29-I-2006.
So we redid the little bathroom downstairs. The walls are now sky blue, the basin cabinet is gone, the old crapper is gone, the floor tiles are replaced, actually tiled over, and the new basin even has a leg to stand on. Its valves gave us some trouble, as the old one had pipes that extended too far, so we had to cut them and solder the new valves to them, which was a nasty piece of work to do in that corner, but we did it. The other trouble was the basin stopper mechanism, which we had to maneuver in the narrow and nearly unreachable space under it, but eventually did that too.
To repair that, we had to buy another special tool - the water main worker's street valve wrench. It's just a T made of 12mm rebar, with a upside down U on the business end, which you lower into the pit with your water meter, and turn the main valve. Because we couldn't find any kind of main valve in the house, so street valve it is. Luckily, there wasn't any kind of lock there, nor was this wrench expensive, I think it was below 10$.
Also hung some small cabinet on a piece of wall next to the heater, though it's never enough. Upstairs we at least had that over-the-crapper shelf, so all the bottles (as usual, six conditioners to one shampoo) would fit there and there was no space for them behind the tub curtain.
On this shot, made eight days ago, the pipes are still full length, we didn't cut them but rather connected the faucet like this, so we could open the street valve. The paint and the tiles are already done, not grouted yet. The grout for the floor will be about the same blue as the walls.
Seeing how the faucet casts blueish shadow on the floor... it means the light was the neon pipe swirl, which I put wherever a hot bulb died. Not that the electricity is much of a cost, it's cheaper than at home, it's the color of the light that's better for photos and I like it, and the saving* isn't negligible. Besides, the hot bulbs are now made in China, and don't last even close to what they once did.
Eh, why don't they start selling leds already. There in the chinese bus the aisle is lit with those milky (ergo azurewhite) leds, shining bright and in a nice tone and consumes a pittance. Also in the Newcy they replaced all the traffic lights with leds a couple of years ago, and said the investment will pay off now already, just on the saved power.
David and I decided to install a chatterbox capable of carrying voice. So far we used something lightweight, now whether it was AOL's thingy or something else, fuck me if. But for voice he'd just pick up the phone and we'd go on for an hour or two. Then, it seems, Jüzek noticed the size of the [phone] bill so my idea of year and a half ago, that he should get a mike, finally was remembered. Actually, he's got a laptop, it has a mike already. We tried a few things, even Skype, but none of that was ready to use, each had its hiccups this way or other. Not to mention the webcam, that never did a video conference, save for that one demo on the day I got it (when NetMeeting somehow worked between two offices). We settled for gTalk, Gugao built it solidly enough, it got the job done.
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* you can't get me to say 'a savings', even 'a crosroads' sounds silly to me. Or silly me, thinking that 'indefinite article doesn't apply to plural' (because it means 'one' anyway) is a rule.
Mentions: David Krakovski, Gugao, Yisaac Kwiatnik (Jüzek), in serbian
1-XI-2023 - 31-VII-2025