If it's not one thing...

...it's another!

Last week our clothes dryer died, well okay, it still ran, but no longer dried. :( So, the weekend was spent looking for a new dryer...and because the washer is also 24 years old, for a new washer as well.

Synde had to have front loaders and she really, really, wanted side by side units on pedestals.  Personally, I wanted the dryer to be ventless, but that didn't work out, so I then settled for a vented model, but with the vent on the right side so the duct work wouldn't have to do a 90 degree bend on the way to the outside and it would be easier to get out if it needs cleaning.

That limited the choices somewhat and jacked the price somewhat, too, but when we looked there were almost too many choices.  I finally settled on a Samsung pair. Not the ones with all the "bells and whistles", just a simple washer and dryer. All together, though, the pair cost a LOT more than I really wanted to pay even simple, no frills...oh, well.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I worked to clean out the Utility Room so the installers can get the old units out and the new units in. Twenty years of "stuff" had gotten packed in around the old units and on shelves above, around and on the other side of the narrow room. I also had to clear a path from the road up to the door of the utility room wide enough to get the units through.

Today, they delivery/install guys are supposed to show up..."sometime between 2:30 and 6:30"...and cart the old machines away and install the new ones.

I worry.

Can they get the old machines out and the new machines in? Yes, there is a 28 inch opening and the narrowest dimension of both new units (and old ones for that matter) is 27. But still that's tight!

Did I measure right, will the units get in and will the doors open without banging into the shelves on their other side or the water heater?

Did the saleswoman include all the hardware that's going to be needed for the new install? Hell, I don't know! I've never actually done this sort of thing before. These machines were installed before I lived here and before that I lived in apartments. If there are parts that didn't get included, what happens? Do the installers just leave with the job not done?

These are OLD machines. There are two water lines to the old washer, hot and cold, but there's only one to the new washer, I think. Will the installers know which to hook up? How about the electrical connection? The washer uses normal 110, and there's a plug right there for it, but the dryer uses 220 and, yes, there is a plug for that too, but somewhere or other I seem to remember that there are both 3 and 4 plugs for 220 and I don't know what happens if the old unit used one and the new uses something else.

Yesterday, I was talking to someone who said, "You didn't buy *new* appliances did you? They are all breaking down in a year or two. You should have bought old, refurbished, units? He manages several dozen rental properties, so he knows more about this stuff than me. I hope he's wrong, but still...

...I worry.

Excite.Com Changing -- Bummer!

I like to have a place online where I can store bookmarks to frequently visited sites. Having these online means I can get to them from any device I can get on that is internet connected.

Once upon a time, I started doing this with IWON.COM and continued until it killed the "portal" end of its site. IWON was orignally an online game site, but it had a neat, configurable, homepage that could display news, weather, and most importantly for me a list of bookmarks to sites. They were bought by somebody, Mindspark I think, who decided to kill the homepage idea and then killed IWON completely.

Well, another site owned by the same folks...Excite...picked up the mantle that IWON dropped. I was able to set up a configurable homepage there that gave me most of what I'd lost from IWON. However, that's going away now, too! The owners (Mindspark again...grrrr) decided to "update the Excite experience" and nerf its usefulness almost completely.

The advantage iwon and excite had is that you could add, delete, change, and configure links, etc, online and not have do it offline. That is an advantage that I can get from a Blogger blog...this one. It's a little harder to configure and doesn't give all the same features, but it's close. It's better than alternatives I've run across anyway.

Okay, so I have to move all my bookmarks over and get them configured as I like them. This is going to be time consuming, but not hard.

Here's my hope. I hope Google doesn't decide to kill blogger...ever! Or, at least, until I'm dead or too old to care.

Hurricane Michael Arriving!

I absolutely hate hurricanes! Yes, we need the rain down here and yes, there are ecological advantages of "clearing dead wood away" now and then. OTOH, for us humans hurricanes are a PITA, and sometimes much worse than that!

Michael is expected to be a "major" Category 3 or 4 when it comes ashore. Now if you don't know Category 3 will take many roofs off and uproot many, many trees.  Category 4 is 10 times worse and will destroy many houses and commercial buildings, take out almost all the power supply, and leave us all in the dark with no power, many with no water or shelter...and that's for those of us that aren't actually on the coast. 

At this moment,  it looks like Michael will come ashore to the east of my home. Now, "the east is least and the west is a mess and dead on is just that!" 

How far to the east Michael will come ashore is still up for debate, 2 days out. If it's 10 or 30 miles east we'll still get much, much, damage. If it's 30 to 50 miles east, damage will be less and more scattered. If it's more that it'll be bad for a few, but not too bad for most. OTOH, if it comes in west it's bad, very bad, 50 plus miles out! 

I'm hoping it'll be far east, but I fear it will be right through my front yard. I'm praying for all the people to my east, even while praying we'll be spared. God knows this is hard.

I've got most of my prep done. My hurricane box is filled with non-perishable food and I've filled a bunch of clean gallon milk containers with clean water. I've got a new bottle of propane for my camp stove. I've charged my batteries, tablets and laptop. I'd consider making a visit to New Orleans or Jackson MS, but with Mom and Synde's cat, I don't think I can go. 

I wish I'd bitten the bullet and had a whole home generator installed, or at least bought a portable generator...although, I've always doubted how much they help. Natural Gas has always stayed on here, through Dennis, Ivan, Katerina, Opal, all of them, so gas would be good for a generator to keep HVAC and electricity up. 

I'm hoping the roof stays on and doesn't spring any leaks. It's 14 years old with a 20 year warranty, but the roofer is long gone and the warranty won't be any good if it fails. 

Well, at least, the weather reports say we'll have a cold front coming through post Michael to drop temperatures by 10+ degrees. If power goes out, and stays out, maybe we won't die from the heat/humidity. Yes, heat/humidity kills, especially the very old and very young. 

Anybody who reads this say a prayer for us all and wish us luck.

Excite Doc Com Going Away? (Edit...It's back up, for now.)

I usually use my.excite.com as my portal page. It has my shortcuts to links and many news feeds, but it's been Down for Maintenance for 3 days now. No idea how long this is going to last, or it will ever come back.  This is really how it started when my.iwon.com started "going away." Bummer!

This site is my backup portal and it isn't complete, as of yet. I've been slowly building it up over time and need to do some more work here, it appears.  I guess it always pays to have backup plans, right!

Well, goody! My Excite is back up. At least, for now.

Continuing To Add

I've added a Games/PBEM/Forum section to the left sidebar. I only have it partially populated, though. I'll add more later.