Extreme Day

This really started last night, so maybe it should be titled Extreme Days. I was at work trying to figure out why some desktop handles weren’t being released and left work around 11:30pm. I started making dinner and my sister calls me on the phone asking me how to convert coaxial to network cable (RJ45). I spend a good chunk of time saying that’s not possible, but she kept insisting that the hotel had internet access and that was the only thing available. After enough convincing, she believes me. I asked her if it could possibly be wireless internet access, but she says she wasn’t able to see an access points, and she’s wandered up and down the halls looking for a signal.

So after dinner, I took a big dump. A BIG DUMP. So big that it didn’t flush. This wasn’t the normal clogged toilets I usually deal with. Normal clogged toilets still trickle down. This did not move down even an inch when I woke up this morning. It did when I got home tonight at 12pm. So going back to the story, I have this weird plunger I got from Fred Meyers called the Master Plunger. It’s worked plenty of times before, but this time, it wasn’t even pushing any water away besides out of the toilet bowl.

The good thing about this whole incident was there was really only 1 big piece of poop so there weren’t any small floating pieces. And since I added Clorox Automatic Toilet Bowl Cleaner tablets, the whole bathroom smelled like bleach.

I had a bottle of Liquid Plumr (which I always thought was spelled Liquid Plumber) I purchased from Costco, but it specifically states for not usage in toilets. It’s because of the trap design on toilets. Liquid Plumber and Draino work by pushing down. There were also sites that warned that that once Draino started working, it got so hot, that it cracked the toilet bowl.

I began searching online for home remedies on how to unclog the toilet. Here were the suggestions I saw:

• Add liquid detergent
• Pour a lot of hot water
• Add Draino/Liquid Plumr and use plunger to push liquid past the trap

Adding the liquid detergent was suppose to make the poop easier to slide, but all I got was bubbles. It did make my bathroom smell like lemon instead of bleach.

Since the water line wasn’t moving, I wasn’t really able to add a lot of hot water.

So I tried the Liquid Plumr suggestion, though as an afterthought, that may have been a bad idea. First, this method did not work either, but since my water was mixed with bleach, I remember reading somewhere that mixing Liquid Plumr and some other chemicals may result in deadly gases. I immediately turned on the vent and left it running for sometime. I’m not sure if bleach + liquid plumbr = deadly gas, but I’m still alive.

I decided to give up at 3:30am and went to sleep. I decided I’d get a better plunger tomorrow. For some reason, this morning I had the idea that I heard the toilet flush this morning and was actually excited to come down to see a working toilet, but only to be disappointed that the water line had not moved at all. It isn’t like this is the only toilet in the house, since I have 2 other toilets which I hardly use (since they’re on the 2nd floor), but I just felt uncomfortable having a clogged toilet.

This morning, I had planned to get the rock chip on my windshield fixed. However there was some major accident on the 520 this morning: Truck Crashes Into Sammamish River. It took me 20 minutes to reach the traffic jam and 40 minutes to get through 2 exits. I was pretty pissed.

I had actually gone to this glass shop on Tuesday morning, but apparently someone took the resin and they weren’t able to patch it. They apologize for the inconvenience and told me to come back after 2. I told them I’d come back Wednesday morning. The place I went to was called Evergreen Auto Glass and they did a pretty good job filling the rock chip. I had actually gotten this on my trip back from Mt. Shasta, and finally decided to get it patch now. Another reason was that I found out we had Prime discount at this place, so the fix only costed $15 (vs $45 w/o Prime discount). The nice thing is I found out this repair comes with lifetime warranty, which I thought was nice. You could still see some scars, but I’ve seen what can happen to these rock chips if you don’t fix them.

Afterwards, I dropped by Bed Bath and Beyond to pick up a “toilet” plunger. Apparently, a regular plunger is for sinks since they’re flat and toilet plungers have this little extra pouch which gives a tighter seal on toilets. This plunger is amazing! It must be the special knob. Just 3 or 4 plunges, and my toilet was unclogged. Stupid Master Plunger, don’t you guys fall for it too.

Anyway, back to work. I was just working on some test code when suddenly my display begins to act funny by drawing weird stuff on the screen. I tried rebooting the machine and then it would freeze trying to log me in. I logged in as the Administrator and windows were missing titlebars. Opening display properties resulted in it telling my display driver was made for a previous OS and my current resolution was set to -1 x -1. I finally was able to log onto my account and then it tells me my profile was corrupted and they’re creating a new one for me. This all points to signs of my hard drive dying. I had a spare IDE drive, but as I found out, my computer only has 1 IDE port and 1 SATA port. The slot for the hard drive is also custom fitted for a SATA drive. They also only have 1 standard 12V power adapter which was used by my DVD-ROM drive. So I ended up unhooking the DVD-ROM drive and now the hdd is just sitting on top of my floppy. Installed Windows Server 2003 and everything seems to be fine now. Been busy setting up my machine for the rest of the day now that all my programs are gone. Good thing I could still access my previous hard disk and grab the data off it. A scan disk on that drive did end up freezing though, so I don’t think that’s a good sign.

I also got my review back today. The review is this thing that happens once a year at Microsoft where they determine your raise, stock award, and bonus. I won’t be saying any numbers, since I don’t think I’m allowed to. I forget what my lead exactly first told me, but it scared the bejesus out of me. I think it was something like, “So I tried…” The thing is, when I submitted the review, he had told me that I had done well and he was going to suggest/recommend X and Y. So when he started out saying “So I tried…”, I was like shoot, that means I didn’t make it. But turns out he was just going to mention what I did well and what areas I could improve. Honestly, I don’t remember what he first said, but that was the most tense 30 minutes I’ve been in awhile. He finally told me my #s and I’m happy!

My OfficeMax order also arrived today. One of the glass L desks I’ve been eyeing finally went on sale again: Pisa “L” Workcenter (normally at $150). I went searching around for a $30 off $150 coupon and thanks to some friends at B$, I got one. To fill my order, I purchased a lamp because the master bedroom currently has no lighting and I’ve been meaning to get a lamp. The lamp turned out much nicer than expected:

I haven’t had time to setup the desk yet. It’s still sitting at the bottom of my stairs. That thing is heavy. So it’s been a pretty extreme day.