Maybe I Like Zynga Poker Again

I've been relegated, like, four times over the past five-to-six weeks.  It was getting to the point where it is unfair, and I thought about just deleting my account after Zynga Poker gets pushed out (or claims they will get pushed out) in the fall.

Well, I got on a holy roll just now and was promoted automatically not once, not twice, but thrice.  I was at Pro I, fell all the way down to Elite II, and now I am at, I think, Elite V, almost where I was.  It's as if Zynga Poker took pity on me and wanted me to stick around, so they just allowed me to win.

Downside is I spent 45 minutes to an entire hour doing this.  Talk about a timesuck.  That's how they get you.  Don't mind it, but that's how they get you.

Sleeping Like Normal People Might Be A Thing I Do Now

I could have stayed up to watch the Matt Damon/Noah Kahan rerun of Saturday Night Live, but the cold open was him acting as Brett Kavanaugh having a beer with Colin Jost's Pete Hegseth and Aziz Ansari's Kash Patel, and ... well, I know they aim for parody, but I just did not want to see them, so I didn't see it.

So, after doomscrolling, I shut my eyes.  That was around 11:30.  And I woke up around 7.  I was fully energized and also a tad upset I didn't get to the things I wanted to do last night.  But I had time to do them this morning -- watering the plants, watering the lawn, going out for groceries (in particular a banana; I had time to eat cereal for breakfast!), doing the dishes and, now, doing the laundry.

And I'm pooped.  But I still have time to blog post for the day, then go out to get some pop and maybe some ginger beer and/or ale), then go home and nap before The World Cup Final.  Maybe sleeping like normal people is not only a thing I do now, but something I like to do.

How Did Draining The Water Heater Go?

Well, I haven't burned the house down and I have hot water, so I don't think I've fucked up severely!

But the problem is I don't know if I did it right.  See, as I drained the water, I didn't see any dirty water.  I was initially putting this supposedly bad water in buckets to note how dirty it was, but the first few bucketfuls were completely clear.  That's when I decided to take out a garden hose from the shed, attach it to the short leader hose I also found in the shed, connect them (with a bit of difficulty; I sprayed some water all over the floor, dammit), and laid the other end in the floor drain in the laundry room.

I think I waited half an hour before it appeared as though the water from the hose slowed to a trickle.  I also checked where the garden hose connected to the leader hose, which I put in a bucket to collect the water coming out of the poor connection.  That seemed to also slow to a trickle, and that Internet tells me that means the water heater is completely empty.  So, I began flushing it by opening up the water valve for between five and 20 seconds and then shutting it off.  That start and stop is supposed to rustle up any sediment that settled in the bottom of the tank of the water heater so it could be sucked out of the drain plug.

At first, the water was dirty -- well, not brown like I was afraid it would be, but not as clear as the water that was taken out of the heater.  So I dumped the first bucket in the front yard while I took out a second bucket in which to continue to drain the tank.  Once in a while I would open and shut the water valve.  And the water continued to be dirty.  What it didn't appear to do, I'm afraid, is get better.  I kept dumping out bucket after bucket for, I believe, 45 minutes.  And while I could trick myself into thinking it was getting clearer, it was not getting clear.

I didn't know what to do.  I Googled and the damn AI said that this flushing method should take no more than 15 minutes.  Then why in the hell was I still getting brown-ish water after flushing for damn near 45 minutes?  Could it be the buckets I'm using making it look not clear?  They buckets aren't clear.  They're white; maybe that's the issue?

I stopped at a quarter to 11, about 2 1/2 hours after I started this ordeal.  Not because I was done, but because I indeed did not know what to do.  I closed the drain plug and opened up the water valve all the way.  After dumping the last bucket and wrapping up the garden hose I used, I saw that all the faucets I left open while doing this gravity drain was gushing out water and not air.  I didn't think that took a long time, however, so I kind of wonder whether I emptied the whole tank after all.

Oh, well.  It's all over.  Maybe I don't have to do this maintenance every year like I thought I needed to.  Me spilling water everywhere, because of the bad connection of the hoses and because of spilling hoses and the filled buckets on the floor, is something I don't want to revisit.  But I have just extended the life of the water heater -- maybe?

