A new toilet at last

Well, fixing that leak in the toilet ended up being a considerably more arduous task than expected.

  • Disassembled the old toilet to replace the wax ring. Still leaked
  • Tried another wax ring just in case I didn’t get a good seal the first time. Still leaked.
  • Discovered a small crack at the base of the toilet. Ick.
  • Go to Lowe’s to buy a new toilet and tank.
  • Get home, install the toilet bowl. Wife decides the round bowl is too small and just won’t do. Much cursing in my brain. Remove everything, stick it back in the box and take it to Lowe’s for a refund.
  • Take off to the N Charleston Lowe’s to buy the elongated bowl version (the only store that has it in stock). Get there 10 minutes before they close and buy the last one they have. Also buy yet another wax ring and new toilet seat.
  • Get home, discover that I mistakenly stuck some parts belonging to the tank into the toilet bowl box that we returned 45 minutes ago. Crap.
  • Go back to Lowe’s in the morning and retrieve the parts.
  • Install the bowl. Fill with water to test flushing. No leaks (whew!).
  • Install the tank. Connect up water hose and turn the water on. Tank fills, no leaks (happy happy joy joy!).
  • Flush when the tank fills. Flushes great, no leaking (happy dance!). Flush a couple more times just to make sure.
  • Inform wife. Wife christens toilet. No leaking, although she says it’s taller than expected.

So now we have a new uber-flushing toilet that works way better than the original toilet. Now the wife wants to replace the other toilet.

New toilet installed
New toilet installed

The new toilet

More fun with dogs

Yesterday we were at the Coastal SC Lab Retriver Club‘s Lab Fun Day. A little bit on the breezy side, but a nice sunny day. Simba’s breeder greeted us with a loud and friendly “Look at the Canadian!!” (I was the only one in just a shirt…everyone else was wearing a sweater or jacket).
Plenty of fun was had for both dogs and their people.
There were obedience demonstrations and an obedience course for people to try out
An obedience course
A very obedient collie
There were retriever demonstrations by some dogs that really knew what they were doing. They did retrieves on land
Tossing out a bumper
Retrieving the bumper

and in the water
Jumping in for the duck
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There were also fun contests for dogs and people to participate in. Tail wagging
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and a dog dress-up contest
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This guy skipped all the contests and went right for the cookies
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Seemed like everybody who stopped by had a good time. Even the non-labs came to check things out and have fun.

Numb3rs

Anybody watch Numb3rs? Finally managed to catch an episode of it last night while waiting for Battlestar Galactica to come on and rather enjoyed it. It’s nice to see Rob Morrow and Peter McNichol back on TV again. Yesterday’s episode was about trying to figure out a pattern to blackouts some guy was causing so that some bad guy drug dealers could get into a prison and eliminate someone that was going to testify against them. Some of the math technobabble stretched things a little, but overall it seemed pretty realistic. The slide rule Peter McNichol’s character was playing around with in a few scenes was a nice touch.

Now that I know when it’s on, I’ll probably try to tune in a little more regularly.

Delightfully cool

While most people here are starting to bundle up and feeling a little chilly, I’m loving the weather out. It’s like September weather back home. Cool crisp mornings, and cool enough in the day that you can bask in the sun and not get too hot.
My internal thermostat’s starting to switch over, so I have to step outside every now and then to cool off. Even 18°C (that’s 65°F for you non-metric folks) gets a little toasty for me now. Walking around wearing just a shirt and jeans when everyone else has coats on does get me a few odd looks though.

Toilet shopping

Finally got around to replacing the wax ring on the toilet this week. Simple enough job.

Unfortunately once I got everything back together and tested, the toilet was still leaking. The wax ring seemed to be sealing everything up just fine. Finally with a little more investigating I discovered the culprit: a tiny 5 mm long crack at the base just outside the wax ring.

I wasn’t able to get a very close look at it without dumping the remaining water out of the bowl, but it looked like it may have been a manufacturing defect.

So I guess it’s off to Lowe’s sometime this week to shop around for another toilet. We’d been meaning to upgrade the toilets anyway…just not quite so soon.