A year or so ago, our tub backed up. Tub drains have always clogged for me, so I use a drain cover to catch the hairs before they head down the drain and cause problems. Kris is annoyed by the tub trap, mostly because it already has my hair in it, though it does have some of his, too. He usually kicks it away, and lets the shower drain normally instead of blocked by whatever hair was in the trap from my shower (even though I'm pretty good about keeping it clear, less good about putting the hair any place but the side of the tub).

We called the plumber, one who had been out before to fix the our fountaining toliet, but he didn't have any luck fixing the tub's draining, so we dealt with the problem was best we could: shorter showers, horrible chemicals down the drain much too frequently for my tastes, easier but less effective enzymes down the drain also too frequently. Nothing much was helping, and the backups were getting worse.

Today, when the cleaners came over, I mentioned the tub wasn't draining, so don't fill it up too much before cleaning, otherwise it won't drain. "Not draining?" the one in charge asked. "I'll fix it," he said, and went to work.

After a short while, when he sighed in exasperation and I heard it two rooms over, I explained that the last time the backup was this bad, we called a plumber. He, too, was unable to clear the drain because he was unable to put a snake in the pipes. The trap in the tub was old enough (the original on the house, we think) that it wouldn't allow a snake down it. "Oh? The trap? Do you want it replaced?"

"Uh..."

*blink*

"How much?"

"Three hundred dollars."

Okay. $300 and the snake will fit and I can shower without standing in 3" of water? Okay, sure.

So, he's coming tomorrow morning early to fix the plumbing. Great.

Kris and I went off for dinner with Mike and Liza and Maeryn (fun time that!), and returned to find a note from the cleaner in charge, please call.

So, I call to talk to him. No, he's not going to bring over the shower hardware, so I'll need to purchase a new set. Okay, I'll go out to get it. Oh, and the full cost is going to be $1200.

Huh?

Well, turns out to replace the trap, drain and showerhead, the wall needs to be opened up. Once that happens, the pipes can be replaced and the fixtures put in place. Then, when all of that is done, they can snake the pipes and clean them out. Voila!

The time estimate is about 6 hours, can they start at 7:30?

7:30 am? Ugh.

I asked Kris what he thought. Well, the last plumber quoted us $2000 to do the same work: replace the trap and clean out the pipes so that everything drains properly. He tried the snake through the drain without success, through the trap without success, down the roof cleanout without success and through the ground level trap without success. The longer we go without fixing this problem, the more expensive the fix is going to be.

But your decision.

Well, 7:30 am, six hours, $1200. I'm hosting another Master Gardener website sprint tomorrow. Done by 1:30, they don't arrive until 10, should be okay.

Okay, so, there are two Ds in my last name. Sure, there could be zero if I take Kris' last name. I plan on doing that some day Real Soon™, but as my middle name, and not as my last name.

Which keeps my last name the same. Which is why you're here, and not at http://kitt.mcqueen.some-random-top-level-domain/ Wouldn't that be just so much fun to fix all of those URLs?

Yeah.

No.

So, here we go. H. O. D as in David. S as in Sam. Another D. E. N as in Nancy. That's how I spell my name over the phone. H-O-D-S-D-E-N.

Not Hodsen (though I do have hodsen.org registered... and .com, and .net for that matter).

Not Hudson.

Not Hodgsen.

Not Hodson.

Yeah, I'm told Hoddson is a Viking name. How cool would that be?

Though, I think I'm a den, and not a son.

*shrug*

Okay, and another thing. Cybersquatting on hodsden domain names, and trying to get money out of them from me? Doesn't work. I don't care about the other hodsden domain names. I have the holy hodsden trinity (.com, .org, and .net), as well as the bastard hodsen trinity (.com, .org, and .net), so I really don't care about the 247 other domain name suffixes. Take your hodsden dot whatever and waste your $34 dollars. Go put porn on it or something. I don't care. I'm not paying you $1000 for its return. If I have $1000 to spend on a domain name, I assure you, it wouldn't be for the one you're offering.

