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Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2002 - 7:56 p.m. Two bad things happened this morning as Lease and I woke up: 1.The alarm clock didn�t go off. Well, that�s not entirely true; we have a clock radio, and if the volume isn�t turned up you don�t know it went off. That�s what happened to us this morning. Somehow the sound was completely off. The only reason why I woke up was because (not BecaSue- inside joke for faithnomore ) Lease woke me up. She was a little frantic, being that it was already an hour after her usual time. She said the sunlight coming through our south window woke her up. The only way she would make it on time was with a little help. I picked up the laundry basket and headed downstairs to make her coffee. You thought that was the worst thing to happen this morning? Not even close. 2.It was a little cold in the house, and even colder downstairs. I just figured somebody had turned the thermostat down too much, and I went over to reset it. The heat was set for 70�. The room temperature was 58�. Uh oh�.. I went down to the basement to see if the circuit was tripped. It wasn�t. I turned the breaker off, and then back on, to see if that would do anything. The fan started running, the igniter (or glow plug, or whatever it�s called) clicked, turning it glowing orange. And then�nothing. It turned itself back off. This had happened one other time about 2 years ago. My furnace repairman came over that time, replaced the igniter, charged my about $50, and we were back in business. After calling work and wasting a vacation day, I called the furnace people up and asked for another service call. They had a man here (Shannon) in less than 30 minutes. He took the cover off the front, hit a reset button I didn�t know about, and then turned the breaker back on. It fired right up, and this time the flame started, sending warmth through the house. Good deal. Without any parts, this call would only set me back around $40! Not so quick, Mr. Pig. He pointed out to me the fact that the middle burner was burning orange, not the pretty blue it was suppose to be. Then he dropped the bombshell on me: THE HEAT EXCHANGER WAS DAMAGED, AND WOULD NEED TO BE REPLACED! LIKE, NOW! OR AS SOON AS POSSIBLE! �How much would that cost?�, I asked fearing the worst. The exchanger had a 20-year warranty, so it would be free. The labor? Two men at about 4 hours each x $45 an hour each= TOO DAMN MUCH FOR THIS JUNK FURNACE! It is only 7 years old! I bought it new, before we even fired the old converted cast iron coal stove/ converted to a gas burner that came with our house. (here is the lesson, younguns�:) Don�t try to save money by having �friends � do the work, instead of a reputable firm�. It was installed by a friend of one of my coworkers. He had done the same for several of my other coworkers, and everybody had been satisfied with his work. Since he could install ours for about $300 less than any estimate I could find, I went with him, too. I helped him drag the old furnace up the stairs, I ran a couple of errands for him (for supplies he needed) while he worked, and I thought I had saved the Roadiepig household a nice chunk of change. About 5 months after he �did� us, he went into drug rehab for a nasty cocaine habit he had acquired a few months before he �did� us. The furnace he bought us wasn�t as good as the ones he had installed in my coworker�s houses. Turns out the brand he bought us was the cheapest furnace on the market. Hum, you think he needed a little extra money around the time he �did� us, and substituted brands to feed his habit? No shit, Roadiepig! In the 6 years we have had it, we have had three things break: the igniter, a computer motherboard (only $300! And just before Christmas a few years ago! Merry fuckin� Christmas!), and now this major malfunction. I asked the service man to send his company�s estimator over to price us a new unit. I am not sinking another penny into that dead horse. Since our Ac/heat system has a 10-year-old Lennox� AC compressor, I don�t need to replace it just yet. The compressor coils running from the outside to the furnace are from the older AC (the one from before the Lennox�) and need to be replaced due to age and the possibility of leakage. $2380 for everything. Last year, it was the waterbed rupturing a few days before Thanksgiving. Replacing the bed with a standard mattress set us back close to $1000. No Christmas gifts to speak of because of that. Now? I will get a 6-month note, and hope the snow decides to fall this winter. If not- money will be very tight for the next 6 months��.. Once all that was done, I went fishing. Nothing like a few hours in late-fall sunlight to improve my mood. I went for White bass, but they didn�t cooperate. Everything was just right: wind from the southwest at about 10 mph, warmer than normal temps, and a cold front ready to push through later tonight. Somebody forgot to tell the White bass, though. I only caught one (a nice one though, and two small Yellow bass) at my usual spot. Since my time was limited by an ever-earlier sunset, I packed my tackle up and headed to the Big Bridge, hoping to pick up a few Bluegills. I tried my typical fall methods, and I caught only one fish. He hit very close to the bank, right as I was picking my lures out of the water. Since the wind was hitting the side I was on, I thought I might be on to something. The wind was pushing them closer to the bank than they should be because the baitfish and other food was being stirred up for them to eat. I slipped a small bobber onto my line, and started working that area. In the last 45 minutes I was able to fish, I caught about 40 fish. Most were Bluegill (many of them very nice, too), but there was a odd mix of other sunfish (Green and Longear), plus a few juvenile Largemouth Bass, too. I was strictly practicing �catch and release� today (enough filets in my freezer for the winter already), but I could have kept at least 20 of the �gils. That�s one thing I love about fishing: you have to be flexible. What worked last week, or last year, or even yesterday might not work today. I never give up until I try everything I can think of first. I started the day throwing my lures as far from the shore as I could. I could have used a short branch with a piece of line tied on the end to catch the fish that were biting��.
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