After a long day of…. um… work?… I arrived at my home, my castle, my fortress of solitude. The first thing out of my mouth after entering the door was “OMG… WHAT IS THAT SMELL!!!”

Apparently… we were having a little plumbing problem, and the lowest of my 3 bathrooms was running over… literally.

The toilet was full of… ick! (all the way to the rim)… and the bathtub was full of the same, at the same level. The floor didn’t look so good either, as there was quite a bit of overflow.

Oh man! Sick!!

I ran to the hardware store and purchased a snake to see if I couldn’t fix the issue myself, but ended up calling a plumber after covering myself in fecal soup (I know when to admit that I’m done!).

It turns out that the problem wasn’t in my house, but rather, the line that runs from my house to the sewer under the street. They cleared the pipe and ran a camera down the turd tube to verify it was clear and to see if they could figure out why it happened in the first place.

Apparently, I have a dip in my pipe. It makes a dandy little trap for things to settle in. Unfortunately, it’s gonna cost somewhere between $1,500 and $6,000 to fix (they won’t know how much until they dig it all up). I’m thinking it might be cheaper just to buy the machine that they used to clear it (or just call them again in 4 years when it plugs again).

But on to the whole jist of this post: Anyone wanna earn $20? All you have to do is clean my bathroom (especially the tub!!).

It’s tuesday… the aftermath of monday.

The weekend wasn’t too bad. The saddlebags that we had ordered weren’t what we thought they were (we wanted rigid mount and got yoke mount). The dealer took them back with no problem and ordered us the right kind of bags. This was refreshing….. being treated like a customer. If you’re in the Spokane area and want a motorcycle, snowmobile, or accessories…. I stongly suggest you go to Camp Motorsports. They’ll treat you right.

Other news… we had one hell of a storm rip through Spokane last night. Winds up to 50mph (80.47kph) blew half the top soil from the Palouse River Valley into town. We lost power several times and my ISP went down for a while. When I get home tonight, I’m gonna count the shingles that are still on my roof.

My back is a bitch today. Sleep has been difficult for the past week or so. They’re gonna put me on a new pain med today. Hopefully it works out.

One last thing:

A friend is selling her 1980 Harley Davidson FLH.

80 cubic inches, 4 speed, S&S Carb, low milage and set up for highway. $10.000 (US) firm
She also has the original fenders and tank for sale.

If you’re interested, let me know and I’ll pass on the info.

There was a company wide announcement this morning: some of us will be unemployed by noon today.

Oh joy!

If anyone needs me, I’ll be hiding under my desk until lunch.

In other news: We dropped my wife’s motorcycle off at the dealer last night. They’re installing the majority of the accessories that we ordered today (with the exception of the windshield, which has been back ordered until september).

Also: we need to buy another windshield for my wife’s Durango. With all the construction on the freeway, there’s quite a bit of debris. Yesterday, my wife was heading eastbound when a large rock flew out of the westbound lanes and smashed a golf ball sized hole in her windshield (she was so shocked she nearly hit the concrete barrier that separates east and west bound traffic. I called the Washington State Dept of Transportation and they’re gonna pay for a new one (this is our second windshield in 2 years that’s been smashed because of the construction).

The woman I spoke to at the WSDOT was polite and I didn’t yell at her (which I could tell she appreciated). Hopefully it won’t take 6 months to get this taken care of.

And finally: It seems that the withdrawal symptoms I’ve been having are subsiding a bit. The whole “shake like a junkie who needs a fix” thing is getting better. Of course, my back is killing me from all the car rides, but life in general isn’t too bad.

Quick update – 4:02 PM
I made it through the layoff. So did my brother-in-law and all my friends at work. Life is good.

I’ve been off the morphine for just over 2 weeks now, and I’m still feeling like crap.

I still get the shakes, my guts are in a whirl, and I have a general feeling of pure ecch 90% of the time. Wheee… fun!! Addiction is NOT your friend! I only wonder how long the withdrawal symptoms are gonna last.

Other than lying on the couch a lot and doing a piss poor job at work, not much new has been going on.

I spent most of yesterday watching “I love the 80’s Strikes Back” on VH1. Funny damn stuff. My son and his friend were watching it with me… laughing at the styles and fads of the decade. When they saw Boy George, my son turned to me and said “The 80’s were friggin’ weird, Dad!”.

Yeah… I know.

I then explained to him how I wore makeup back then. Mascara, eye-liner, lipstick, eye shadow, etc. I thought he was going to die laughing (and no… I will not share pictures).

Other news: according to slashdot, a variant on the MyDoom virus is all over the web. Google is currently down because of it (it returns error code 503 when you do a search)… so are a few other search engines. People… for the love of all that is good and pure… STOP OPENING EVERY DAMN EMAIL ATTACHMENT YOU GET!!! I don’t care if your grandma sent you a *.scr, *.pif, or *.exe file… use some common sense! Also… buy a damn virus scanner, keep it running at ALL TIMES, and update it regularly!

Shop as usual, avoid panic buying.

It’s 3:51 am and I’m awake and at work.

People are doing the whole vacation thing and we’re short handed at the moment. So…. I got lucky and get to fill in for the night shift again (thank God for coffee!!).

It’s kind of a pain in the butt to do right now. I get up around midnight and have to wake someone up at 1:00 am to put my back brace on (something I can’t do by myself). My wife has to work in the morning, so I got my eldest son to strap me up. I also can’t take any pain meds because I have to drive. It makes for a very long night.

I am gonna talk to my boss and ask her if she can keep me out of the graveyard rotation until after I get out of the brace (hopefully around August 12th). This ought to make my family slightly more happy (and well rested).

At least I have something good to eat: Mesquite Steak with jalapenio potatoes and a red pepper, corn, and bean mix. Nummy!

Lets see… what else is new….

My boss came to me on tuesday and asked me to set up couple servers for a new product. This is an install I’ve never seen before, but I’m never gonna say “no”. After talking to engineering I was told it takes about 10 days to get it all configured (read: it’s a bitch to set up!).

I got most of it set up by the end of yesterday and just have a few tweaks left to make it complete. Not bad for 3 days work! 🙂

The following image pretty much sums up how I feel at the moment (going off of morphine is no picnic!)