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Friday, October 24, 2008

Maytag Repairman

One Saturday a few weeks ago during a rain/snowstorm, the power went
out. I was in the middle of doing laundry, and when it came back on
I started the dryer. It ran for ten seconds, then the lights flashed
and it stopped. You could start it again, and it would do the same
thing. At this time, we can't afford a $100 charge for someone to
come out, much less the charge for parts and labor. So we did
research on the Internet. The first conclusion was the thermal
fuse. April ordered the $6 part, and we waited a week for it to
arrive. I replaced that last Saturday in an hour (it's
in the back underneath the drum). No joy. More research and a post to
a forum pegged the problem as a faulty control board. April found one
for $89, plus $12 S&H. It arrived yesterday, and I spent 20 minutes
replacing that, and lo, we have a functional dryer again. I was pleased
by how easy the swap is. Six screws to pull the back panel off, and the
4 inch square board just snaps in. The hard part is that the small part
has 8 connectors going to it, three on the front, one each for the sides
and bottom, and two on the top edges.

So my apologies to the lonely Maytag repairman, but I don't need your
services.

Soccer Update

Soccer Update
The last month has been heavy soccer. I'm talking 6 days a week, I was
taking the boys to games or practice. The school team improved quite
a bit, but never won a game. We played a tournament in Sandy, but were
short players and came in last.

Rachel had to go with me to one of the school game practices, and
had enough fun that she came back for the rest of them. She's pretty
good. I wish she would play on a team.

Patrick and his friend Trey went a few nights from the school game to
comp games. This is because the league realized it was getting dark
very early, and moved the games up from the end of the month. The
comp team finished in fourth place out of nine, and
the games that were lost were only by a goal or two (there were a
couple of exceptions where they played badly and were beat by five
or more, but those teams were not in the top bracket). The last
game was a blowout for us, 9-0. It was pretty obvious after five
minutes when the ball had not been on our side of the field at all.
The second half the coach was trying to get all the kids to score.
Patrick, who didn't score much this year although had a ton of assists,
make a beautiful shot across the goal box and into the corner of the net.

Thomas's team did very well, and he is improving. He did goalie in
the last game, and let the game-winning goal in. I didn't think there
was much he could have done to prevent it short of tackling the kid.
April was a little unhappy with the coach because he threatened to
keep Thomas out when she was caught up at work and didn't get him
to the game until ten minutes before it started. The coach wants
them there thirty minutes to warm up and strategize. I agree with
her, it is not his fault if he is ready to go and has no transportation.

We are done for a few weeks, and I think we need the break. Patrick
is disappointed, but also happy to be home at night.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

From John's Blog

The results are no surprise to me, but I can tell who said what.
<table style="height: 202px; width: 500px; padding: 4px; border: 1px solid black; background: url(http://images.perturb.org/election/flag_background.jpg); color: black;"><tr><td><img src="http://images.perturb.org/election/obama.jpg" alt="Obama" style="border: 1px solid black; margin-right: 5px;" /></td><td><div style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 125%;">You preferred Obama's statements <b>78%</b> of the time<br />You preferred McCain's statements <b>22%</b> of the time<br /><br />Voting purely on the issues you should vote <b>Obama</b><br /><br />Who would <b>you</b> vote for if you voted on the issues?<br /><br />Find out <a href="http://www.perturb.org/election/" style="color: #001491;"><b>now</b></a>!</div></td></tr></table>

Saturday, October 11, 2008

RIP Smokey

Smokey the cat passed away last night. She has been very sick the last couple of weeks, and not eating much at all. I've been trying to hand feed her, but she has trouble swallowing. Yesterday, April found her on the floor randomly batting at the air. She snapped and growled at April, so we left her alone. This morning, she was gone.




Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Happy 50th NASA!

The National Aeronauntics and Space Administration has been around for a half century now.