I would like to announce that, over the weekend, Leah and I had an imaginary child. The pregnancy was short and the labour was shorter. All-in-all, it was a pleasant experience. We decided on a beautiful name for our imaginary child: 10-hour-sleep. She’s such a little darling.
(That joke was stolen and modified from Patton Oswalt.)
Also, when the time comes for me to explain to 10-hour-sleep where she came from I will show her this video.
(via BoingBoing)
My feet are getting smaller or rather my global footprint is. I have written about this before. A couple of weeks ago, on the City of Calgary’s Twitter account, they mentioned their toilet rebate/reward program. Our (at least) 20 year old toilets, which were (at the very least) 13 litre flush, but more likely 20L, had seen better days and really just needed to be replaced. I had done a few things to fix them, but it was simply time. Plus, there’s rewards to be gotten! This was all part of our bathroom renovation day.
The City of Calgary will give you $50 per toilet that you replace with a lowflow or lowflush 6 litre (6 Lpf) toilet (maximum of three toilets).
Roughly translated from beareaucratic nonsense—smash the hell out of it. Brendan (though not actually helpful) and I went to the dump. Last time I went to a dump, you actually drove up and into the dump. But this was a much cleaner experience. We just drove up to some bins that later, when full, would be driven to the dump. What this really means is that we got to drop toilets from about 10 feet up.
Dropping a toilet and watching it smash from ten feet was really, really enjoyable. I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. You cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udun. Go back to the Shadow! You cannot pass. In other words, it was epic.
Though, on second thought, probably not Gandalf epic.
We bought the toilets from Rona. They were $139 (on sale) each (for the full toilet). They were Rona brand toilets, but in truth they are actually made by Foremost. Which was a bit of a headache, because on the City of Calgary website’s list of eligible there is a whole section devoted to Home Depot, but not Rona. So I had to actually go back to Rona and ask who made the toilet and then they showed me (after waiting for 45 minutes someone to come back from their 15 coffee break) it was made by Foremost. In the Foremost section there is the listing for Rona’s toilet.
Installing a toilet is actually really easy (when you have my Dad’s help and probably even if you don’t). I’d say it’s best to have two people. I thought this would be a ton of work, but really it took about a half hour. Nothing to it. Basically just put the wax seal on the bottom, line the bolts up on the bottom, pressed down, screw on and put the rest together. Turn on the water and your done.
Probably the biggest tip is to not to tighten too much. If it’s leaking from the tank, just slowly tighten it more until the leak stops. Slow and easy wins the race.
I learned later that you don’t actually get a cheque. The money is taken off your Enmax bill. Which is fine. But money is way cooler. I filled out the application and am mailing it today. Hopefully we’ll get that money back soon. The rebates will almost pay for one of the toilets and over the next year or two the water savings should completely pay for them. Plus, the new toilets are insulated so they won’t sweat and they fill faster and make a lot less noise. All-in-all, this is a real win—for us, our utility bill and the environment.
What kind of projects do you have on the go?
My last buzz cut picture was a bit too serious—they say. So there’s a silly one for you. I guess this might be the week of rejuvenating the blog (which hasn’t seen this much activity in a long time) and also the week of loving myself a little too much. This was taken about halfway through the buzz cut when Leah thought she would try to cut my hair proper instead of a buzz. That bowl cut you see there is her example of what a fade would look like to a blind person.
And yes, for those wondering, I always have Leah buzz me in the nude.
I re-added a related posts plugin (YARPP) because it’s a good way to find old posts and ultimately make you even more addicted to my blog and THEN I WILL RULE THE WORLD. However, it also provides me with a vehicle to find old posts and re-read them and realize that I am a moron—not the cool kind. After, almost, 3 years of blogging it was only a matter of time before I wrote something I am embarrassed by.
You know what my problem is? Don’t answer that. Let me tell you what my perceived problem is—I am a man with a boy’s mind. I actually have no real problem with being a child at heart, if you will allow me that cliche. I respect and nurture the imagination, dreams and reasoning of a child-like mind. Yes, yes—it’s all very romantic.
The problems lies not in having a child-like mind, but—as a man—living up to all the thoughts of a child. I don’t know why, but this memory just popped into my head. I think in grade 3, we were having some kind of class room contest of who could think of words that are one word, but actually two words—like onto, into, etc (I actually can’t think of others). And I said “GOTO!” The teacher paused and said Good one, Rhett! But that’s not actually correct. It’s go to. And some smarter (anal retentive jerk 8 year olds) students protested, as children do when injustice occurs (no matter how small). But the teacher reaffirmed that I was correct. No need to crush the dreams of an 8 year old, I am sure she thought.
(Funny side story, I ended up working (later in life) with the daughters of my third grade teacher (and they were pretty cute.))
Why did I tell you that memory? Because that sort of error is allowable when you are 8. But that shit would not fly now. When you are 8, you can believe you will be a fireman and no one will question that. When you are 26 you have to deal with how difficult it actually is to be a fireman. And that sucks.
So my problem is that in my child-like mind I have a lot of beliefs of what it’s like to be a man (person)—honouarble, integrity, trustworthy, caring, brave, etc—and now, as a man, having to actually live up to those traits and it’s a lot harder than I thought.
And this serves as anecdotal evidence to why people give up their child-like minds in lieu of poisonous modernist/scientific thought—because it’s just so depressing when you don’t live up to what you believe you are. Well, and I think my flow of thought is highly suspect here, I don’t plan on giving up on who I am or want to be, but it’s just a lot harder than I ever imagined. Is all that too obvious? It wasn’t to me.
If you have physically visited the site (meaning leaving your RSS reader) than you have noticed I changed themes again. There is a live redesign project going on that will be occurring over the next while (could be a few months). I am working with a friend who is a designer. Once it’s generally complete, I will comment on all the changes. If you have any questions or concerns let me know.
