave the mess I had to my daughter. Fortunately it didn't seem to affect her as much as it did me.

Oh, one other thing we did is Terri and I went to see Serenity. It was a very cool movie and I'm very glad that we went to see it in the theater. Although, the hot dogs I had at the theater have got to be the absolute worst hot dogs I've even eaten.