Darkoshi

To get the water out of the bowl, don't bother turning off the water and flushing. Even when the tank has emptied, the level of standing water in the bowl won't go down. Instead, you can use a toilet brush to "push" the water down the drain. This will lower the level a good bit.

To clean a brownish stain which has accumulated around the water level, if scrubbing with a toilet brush doesn't work: don't bother trying baking soda - even scrubbing the soda in with a scubber sponge doesn't help much. But scrubbing the stain with a pumice stone does work well, and supposedly doesn't damage the ceramic.

I found these tips here: Cleaning Toilet Bowl Stains, and tried them out - they really do work.

This morning, I again went to bed too late and woke up too early. While lying in bed, I decided to clean the refrigerator gasket and refrigerator coils today.

After getting up, I washed and dried 5 loads - including the new towels and all the dog blankets. On the 5th load, the spin cycle stopped working. After 3 or 4 tries I got it working again. Maybe the trick is that the door needs to be closed while holding the power button in to reset it.

I washed out the recycling bin with the hose, as some of the cardboard I had in it had left a funky smell. While doing that, I accidentally stepped into some dog doo. I decided to throw the shoes away. They were an old worn out pair that I only wear around the house, with a hole in the rubber sole. The doo got up into the hole, and would have been hard to clean out.

I disposed of stinky radish.
I used the weed whacker, being careful to look where I stepped.
I cleaned the flap on the dog house, and the gunk on the storm door.
I vacuumed.
I cleaned the toilet.
I washed dishes.
I made a chocolate cake from a mix (the "Neat-Egg" worked fine, but may have been too thick. The package says 2 Tbsp water per "egg", but 3 Tbsp would be better.)
I made next week's lunch sandwiches (so that I won't have to do it tomorrow; lately I've been forgetting about it until after midnight on Sunday).
I did various other minor tasks.

I did not clean the refrigerator gasket nor the coils. Maybe tomorrow.

Dear dog, if you're going to insist on eating small animals, please don't come inside to throw them up.

That was a bloody mess. The hairy part looked suspiciously rat-like. At least I was planning to clean that rug anyway.

Now we are having some very heavy rain. Qiao found water leaking in through the top of the bathroom window frame. I checked the attic, and found 2 large sections where the sheathing is all wet and dripping. Put up plastic bins to catch the water in the one section which is accessible to me, but it is dripping so fast that I hope the bins don't overflow while I'm asleep.

Then I checked the garage. A bunch of water had gotten in under the garage door seal again. I brushed as much as I could out even though I know more will come in. In between me going to the garage and coming back, the walkway by the side door had formed a deep puddle.

Down the street, where water tends to flood during heavy rains, it looks quite flooded. But it is dark, so I can't tell how bad it is. I had been wanting to call the county about that; they probably just need to clear out some growth in order for the water to be able to drain.

Dang, it must be really bad on the coast if it is this bad in the middle of the state.

Me, watching an online movie or DVD:
- watch 10 minutes
- put it on pause and go get a snack. Watch 5 more minutes
- put it on pause and go get some other snack and a drink. Watch 10 more minutes.
- put it on pause to take the clothes out of the washer and hang them up.
- check email or LJ/DW
- watch some more of the movie. ::sniff:: what's that smell? ::sniff, sniff::
- determine that the smell is coming from the sofa. It must really be time to wash this futon cover.
- put movie on pause. Remove futon cover and put it in the washer. Vacuum dust off the futon mattress (how the heck did dust get in there?). Vacuum the rest of the room while I'm at it, and the kitchen too. Spray some odor remover on the worst smelling part of the mattress.
- watch some more movie while sitting on the floor.
- get up and do some exercise while watching movie.
- put movie on pause. go off and do something else. Research printer problem. Fix printer problem.
- for the 10th time, hope that modern LED TVs don't have a problem with image burn-in, as this one paused image has been displaying for the last 2 hours.
- post something to LJ/DW
- possibly return to watching the rest of the movie.

Here's a riddle for you.

A few days ago in my house, I was crouched down on the carpet, sniffing it in various places.
Today, I was again crouched down on the same carpet, but this time I had my ear angled towards it, listening carefully.

What was I listening to?

( The answer can be found here. )

Tip for cleaning oil stains in clothing.

Attach some safety pins to the fabric, about 2 inches to the left or right of the stain(s), or on both sides. That way you'll know which spot to scrub soap in, even after the fabric is wet and you can no longer see the stain due to the wetness.

I've always had trouble using this vacuum cleaner on certain rugs. It gets so much suction on those rugs, that it sticks to them and makes it hard to push or pull the vacuum. But lately, I've had trouble vacuuming the other rugs too. Sometimes, it looked like the brush-roll wasn't turning.

So I replaced the wide belt (the vacuum has 2 belts - one wide and one narrow), and that seems to have fixed the problem. On the normal rugs, at least. The difficult rugs are still difficult, but not as bad as before changing the belt.

The old belt still looked to be in fine condition - no cracks and it didn't seem loose. But when comparing it to the new one, it was somewhat bigger / more stretched out.

This is a good video showing how to replace the belts. However, the guy in that video makes putting the new belt on look so simple, though actually it can be quite difficult to stretch the belt over the wheel.

