KWY's move: Oy Vey...!
KWY mentioned that many people have helped him move over the years...once. I have the honor to be among a select few who have been there more than once...I have to admit that the previous move is still a blur...to much pain associated with the memories, I guess.

I started out the week of May 27 pretty normally. I get Mondays off now that we are on downtime at work. Of course, this also means I am working 10 hours per day during the remaining 4 days of the week. Our toilet backed up on the 28th. I think my little son may have tried to flush a hot wheels...
...then the cutoff valve for the toilet started to leak - badly...
...then the pipe attached to the cutoff valve downstairs ruptured while I was at work...

...that's 3 plumbing crises in a row, in a 24-hour period! Don't bad things ALWAYS come in threes?

The ruptured pipe was what decided me on taking the rest of the day off work and taking care of business. We can't afford a plumber, so I had to: 1).fix the ruptured pipe in order to: 2).turn the water back on in order to: 3).replace the cutoff valve in order to: 4).finish installing a replacement toilet. All told, we budgeted 200$ for the project, and ended up spending 100$. I found a discontinued bowl-and-tank set at Canadian tire for 95$, and the manager was nice enough to knock off 25$ more because the bowl and tank were "mismatched; one is bone white and the other is china white". I didn't ask which was which; and frankly, I don't think he knew - I certainly couldn't tell the difference! Old toilet wasn't just plugged, its base was broken and the closet flange hadn't even been bolted to the floor! Not sad to see it go. Still don't know what got jammed in there, and I have no interest in finding out.

According to my Reader's Digest Big Book of DIY, the ruptured pipe could be fixed with something called a Saddle Clamp. I was unable to persuade anyone at Home Depot to find me one ("look, you just cut out the damaged section and replace it with a section of PVC and two couplings"), and our little Home Hardware at the foot of the street didn't have one in stock. I had to chainsaw my way thru the bathroom wall downstairs (literally) to get to the pipe. I improvised a saddle clamp using a piece of industrial-grade garden hose and three standard 1/2 inch hose clamps. Spent two hours standing in the wash sink in our Laundry Room fiddling with that pipe (can't move the wash sink - it's concrete!) before I finally got it clear and applied the fix. The cutoff valve was easy by comparison, and the toilet gave me hardly any trouble at all - except that it is TALLER than the old one and I had to rush out to Home Depot at 9pm to buy a new PVC fill pipe for the tank. I could have bought a toilet seal kit with one of those super-flexible fill hoses with the woven SS sheath included, but NOoooo, I had to save a couple of bucks! Next time out I got smart...more on that in a minute.

Back to the Move...

Did a full 10 hour shift on friday, then over to KWY's after I showered and changed. I had psyched myself for an all-nighter...KWY had rented the largest van available, but owing to demand, had to take a "less than perfect" example. Typical of KWY's philosophy, he had reserved TWO vans at two different rental outfits. Ryder lost his reservation, and Uhaul had what I came to describe as a "25 ton brick". That truck was a deathtrap: clutch was shot, engine ran poorly, and the entire front end was so badly misaligned that the LH corner of both front wheels had been worn smooth. Fortunately, we didn't get the load-up finished until midnight, so dribbling that heap down hwy 1 to clearbrook Rd at barely 70kph wasn't TOO much trouble. I personally believe we were under Divine Protection. We still had a pickup truck's worth of stuff to go, as well...

We spent until 2am getting the majority of the stuff off the Uhaul before calling it quits. KWY and I borrowed mark's truck and returned for the rest of his worldly goods. We had a pickup truck worth of stuff to load, but Mark's ford is only 1/2 a pickup...it's a pick?
SO: we had one more trip to make...this realization came at 3am. We needed sleep, so I set the internal clock for 1/2 hour, and slept right thru it...we got up again at 4:15am. Got the majority of the remaining stuff packed and (half!) loaded in the pickup. Got back to clearbrook and unloaded. It is now pushing 8am. Went BACK to KWY's old place and finished up loading (except old hardware - no room left and didn't feel like moving it...). KWY's landlord shows up (having informed him that new tenants wish to begin moving in at 9AM!!!) and demands that he (we!) clean up the place. KWY had no intention of doing so originally - he had basically already kissed his damage deposit goodbye; but it was kind of hard not to do SOMETHING with LL and wife standing there. I got the last load out to the truck whilst KWY ran around like a (VERY TIRED!) mad fiend and tried to police up all the remaining junk in the suite. Meanwhile, KWY's loading crew at the other end had showed up at 10AM to offload a new fridge and continue emptying the Uhaul...which was locked. It became a real phone tag marathon while KWY tried to A) convince mark to keep the guys around at his new place in order to be there when he finally arrived with the key to the Uhaul and, B) track down his real estate agent, who was transporting the fridge, and dropping off the keys at 10am, as well. All the while LL and wife are dogging his steps, trying to explain how very hurt they are that he didn't clean up, and how they have to leave right away to pick someone up at the airport...the new tenant, I think. We finally got out of there at 10:30am; or rather, KWY did, I went home! The rest I got secondhand from KWY later: the offload went OK, the 25-Ton Brick got returned to Uhaul on time, and KWY managed to hold off physical collapse for a grand total 36 HOURS to get the move accomplished. His Lady Fair, the lovely Leona, picked him up at Uhaul and they schlepped the rest of his stuff (stacked neatly on the back patio) up to clearbrook.

Final note: I have to convince KWY to reactivate his ICQ, and get a ICQphone link going...I ain't gonna keep calling long distance to clearbrook just to talk to him.

This brings us to Monday, and grandpa, apparently impressed by my plumbing savvy, asked me to fix the leaking faucet in his kitchen. It was an old Delta knockoff, and I got a kit of parts from Home Hardware (took the kids out for a stroll down to the HH and we got some ice cream on the way back) and set to...didn't work. There was NO WAY that ball assembly was coming apart, the sucker was fused solid. So grandpa suggested "how about a new faucet set?" I was SO in favor of that plan. Called down and was informed that HH had a nice Moen set for a good price, so grandpa hopped on his scooter and went down to pick it up. Install was a breeze, grandpa was nice enough to include two of those wonderful flex hoses for the taps - I am SERIOUSLY contemplating buying those as replacements for the supply hoses on all our fixtures. Needed to make the holes for the connectors slightly bigger - no prob, a little work with a jigsaw and a cylinder rasp got it done. New faucet may outlast grandpa...

Final item of note: Laurie and I and the kids...all attended church together. More on that later, if there is anything at all to say...