Lately I’ve been spending quite a bit of time finishing up the last bits of work before I can fill the new aquarium with water. I spent yesterday afternoon and today putting together more plumbing pieces, and now I’m very nearly done. In fact, I would be completely done, except I ran out of pipe at the very end. I originally bought 40 feet of pipe from Lowe’s, and then today as I was trying to finish the last two connections, I realized that I was about 6 inches short of what I needed. And Lowe’s was already closed for the day. That was a serious bummer, but at least now after I get a little more pipe I will have hardly anything left to do (probably about 30 minutes worth). Anyway, I now have my new Mastercard ad ready (though it’s probably aimed at the aquarium owner market more than the general public):
40 feet of PVC pipe: $24
1 pint each of PVC primer and glue: $8
10 hours of priming and gluing dozens of PVC connections: 2047 brain cells lost to the fumes
Ball valves or unions at every connection for ease of maintenance: priceless
Click “more” to see a list of all of the interesting web sites I found this week. I keep track of my favorite sites using del.icio.us, a free web site where you can access your favorite links from any computer and share them with friends. You can also see all of my favorite links (not just the ones from this week).
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Charis just recently started saying “OK” when we ask her questions (actually, she just says “K”, and it’s kind of cute). She’s been able to say “no” for quite a while (and know that it means), but now that she is saying “K”, you can actually find out what she wants (most of the time). That’s a huge step forward, as far as I’m concerned. In the cases where she can’t actually say what she wants, Joy and I can usually ask a few questions and figure it out:
Do you need your diaper changed? “No”
Do you want some water? “No”
Do you want some milk? “K”
The only problem is in situations like this:
Do you want to go night-night? “No”
So in that case, we usually re-phrase the question to be “Do you want to go get your guys?” (her guys are her stuffed animals that she loves very much and that she always sleeps with at night). That usually gets a “K” response, which is surely a sign that it’s time for bed!
“Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself.”
(Donald Miller in “Blue Like Jazz”)
Click “more” to see a list of all of the interesting web sites I found this week. I keep track of my favorite sites using del.icio.us, a free web site where you can access your favorite links from any computer and share them with friends. You can also see all of my favorite links (not just the ones from this week).
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“Here is our King, Here is our love
Here is our God who’s come to bring us back to Him”
(from the song “Here Is Our King” by the David Crowder Band)
I have to get one of these. This is a USB device that you hook up to your computer and the faster you type, the faster the hamster wheel spins. Too cool!
Click “more” to see a list of all of the interesting web sites I found this week. I keep track of my favorite sites using del.icio.us, a free web site where you can access your favorite links from any computer and share them with friends. You can also see all of my favorite links (not just the ones from this week).
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I worked on the PVC plumbing for the new aquarium this afternoon. I cut, deburred, chamfered, sanded and glued 63 PVC joints. Since I’m not necessarily the handiest person around, it took me about five and a half hours. That basically finished all of the small assemblies, like unions glued to gate valves, unions glued to elbows, and things like that. So all I have left is pretty much just a lot of measuring and then cutting longer pieces of pipe to connect all of the assemblies together. That hopefully shouldn’t be too bad. Since I was working with PVC primer and glue in the garage all afternoon (with the garage door open, of course), the smell is really strong. I didn’t really notice it when I was working, but after we got back from going out in the evening, I could definitely tell it was strong, which Joy had been telling all day as she repeatedly checked on me to make sure I was still okay. :-) Anyway, I’m glad to have all of that work done, and maybe next weekend I can work on some of the connecting pieces.
If you search for “cardboard animals” on Google, guess what the number one link is? That’s right! It’s my blog posts about all of the cardboard animal construction we did at work a couple of years ago. It’s about time, too. I’ve been in the top ten for quite a while, but I finally outplaced a few other sites about making small scale animal cutouts out of cardboard. :-)