From start to stop.

Unpacking to lighting the pilot.

(I decided to install the water heater myself….I am both too cheap to pay someone $600 for a 2 or three hour job, and I think every man should be able to do such a task himself….It’s part of being a man, after all) Plus no one was interested in coming out until Monday….And I wanted a hot shower.

Wasn’t the hardest water heater change I ever did, but not the easiest one either.

Retrofitting from a 1972 34 gallon unit to a much larger diameter 40 gallon unit. Of course, NOTHING lined up right, so there was that. But not too bad. (They don’t even MAKE 34 gallon units today)

‘Twas fun, if you like that sort of fun….

All in all, it wasn’t that bad. This wasn’t just fitting a new one where everything lined up like the old one…., None of the water lines (or gas lines) lined up. Apparently they did things slightly differently in 1972 vs today. And the threaded connections weren’t gonna turn after 50 years.

I hadn’t done a water heater at all in 10 years or so. Never one that old. (I knew it was coming, it is 54 years old after all. It wasn’t a matter of if it failed, but rather, when…..Borrowed time and all that. Seldom does a water heater last more than 10 years around here. I always expected (Like every day for the past 20 years) to find the thing leaking on the floor someday…but until now it was perfect…Rheem apparently made ’em really good in 1972.

MC did hand me tools. Which helped. I did cheat and used a SharkBite connector for the new cold side water valve. Too lazy to sweat (or use compression fitting) a new one in. Old copper can sometimes be a bitch to solder with newer solders.

I hated to lose the old one though: 20 years ago the gas valve died and I had just changed a leaking water heater in a restaruant…one that had a 75 gallon per hour recovery rate. I put that bigger burner in the old Rheem and it worked well, recovering almost faster than I could use it

It lasted until yesterday, essentially giving me unlimited hot water.

End of an era and all that.

First the well tank, then this:

Yeah, the 1972 water heater finally sprung a leak. I guess the deflation and inflation from having the well taken offline to replace the pressure tank was the final straw….Plus the well guy put in a new pressure switch that ran from 40-60 PSI rather than the original pressure switch that went from 30-50, so maybe the extra 10 lbs of pressure just overcame the tank (that was 54 years old after all). (I turned the pressure down down, but only after a day of having the higher pressure before I noticed…..)

Either way, more work for me…. I am sorta debating if I want to change it myself or pay someone to do it. The cheap part of me says do it myself (and it isn’t manly to let someone else do it), but the more practical part points out that I can afford to pay someone to do it and this isn’t gonna be an easy replacement as NOTHING is the same size or shape as the old heater.  Different diameter, different height, different height for the gas valve and the water inlet, different size vent pipe, etc.

I dunno.

Maybe I will just take cold showers from now on…..

But not for Democratic Socialists.

I mean, Grifters like her gotta grift. It’s part of what makes them Socialists. after all….they want to make sure that someone pays for things, just not them.

Florida Democratic Senate nominee Angie Nixon, an avowed Democratic Socialist who owns two homes and raked in at least $270,000 from her jobs and investments last year—in addition to her husband’s unpublished income—is lamenting the injustice of having to pay taxes on her outsized income.

(She owes $14,000 in unpaid taxes to the IRS on top of $17,600 in unpaid federal student loans…at least).

Are there any socialists who aren’t hypocrites?

On Speed Racers car?

What letter was on the hood?

Do ya know without Google?

I just haven’t got the time to do a decent one.

I’ll try for next week.

Among other issues, I lost the well pressure tank which flooded the basement floor, and hadda have the tractor fixd.

It’s been kinda bizzy

It’s been a worry for men forever, but now she might get away with it….

So this weekend, I took MC for a trip to her favorite RenFair.

In Shakopee, Minnesota.

We took another young pilot who needed twin time for his career track, so he got some loggable twin time for free….

The trip up was fun, although the headwinds were killer, like 50 knots  almost perfectly against us..

The weather was pretty nice other than the winds. While I filed an IFR flight plan, we didn’t pick it up until after we were past the Chicago Class Bravo airspace, as we would have gotten routed WAY southwest before turning back northwest to avoid arrivals to Midway (MDW)…Instead we departed Visual then picked up the clearance in the air. Saved us 20 minutes and 50 miles

ATC , once we were clear of the Chicago airspace, was pleasant and helpful….THey vectored us directly to our airport,, and handed us off to the tower.

We got to the airport, landed, taxiied, parked, called an Uber, and arrived at the Faire. .

Lots of people. Lots and lots and lots of people.

The crowd, being Like Ivory Soap (99.44% ) was well behaved. No fights, no cursing, no shoving, cooperative with staff,.

They even queued up in lines to enter the gates and didn’t cut, didn’t push, stayed in their lines and were patient

Funny how mostly european ancestered people behave, Unlike other demographics.  They even stood in line for food and behaved. Not the sort of behavior one sees on the South Side of Chicago…if you get my drift.

SHe had a great time, and before long, it was time to go. Off we went back to the airport, where I bought fuel and preflighted, paid the fuel bill, and we filed for home.

I filed Direct, but got the Zumbro seven departure, then Brave, then JOT then direct…but halfway to Brave ATC gave us “Direct Destination”.. which I knew wouldn’t happen because that took us directly through the center of the Chicago Class Bravo airspace.

Soo enough though, we were climbing to 15,000 ft and then leveled off with a great tailwind:

En-route we flew over a power plant near Freeport Illinois (I have no idea what kind, but obviously thermal and steam)) spewing lots of water vapor into the air, helping Glowbal Warming and all that….

And before long we were, as usual, trying to get lower altitudes out of Chicago ATC so we weren’t diving at 2000 ft per minute at the end of our flight to get to the airport…..

The landing was smooth, if harder firmer than I like to do, but then again, I hadn’t flown much the past month what with the plane  being at Witchita to have the autopilot fixed (Still not fixt) and me being busy…Flying , and especially landing, is like shooting: A perishable skill.

Anyway, we had fun.

For AI?

Even the CEO’s of the companies creating Artificial Intelligence are becoming wary of them.

But they won’t stop the development of the AI models though…

One wonders if this is the impetus for the insane rate of buildout of ‘Data Centers”. Ai’s need the processing power and a place to reside…..

Thing is, even if the US developers stopped today, the Europeans and the Chinese are gonna keep on going down the path.

So, what caliber for AI?

There on the right walking away….

felt that Ms Clancy should be found innocent.

So: A question:

If a man has Issues, say too much testosterone, and consequently goes nuts and rapes and/or kills 3 women in a psychotic rage…., would they let him off? Would they want him released into society?

How about if he had killed children, be they his own or others?

It is, after all, just hormones affecting his judgement….Right?

Right?

Of course, few men would find him innocent based on that defense, but then again, we think logically, rather than just emote. We’d likely want him locked up or put down like a rabid dog.

And how about if MS Clancy had instead killed a bunch of other women’s children in her (supposedly) psychotic episode. Or a bunch of puppies or kittens?

I think that if that were the case then the other women in our society might look at her differently.

Then again, maybe not, a significant portion of women in the US need mental help.

(‘Tis said that over 60% of modern women in the US are on some sort of mental health medicine ….Which really means that 40% are running around in our society un-medicated. )