Frozen Pipe

In January 2014, we had a night or two at 16°F and had a pipe pull away from a fitting, but not actually freeze. This year we had a night or two around 10° . The weather started warming this morning and behold, in early afternoon there was the sound of  running water. The copper water line near the back porch faucet had suffered a small split, but the ice that had caused it also plugged it, until the ice melted.
I figured the plumbing profession would already have its hands full with people who needed them more urgently, so I slithered under the house and found the break was about where I expected. I went to the hardware store, got silicone tape and a pipe clamp and an insulation tube, crawled back under, and wrapped and wrapped and wrapped the leak, and then put more tape on. The first fews yards of tape didn't entirely seal it but got it down to a slow drip, and it's possible the rest of the tape may have staunched that as well. I'll need to have it "really fixed" at some point but in the meantime, we could turn our water back on with less than $10 materials and about an hour's worth of work.

Photography

Just finished the last session of my Intro to Photography class, given by the Museum of Contemporary Art. I don't know that I learned anything I couldn't have learned from the camera manual and a photography book...but I hadn't done that, so I'd say it was a valuable class. The camera's auto settings usually do a good job, but it doesn't handle low light well, and the class taught how to manually adjust things so I can get a good picture instead of a fuzzy blob.

The Most Important Job Interview Question You Can Ask - Forbes

The Most Important Job Interview Question You Can Ask - Forbes:

When you're deciding whether to join a company, ask the interviewer "Are you happy?" Don't pay too much attention to what they say, but watch their face as they respond to that.

Car Mirror

While I was away in Arizona, not only did Virginia suffer from tornadoes, earthquakes, and hurricanes, it also had a car accident. Involving my car. Most of the damage was to panels, but the driver's side mirror got clipped and was being held on by duct tape--the mount broken in a way that wasn't feasible to epoxy back together. The repair quote was $176.40 for the part, and more for the labor to install it. But we haz teh Interwebz....

• Watch a video on how to install the mirror. No exotic equipment is required, just Phillips and flat blade screwdrivers and a 10mm wrench.
• Locate the part for $37 including shipping. It's in black.
• Determine the official paint color is #931 "Frosted Iris".
• Find a local paint shop that will mix 931, which Sherwin Williams will. $31 for paint, sprayer, and gloss coat.
• Mask the new mirror, then paint, paint, paint, glosscoat, glosscoat.
• Take out three screws to pull back the door interior
• Pull out the old mirror's electrical connection; unbolt mirror.
• Install new mirror, insert make electrical connections
• Test mirror adjustment, remove masking
• Tight door panel

Did the painting last weekend; got the mirror installed today, during a break in the rain.

The Headlight Saga

Generally I prefer to do a repair myself, if I can, instead of paying someone else to do it. There are times when the frustration level makes me reconsider my decision...

A headlight went out on the van. I've changed headlights before, no problem. Undo the locking ring, pull out the bulb, work the bulb out of the socket, then replace it with a new bulb (being careful not to touch the glass) and re-install. So, feeling confident, I pick up a #9004 bulb, come home, and open the hood. And discover that in this van, there's not enough room to get your hand behind the bulb to pull it out. Do you have to remove the whole headlight? I come inside and hit the search engine. Yes, you have to remove the whole flipping headlight.

And to do that, you need a 10mm wrench. I spray WD40 and tried pliers. No good. I try a 3/8" wrench (about 9.5mm) and a 7/16" (about 11mm). No good. We search the tool closest; no metric wrenches. Okay, back to the shop and get a 10mm wrench. With that, the top bolt and two nuts come off; the third nut is not quite inaccessible but I can only turn the wrench through 16° of arc at a time, so it takes approximately 26 hours of hunching over the car to slowly, slowly work the nut off. Mosquitoes gnaw on me. I finally get the assembly off, pull the locking ring back, and get the bulb out of the socket. Put the new bulb in the socket and test it--yes, it works. Put the bulb in the headlight and try to seat the locking ring. It doesn't seat. Push, twist, turn, no luck. Happy mosquitoes. The sun is setting. Okay, let's take the bulb out of the socket and try this one piece at a time. The bulb doesn't seat. Look at the back side of the headlight--there are three little teeth on the ring, and the bulb has notches which should match those teeth. Twist, rotate, push, no good. The mosquitoes have called their cousins and aunts. I compare the new bulb to the old bulb--the notches are almost, but not quite, identical. It is 5:49 pm. I call the parts store. They're closing at 6pm. Yes, the #9004 is the correct bulb, they say. I drive down (in the other car), arriving at 5:56, and go check the bulbs. Here's a Sylvania 9004, here's another brand, here's a third, the notches are the same on all of them. I look at the original bulb again--hark! It's a 9007, not a 9004! Mystery solved. Do I have the receipt for the original? No...but if you'd like to stay open even farther past your quitting time than it is now, I can go back home and get it. Heh. The kid hands me the new bulb and I return to the van. The bulb slides home, the locking ring locks, the socket snaps in place. Test the light, it works. Put the assembly back in place, tighten the nuts, we're done.

Three morals to the story:

1. You will solve a problem faster by looking at it and figuring it out, rather than by continuing to try to force it when force didn't work the first time.
2. Use the right tool. In retrospect, I should have gotten 10mm socket wrench instead of a normal wrench; that would have made two of the nuts a lot easier.
3. Sometimes you should just pay the shop $25 and let them do it.

How to Give Good Advice

Sometimes people will come to you for advice because you're an expert, or at least more of an expert than they are. In that case, you can simply tell them "keep a reserve of cavalry back here" or "clean it with mild soap and water first" or "if you get a retroencabulator, make sure it has a malleable logarithmic base"; if you're an expert, there's a reasonably good chance that they'll listen to you.
Sometimes, however, they come to you because you're a sympathetic (or captive) ear, and you see they're doing self destructive and are just too caught up in their situation to see it. Generally if you just come out and bluntly and directly say "You should: stop huffing methane | file bankruptcy | throw out that useless leech of a boyfriend | get at least a GED | not vote for Obama", it doesn't go over too well. What works better is to ask "If your friend or coworker was in that situation and asking for advice, what would you tell her?" They'll pause for a couple seconds, and then come out with the same advice you would have--but since it's them saying it instead of you saying it, they won't be offended at you.
I grant you that having dispensed this good advice for themselves, they still won't follow it--but you can't have everything.