Yeah.

And 2 Ds.

I notice you don't have the one with only one D.

Didn't want to go sprinting tonight. I so way wanted to just take a nap. Bella, however, spent the 10 minutes I tried to doze chirping at me in the ever-so-annoying I'm-not-really-barking beagle sort of way, so napping was out of the question.

Brought my cleats and ran the second sprint workout:

1 stinker
2 stinkettes
3 suicides

My times were: 1:10 for the stinker, 1:20 and 1:25 for the stinkettes, and :45, :45 and :43 for the suicides.

I've gotten slow in my old age.

Kris says it's not about how tired you are during the workout ("You're SUPPOSED to get tired!"), but how quickly you recover. If so, I'm doing the workouts right, because I was tired. Everyone with his dog was looking at me funny, too. Why, oh, why are you running these sprints?

A few years ago, Sam came out to visit me. Honestly, I've lost a year, because I thought he visited me two summers ago, but the blog says 2005, and the blog never lies. Well, that's not true either, so the blog was lying there. It mostly speaks the truth, and it matches well with the photo time stamps, so, there we go. 2005.

The following year, I stayed in Phoenix with Sam, to spend my week with him in Mom and Jackson's company. That was a disaster, since the two of them are thick as thieves and never seemed to form separate identities when the other is close by. That, and I had other personal issues I was trying to deal with at the time, that prevented me from being able to take care of him in California.

I have no idea what happened last year. I think maybe the grandparents trumped the aunt last year.

This year, though, Sam is heading on out, and I have the free Southwest ticket to prove it, since it'll cost me enough to fly him out. I think he's old enough to fly out as an unaccompanied minor, but his parents are freaked out by this prospect, so I'm flying out to get him, flying back the next day with him, flying back at the end of the week, then back home again. Phew! Lots of flying. Too much flying.

So, what do we have planned this year?

In no particular order, we're going to

• figure out a Father's Day present for Chris
• learn to program using Alice
• learn to throw a disc, maybe learn to play ultimate
• ride bikes, if I can find one for Sam
• go on a hike, or two
• garden, like we did last time he was here
• cook, or at least bake
• walk the dogs
• swim
• and Great America! Because Sam loves coasters now. Booyah!

How we're going to manage all of that in three, maybe four days, I have no idea. We might have to remove one or two from the list, depending on how interested he is in some of those.

For the programming part, oof, might be biting off more than I can chew on that one. Having seen Randy Pausch's Last Lecture video (of course, you've seen it, right? of course you have), I took a second look at Alice, and decided, well, we'd give it a try. The idea of teaching programming through storytelling is compelling, but will an 8 year old be able to learn it? I think so.

Besides, how cool would it be to say, "I started programming when I was 8." ? I mean, really! I can't say that, though I can say I started programming in the 8th grade. Might have been the 7th. I don't recall. Jessica, can you help me out here? When did I have Mr. Osborne for math?

So, we'll try the programming lessons. Of course, this means that I'll need to take time to learn Alice before helping him along. I bought a book, which should help, but, gee, finding the time? Right. Focus.

Time, and the right computer. I suspect the program is a Windows program. I doubt it'll work on my Linux box. Maybe on my MBP, but, well, do I really want Sam using my laptop? Nah.

As for cooking, Mom suggested making waffles, ice cream and cupcakes: lots of stirring and putting stuff into the fridge, less so chopping and the like.

Maybe we'll make bread, too. Oh! And something that uses the food processor. That'll be fun: using the kitchen power tools.

I'm looking forward to the visit, though, very much so. I wonder where I can find a couple kids to practice with...

My family used to play tile rummy for hours on Sundays over at Grandma's house. Hours. Hours and hours.

I had totally forgotten that fact, as well as how to play, when BJ brought the game to Mom's for Chris' birthday.

I remembered fairly quickly, and now we, too, have our own set. Yay!