Last night I drained the water heater.
Having discovered on a previous occasion that the drain tube gets blocked with rust when it hasn't been drained in a while, I had left a piece of coat hangar wire nearby, so I was able to jam it into the tube and uncork it. I had to do it several times, but over the course of perhaps three hours I sat in my rocking chair and read manga (Saki, about girls' mahjongg competitions) and would occasionally check up on the status of the task at hand. Finally it finished draining around 1:30-ish. I blasted some water into the tank, and let that drain again, and then the water was coming out pink, but once it was finished draining entirely (and further probing with the wire produced no more flow) I went to cap it off and refill it.
I did find that with the valve off and the wire in the pipe I'd get much better flow, but of course it would gush all over the floor rather than drain neatly into the sump. Maybe I should think about getting one of those floor pans and arrange a hose.
It took a long time to fill--so long that I thought a pipe had burst or something, so I spent some time looking around for gushing water, but found none. Opened taps upstairs to let air out of the hot side, and the bathroom faucet blew air for a long time before it started coughing out water. The bathtub, too; and after water made it to the faucets it came out looking like cola, at first.
Anyway, at 2 AM with the heater filled and the system purged of air, I went to bed, pretty well plum tuckered. The only reason I got up earlier today was due to hydraulic pressure (positive and negative).
Can, PBJ, surf, tired, back to bed around 12:30.
Mrs. Fungus woke me up wanting to go out in Buttercup, so I stirred my stumps and put myself together. Went out to the garage, put in the key, tried to start. Glurph furph.
Got the thing started but could only keep it running with my foot on the gas, and it wasn't running all that well.
Finally looked at the fuel filter. Yesterday, while the car was running, there was fuel in it. Nothing today, not even after the engine had been running. Opened the fuel fill, bounced the rear end up and down--heard nothing, no sloshing at all.
Hmm.
Figuring it was out of gas I was going to have Mrs. Fungus drive me to the gas station with the 5 gallon can, and I'd put it into the car and see if that made a difference, only her car wasn't running right, and we got perhaps two blocks from home and the "check engine" light started flashing. Had her turn around and go home again.
Got my tablet and plugged the OBDII gizmo in, checked the codes: Cylinder B misfire. I restarted the car and it was clearly not firing on all four, though it wasn't as bad as it had been a few minutes earlier.
Said bad words. However, I bought a four-pack of coils, so let's see if replacing the coil (AGAIN) will make a difference.
It did. Started up and ran smooth as you please.
...but rain clouds had gathered and it was fixing to rain, so we took the Jeep and went for Brown's Chicken, specifically because they have delicous corn fritters. It rained pretty heavily as we drove there, but not for too long.
Out of corn fritters.
Got chicken, went home, ate chicken, watched the last two eps of Tales From the Loop. Good eps, very nicely done, really hope there will be more of it.
Went to the Cone Cottage for ice cream. Mrs. Fungus wanted a slushie as well as her usual; I was originally set on a hot fudge sundae but decided I'd just go for my usual orange-flavored vanilla "Cottage Cone", which tastes deliciously like a Dreamsicle.
The orange slushie was terrible.
*sigh*
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This blockquote is written by someone who gets it, 100%, even though he's not a Christian.
You don't win here on Earth by getting rich or powerful. You don't win by controlling those around you. You don't win by winning wars or shootouts or debates. That is precisely how you LOSE. You win by separating yourself as far as possible from these corrupt governors and governments. You win by refusing to let them corrupt you.You win by being in the world, not of the world. And it's one of the hardest things to do, precisely because it's so worthwhile.
* * *
This is related to that last bit.
What you've got, when it comes right down to it, is a whole bunch of utter narcissists who feel no need to even try to rein it in. Forget the DSM, since it's written by a bunch of simpering SJWs. The Last Psychiatrist's definition is the real one: the unshakable inner certainty that life is a movie, and you’re the star.That really sums it up, I think.
What you're seeing in Seattle, in Minneapolis, in Atlanta, and everywhere else, is classic narcissistic injury. The one thing a narcissist can't abide is the suggestion that he's not the star of the Movie of Life. They don't hate the guys on the statues they're tearing down. They honestly have no fucking idea who any of those people were[.]
What they really hate is accomplishment.
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Ultimately, "renewable" energy is going to be seen as pure snake oil. Virginia's "green power" plan requires an offshore windmill farm rated at 5 GW of capacity. Which is merely one-third of the world's total rated capacity of wind installations.
Eight hundred windmills, each about 750 feet tall, costing around $15 billion to install. Thirty miles out in the ocean.
And by the way? Remember to divide the rated capacity by five to get the real-world output of the wind farm. All that for 1 GW of power.
About what one good nuclear plant can pump out 24/7 with complete reliability and safety, cleaner than any windmill or solar plant will ever be.
* * *
Other than the rain it was a pretty pleasant weekend, though on the warm side.
* * *
So, that Mustang--
I have two problems with it. First it looks as if it's not got any fuel in it, which I can fix with a trip to the gas station. The second is a bit more cantankerous.
The starter is a geared type, the "hi-torque" ones used for performance engines. I don't know what the compression ratio is on this engine, since it's been modified, but I'm wondering if it really needs the trick starter or could it get by with a standard one?
Because it did today what freaked me out yesterday: kinda-sorta cranked, but in a weird fashion, as if the cam was out of phase with the crank. I replaced the timing belt in the green Escort in 200x, and accidentally got the timing 180° out of phase; when I tried to start it, the starter whined but I could tell there was no compression. (And, thank GOD that car didn't have an interference engine!) This sounds like that, sort of; it doesn't have the same unloaded sound but it certainly does not sound like it's cranking, either.
My best guess, right now, is that the starter gear isn't being pushed into contact with the flywheel, but the motor is turning the gear reduction train that makes it "hi-torque", and that's what I'm hearing. If that's the problem, it's not too difficult to fix, and in the worse case I'll just get a new starter.
The engine is a 289 with 302 heads, so it's a bit of a mutant, but "small block Ford" ought to get us into the ballpark.
Once I get this fixed--once I know I can go into the garage and turn the key and start the thing without fighting it--I'm taking it to a shop to get the carb adjusted correctly, so that I won't have to warm it up for five minutes before I go anywhere.
And since I'm not going to massage the Jeep, guess what car gets worked on next? *sigh*
One of the things that needs fixing soonest is the fricking gas gauge, so I can see how much is in the damned tank!