Water-Centered Plans Ruined By Sleep

Before draining (or attempting to drain) my water heater, I wanted to do three things last night: Shower, wash dishes, and wash clothes.  But I fell asleep around 10:30 and woke up around 4:30, and since I really want to do this this morning/right now, I can't do any of those three things.  Not showering sucks the most; I got sweaty again due to the hot weather yesterday/Friday, and I fell asleep on my sheets without wearing a shirt, so I know that the sheet has absorbed all my sweat, but I don't want to wash it, so I'm just going to continue to sleep on it until I just can't take it anymore, which could be up to two months.

Well, I'm sticking to my plan of draining this thing this morning, so I'm going to do it now.  Like I already said, wish me luck.

I think I have read up on the Internet enough that, tomorrow, I will attempt to drain my water heater.  It is an attempt to get the dirty water out of it and to extend its lifespan.  And hopefully I won't fuck it up.

Wish me luck, and if you're so inclined, pray for me.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#-1: Lynx (Last Week: -2).  I understand that they ran the table this screening Week.  I know they've won four in a row.  And I see that they remain tops in the league.  I also see that in Monday's Win over Phoenix, Kayla McBride and Olivia Miles combined to score 70 Points.  But as herculean an effort that was, they still beat a team that currently sits at 6-18 only by four Points.  They toughed out a five-Point victory over New York Saturday afternoon and, in their annual camp Game, they beat Los Angeles by nine.  These are only single-digit Wins, and frankly, I would be a lot happier thinking the club's a juggernaut if they were blowing other squads away by 15-20 Points.  (Winning all those Games at home helps a lot; can't help but think that if the Lynx played on the road, they easily could have gone 0-3.)  But that hasn't happened, at least not lately, and that scares me.  Napheesa Collier can't come back fast enough, because I fear that other teams in the W are catching up with the Lynx.

They complete a four-Game homestand hosting Bridget Carlton and The Portland Fire (again) Saturday night.  They then play two Games in Seattle, Monday night and Wednesday afternoon in the Storm's annual camp Game.

#-2: Twins (Last Week: -1).  A 2-2 Week.  But they have won their last five series, including, in this screening Week, Cleveland and Anaheim, both at home.  They also are, technically, tied with Seattle for the final American League Wild Card spot.  And they've done while still being a Game below .500.  It speaks to 1) how ass the AL is and 2) how easy it is to be lulled back into supporting a poverty franchise that has continually slapped the state in the face with its steadfast commitment to parsimony and its refusal to take meaningful steps (i.e., spend money) to field a championship team.  Look -- they sold the farm last Year and they can still make the playoffs this Year!  These guys know what they're doing!

They start the second half of their season on the road -- at the Cubs for three beginning tomorrow/Friday, then in Cleveland for four starting Monday.

Yardwork (Water)

Went to bed around 3, woke up just about at 8 exact.  This is my second and final day off, and I was hoping I would sleep in, but alas, I did set aside some time over these past couple days to work around the house, so if my body says I need to be up at a time like everyone else, well, so be it.

---

I wanted to take another crack at adjusting the sprinkler heads so that they wouldn't shoot so much water onto the pavement.  I thought all I needed to do was to take this key, shove it into the hole in each sprinkler, and crank it counter-clockwise.  But I tried that before and it didn't work, and I don't think it worked this morning.  I think the instructions said I had to use my off-palm to crank the top of the sprinkler head all the way to the right, and I can't do that.  It's hard to do when they're all moving.  So maybe there's nothing I can do.

---

That's important because the sprinklers alongside the boundary with one of my neighbors sprayed that neighbor's driveway and, because they were parked there, the cars, too.  I was hoping the water wouldn't spray the cars, but it did.  Then, as luck would have it, someone came out to drive away from their home.  They must have seen the front door all went from the sprinklers.  So maybe, even though there's nothing I can do, I have to do something to not piss off my neighbor.  Maybe not run the sprinklers at all?