I finally managed it as follows.
I wore gloves to protect the skin on my fingers.
First, slide the belt over the back metal pin.
Then pull the belt over the top part of the wheel as much as possible.
Then while holding the belt in place on the top of the wheel, turn the wheel slightly clockwise while pushing the belt over the bottom of the wheel.

For a while I was using a hex driver to try to push the belt down towards the bottom of the wheel, as my fingers didn't fit down there easily. I don't remember if I was still using the hex driver, or just my fingers, when I finally succeeded.

Once the belt is on the wheel, push at it until it is centered on the wheel.
Make sure the belt is still positioned correctly on the back metal pin too.

The "View - Reload" menu item has been removed from version 25 of Firefox. Apparently for quite a while already, "Reload" was only available when pressing "Alt+V" to view the menu. But now it's no longer there at all. I wonder why the Firefox designers feel the need to remove functionality from the menus, when the menus aren't even visible by default anymore.

Why do little changes like this bother me so much? Because it's like coming home to find that all your door handles have been removed and replaced by knobs, and furthermore, the knobs are on the top of the doors rather than in their hitherto-normal positions. Then you find out that for the last 10 years, 98% of other people have been using wireless mobilephone apps to remotely open all their doors, rather than using the door handles.

Now I have to remember to use either F5 or Ctrl+R to refresh the page when I don't have my hand on the mouse. I feel like I'm too old to learn new mnemonics. I can never even remember that Ctrl+Tab is for switching between tabs, even though I constantly use Alt+Tab for switching between windows. (I also can never remember the hotkeys for indenting or outdenting a block of text, in my email program at work).

Hmm. To press either F5 or a Control key combination, I have to look at the keyboard. Maybe that's why I find the menu mnemonics using the Alt keys easier to learn/remember. If I need to copy/paste something while typing, I still tend to use the Alt-Edit-Copy and Alt-Edit-Paste keys. My fingers however, know that Ctrl+Ins, Shift+Ins,and Ctrl-C can also be used.... but I don't use Ctrl-V much because how am I supposed to remember that V is for Paste?

Hmm. When editing text (as opposed to typing), my left hand is in the normal position, but my right hand is centered on the arrow keys. That lets me scroll through the text with my right hand, and also lets me do copy/paste/delete operations using the keys on that side.

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I've found that it is much easier to iron clothes while they are still damp from the washer. No need to first let them dry. No need to put water into the iron, nor to drain it out afterwards. Ironing damp clothes makes them dry faster too.

This makes me more likely to iron clothes right after I've washed them, avoiding an ever-increasing accumulation of wrinkled clothes waiting to be ironed. If I know that I won't have time to iron right after washing, I may not even put those particular items into the wash.

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I've been noticing a recent tendency to bite my lower lip while washing dishes, especially if I'm in a hurry. It's an odd subconscious thing; as if biting my lip will somehow make me get done faster. I have to consciously put effort into not doing it, as it's not a habit I want to have.

I bought a toilet brush today. The price on the shelf said $6, which seemed quite expensive to me. But hey, the handle on my old one had broken, so I needed a new one. Whatcha gonna do? Later, when checking my receipt, I found that I had actually been charged $10 for that brush!

For that price, I expect the brush to take care of cleaning the toilet all on its own-some from now on.

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Last week I came down with a stomach bug. I was so sick the first day, that I didn't even turn on my computer. I didn't even brush my teeth! I felt better after a couple of days, but I've had headaches every day since then. Not sure if it is still due to the virus, or to allergies. I tried Tylenol one day, and Naproxen the next, and neither helped.

So today, I also bought a bottle of Ibuprofen, and Excedrin-type tablets, to see how well they work.

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Wonderful spring weather this week, with blossoms and yellow pollen.

According to this page:
"The fact of the matter is by the time your water has reached boiling point (212°F / 100°C) all pathogens have already been killed! As a precautionary measure you may wish to boil for a full minute just to be safe. The time it takes for your water to reach a boil and then cool down is more than enough time to kill all harmful organisms that could make you sick.

To be safe you may wish to follow the advice of the US Environmental Protection Agency which recommends boiling for 1 full minute, or 3 minutes if you are 2000 meters above ground level"


According to this page:
If your well tests positive for E. coli, you should boil the water for at least one minute at a rolling boil before drinking it.

According to this page:
After the boil water advisory is lifted, will the water heater be contaminated?
A possibility exists, albeit small, that a pathogen may contaminate a water heater and survive (in a few cases, even grow), if the hot water temperature is maintained at 120°F or lower. However, because hot water directly from the water heater is usually not ingested, this should not be a safety concern. A water temperature of 140°F for a half hour should kill virtually any pathogens (including Legionella) in the water heater.

This page has info on Boil Water Orders/Advisories.

According to this page:
boiling does not kill ALL the bacteria, just MOST of them. Some bacteria are actually resistant to the temperature of boiling water (100 degrees C.). To kill all the bacteria, you need to raise the temperature to about 121 degrees C. To get water to this temperature, you must heat it under pressure. (You cannot heat boiling water in an open pot to anything over 100 degrees C.). In science labs, we use something called an autoclave to do this; at home you might have a pressure cooker in the kitchen.