After a whirl-wind tour of northern Oregon, I am once again home.

My sister, brother-in-law, and I went down to Portland to hang out with my dad. We left friday morning at 10 and got there around 4:30 in the afternoon.

Good times had by all!

It was great hanging out with my dad and we did a few things while we were down there: toured the Widmer brewery (yay… free beer!!), hit a casino (I’ve never done that before), and ate a ton good food.

I’ll post pics later on.

EDIT 04:51pm: We have pictures of the Widmer tour available now.

Aren’t you lucky? Yes you are! Now click the link… CLICK IT!!!!

A holiday greeting from team WWBD to you!

Eat plenty, unzip your pants, watch the game!

Switch has become possessed by the thought of all that turkey!

With the recall vote of Spokane Mayor, Jim West, in full swing, I have a few questions.

What exactly is the recall based on?

Inappropriate use of city computers: Yes, the mayor visited a website that had nothing to do with managing the city. Have you ever gone to a website from work that had nothing to do with work? If he had visited match.com or marrageencounter.com would it still be bad? Is it only bad because he went to a site that was gay related?

Offering a job to someone in a chat room: Doesn’t every political official have the right to appoint (or at least suggest a person) whom they deem fit to work positions within their administration? Do they have to be the ultimate in qualified personnel to fit that position (if so, someone should tell the President that he seriously missed the ball on that one a few times).

Personally… this reeks more and more of “smear the queer” to me. Sure, he’s gay… he admits that. Does his sexual orientation make him a bad Mayor for the city? Is this town so openly homophobic that this requires the destruction of a mans career?

As for the whole “chat room” thing… this stinks to high heaven. A man was hired by the Spokesman Review (the local newspaper and one of the Mayor’s staunchest opponents) to flirt with the Mayor. This, in my opinion, is a massive set up.

What it all boils down to, in my opinion, is that the owners of the paper were dissatisfied with the Mayor’s response to the parking garage issue in Spokane (which they had a vested financial interest in), and set out to destroy the man.

Unfortunately, Spokane Washington is a two mule, olive pit of a town. It’s devoid of cultural diversity and intolerant to everything that isn’t mainstream. I’m confident that the Mayor will take this in the teeth over this, and we, as a city, will have lost big time.

I got the furnace repaired.

It wasn’t too bad ($362) to get a new blower and capacitors installed.

Life at Casa de WWBD is once again warm.

Our furnace started making a funny noise the other day.

It was a little squeak… nothing much. I could barely hear it coming from the cold air return.

Curious.

I didn’t think much of it… our house makes all sorts of noises. They’re the kind of sounds that you become used to and miss when you’re not there (which is probably why I have such a hard time sleeping when I’m on the road).

Yesterday… the squeak became a low growl. I went into the furnace room, replaced the air filter, banged around on the blower, and the sound seemed to disappear. I figured that it was the air filter…. it was pretty dirty and perhaps the blower couldn’t suck enough air through it (winter just started and I hadn’t changed it in a while).

Last night at 2 am… it became a howl. Now the blower doesn’t turn at all.

I’ve googled and found the part I need. Of course, I need it today and can’t wait on an internet purchase.

It’s currently 22 degrees outside (-5.6 Celsius) and I’m not exactly wild about the concept of the inside of my house matching that temperature. I do have a gas fireplace and a few portable heaters (electric oil filled radiators), so at least I can keep it somewhat livable for the time being.

I’m just praying that the furnace repair monkeys are open today and don’t charge me a fortune for the part (last time they wanted $500 for a part that was $220 online).

Update 8:37 am

After working on it for a few hours (it helps when you have half a clue about what you’re doing), I was able to remove the blower fan.

In all its glory (click for a larger view. Why? because you’re bored as hell):

The blower cage and exaust fan (it’s a 90%+ furnace)

The upper part of the furnace (exaust fan goes here) and lower part (blower)

The problem… one dead motor.

Now I have to find someplace that A) has the part in stock and B) is open on a saturday (and from the phone calls I’ve made so far… that’s not looking very good).

Oh.. one more thing… yes… I marked the wires as I took them apart with a sharpie (so I can figure out how to re-assemble the damn thing later). Always thinking I am 🙂