---

Last time I ran them, on Sunday, I saw a huge pool behind one of the sprinkler heads in the backyard.  That's one of the things I wanted to investigate in my two days off.  So when I ran the cycle through, I found the culprit: One of the other sprinkler heads is loose or leaking or something, because water is just gushing out of it from every which way.  So now that needs to be fixed.  But how?

---

OK, not a blurb about yardwork, but it is about water.  I am now committed to trying to maintain the water heater.  And I am going to do it this weekend.  We have garden hoses to attach to the water heater, but they are all, like, 25 or 50 feet.  I am more comfortable using a short one so I can dump the water into a bucket and then take it outside.  (I'm worried about leaks in the hoses, plus I need to see how dirty the water in the heater is.)  This morning I saw in the shed that we have a three-foot hose, but that only has two female ends, so I can only flush the water heater.  I want one to attach to the, what, temperature and pressure (or T&P) switch so I can see if that works, and so I need a hose with a male end.  I went to The Home Depot to buy one, and there was one that was six feet long, but attached to that is an adapter.  So I just realized: Why do I need to buy a hose when I can just buy an adapter and attach that to the small hose we already have.  So now I need to find a place that has that adapter.  So maybe I won't maintain the water heater this weekend after all.

Now I Get To Worry About My Struts

So I got of the mechanic just fine.  Like I hoped, I just needed an oil change and a tire rotation.  But, and there oftentimes is a but, the guy said that the struts could be replaced.  He said they're fine, for now, no cracks or leaking or anything, but he stressed that they are beyond the recommended miles/life schedule.

It is the summer, and it's probably easier for all of us if major or long repairs are done then as opposed to the winter.  (Maybe it's not a good thing that I've passively decided to bring my car in in the heart of the summer and the winter.)  But changing struts is a half-a-day job, and then they have to take it to another shop (?) to do the alignment.  It's possible I wouldn't have my car till the next day.  I had the World Cup to go to (didn't think France would get completely shut down by Spain like they did), and even though, at the end, it is kind of frivolous, I had set aside work yesterday/Tuesday for, like, the past six weeks in order to watch.  Also, this job is not only going to be time-consuming, in which case I would probably have to use the minivan to get to downtown, but it would also cost me about a grand, and I was not prepared to spend that much money.  So I decided not to.  But the next time I bring my car in, which will likely be January, I guess I'll have it done.

So now I have to worry about my car bouncing around when I brake hard.  And braking hard might be inevitable on slippery roads on a winter day.  Hopefully the struts stay intact for another half-year.

Overwhelmed ... And It's My Day Off!

I have so many chores I need to do -- washing the dishes, talking to people about organizing events, cleaning up the house -- that, even though I have today and tomorrow off, I feel even more busy than I would on a normal workday.  I only have time to do the things I need to do ... such as take my car to the shop, which I need to do right now.

I realized all these things as I woke up this morning.  And I did so without the help of the alarm.  That's because, once again, I went to bed early and woke up at a normal time.  I spent last night going through my stuff at my locker, then showering because it is so hot.  I don't want to do things now, and I can only partly blame the weather.  The rest?  Well, I don't know, but I don't know if I'm going to do any of the above things I need to do today, either, because I'm watching the World Cup and then planning on exercising (something I haven't done in weeks) later today.

So overwhelmed.

I Then I Will Have The Opportunity To Cut Back On My Drinking

I wish I had tracked this closer: I believe Thursday was the first day I didn't drink in ... ope, shit, I don't know, maybe Monday, June 22, but it might have been a date later than that.  Anyway, I drank alcohol a lot ever since the World Cup began, and maybe my liver is taking a beating. But with only four Matches remaining (and one of them's the Third Place Match, and I don't give a flying fuck about that anachronism), the reasons to go out and enjoy a beer while watching soccer on a TV become fewer and farther between.  That should help with my drinking.  Then again, I just bought a few bottles of alcohol.  I will have more time to stay home and, well, make cocktails for myself, like I did yesterday/Sunday.

But no drinking after work during the workweek.  That will stop.  Largely.