Some Blog Site

You may recall from an old blog post that I had some water heater trouble. I paid a plumber $90 to press the reset button on the water heater.

At least it fixed the water heater.

For a few days.

Then the water got cold again. But I knew what to do – go press the reset button.

Ahh, hot water again.

Then the water got cold again. Reset button… still cold water.

Hmm… circuit breaker?

Ahh, hot water again.

After a few days of pressing the reset button and resetting the circuit breaker EVERY SINGLE DAY, I decided something must be wrong. The water heater should not trip the circuit breaker (or blow the fuse). But I already spent $90 on this problem and I was not going to make it $180.

I looked up instructions on the internet for how to fix an electric water heater. They looked simple enough. And they worked!

All I spent was about $30, and now I will share the wealth of knowledge with you.

Before I fixed the water heater, I was intimidated by water heaters. All I had heard before was horror stories about how so-and-so’s water heater exploded and blew the room to smithereens. So I had avoided them and feared them.

But they’re not that bad – nothing to fear. It is just a big bucket of water with two resistors and two switches. (for non-engineers, replace resistors with heaters)

Note: These steps are for electric water heaters. I still fear gas-fired water heaters.

All I had to do to fix it was find which resistor or switch was bad and replace it.

The resistor is a heating element and the switch is a thermostat. I looked up the model # and stuff for the heater and found it had two heating elements of 4500 watts each. Lo and behold, the local big-box store had a set of two elements and two thermostats, and it was only slightly more expensive than a single heating element.

I bought the set because then, no matter what was wrong, I would have what I needed.

The symptom I was experiencing was that the water would be hot but not for very long. All the how-to sites said that meant the upper element was bad. If the lower element had been bad, I should have had not-so-hot water but more of it.

The amount of heat remains the same:
upper element = concentrated,
lower element = diluted.

If you’re a non-engineer and still reading this – don’t worry, it gets easier.

Now on to the steps. If you want pictures, come back for the next installment of writing about this water heater project.

Step 1: Find the bad element. WAIT! Turn off power to the heater. Then find the bad element. This is the trickiest step, so come back for more details in Part 2.

Step 2: Drain the water out of the tank. Believe me, it is a lot harder if you skip this step. Note that the water supply should be turned off before you start this step.

Step 3: Replace the bad element.

Step 4: Fill the tank back up and turn power back on.

Step 5: Run the water for a while because you will have stirred up sediment and your water may be gray or cloudy for several minutes.

And that’s all there is! How to fix your water heater in five easy steps!

It took me about 15 minutes for step 1, 3 hours for step 2, 1 hour for step 3, and 45 minutes for steps 4 and 5. That’s a total of 5 hours, not including time at the store buying parts.

Step 2 took a long time because I had to do it twice. Learn from my experience – if only the upper element is bad then you don’t need to drain the tank all the way. Do it in half the time by draining only half the tank.

Step 3 took a long time because the element was very stubborn. So stubborn, in fact, that it gets its own blog post (Part 3).

To be continued . . .

That’s some web theme there.

Or rather, here.

It’s the change of seasons again, which means it’s time for a change of my WordPress theme.

It’s not really a new theme – just changing the backgrounds a bit and tweaking the layout.

I will be fixing some small things as we go along here, but I can already tell this one is going to be much easier on the eyes than that last one.

College football is about to start, but people are already looking ahead to next year.

Because next year is when things change.

Significantly.

And maybe I’ll resume using complete sentences and paragraphs.

As you should all know by now, the Big Ten becomes the Big Twelve in 2011. And the Big Twelve is reduced to the Big Ten at that time.

And the Big Ten has assigned its members to one of two divisions, and there will be a conference championship played between the winners of each division.

The big story is that Michigan and Ohio State are in separate divisions. The Big Ten Conference floated some ideas out there and got a bunch of criticism from alumni.

So the conference’s decision was to still have Michigan and Ohio State play each other on the last game of the regular season just like they do now. But since the division winners will have been determined at that point, the game won’t count for much.

As a Michigan fan and blogger, I am compelled, nay bound, by the laws of blogging, to add my opinion to the internet.

I don’t like it.

No, not the internet. Or my opinion. I like those. What I don’t like is the Big Ten Conference’s decision. But, since I am not an alumnus of either school, I guess the Big Ten doesn’t give my opinion much weight.

I think that the Big Ten couldn’t win at this one, no matter what they did. But they could have done better.

If I were in charge, I would have put them both in the same division. The game would still be at the end of the regular season, but it would matter. So what if you don’t have a solid anchor team on the other division? It’s not like Michigan has been pulling its weight anyway and will be the automatic winner of its division every year. I think some of the other teams would be fine anchor teams for a division, and a division could be healthy and competitive without UM or OSU in it.

But since they didn’t do that, they could at least move the game. I don’t mind rematches; I do mind back-to-back rematches. In the case that Michigan gets its act together and wins its division, it could play Ohio State twice in a row. Sure, there might be an extra week or two in between the games, but it would still dilute them. A matchup early in the season (and that counted for the conference results) would make for a better game and season.

The Big Ten chose the second-worst possible scheduling format for Michigan and Ohio State. The only worse one would have been not playing each other.

One of the problems with the word “microwave” is that it is both a verb and a noun.

This caused a problem recently. I was making brownies, and I followed the instructions as written on the box.

and here’s a close-up view of the instructions:

It clearly stated that I was to add water and microwave. So I took out a big bowl and poured in the brownie mix. Then I poured in the water.

Then I put a microwave in the bowl and stirred everything together.

It didn’t taste very good.

I think their instructions were wrong.

A husband and a wife can say the exact same words but have very different meanings. Here are some examples:

Phrase: “The noodles are on the stove.“

Phrase: “The dishes in the dishwasher are clean.“

Phrase: “What time is dinner?“

Those were, of course, random examples from anonymous people.

Here’s my tip for wives: don’t read anything into what your husband says. Take it at face value – he is just giving you information.

Here’s my tip for husbands: try to guess what your wife means when she says something. Don’t take it at face value – she is giving you secret instructions.

A long title for this post, I suppose, but it’s the best I got right now.

A co-worker and I were discussing the new laws about cell phones. In some states, it is illegal to use a cell phone while you are driving (although hands-free phones are allowed).

In our state, it is legal. But some cities have enacted local ordinances that make it illegal. So you could be driving along a road, using your cell phone. It would be legal for a while, then illegal for a while, then legal again as you drove into and then out of (if “into” is one word, why isn’t “outof” one word?) the city.

We came up with a solution that should work for any state: let drivers take a test to get a cell-phone endorsement on their licenses.

We have that for various things already – motorcycle, commercial, etc.

• Some people can handle a motorcycle, so they prove that to the state and their licenses are marked with that fact.
• Some people can handle a big rig, so they prove that to the state and their licenses are marked with that fact.
• Some people can handle driving a vehicle while talking on a cell phone, so why not let those people prove that to the state and get their licenses marked? I’m sure the DMV/BMV/SOS wouldn’t mind the extra business.

Not only would it help weed out people who shouldn’t be DWTOTCP, but it would help the budget. Just think of the fees charged for the cell-phone tests and the upgraded license!

Texting while driving is illegal in the whole state. The state should also enact a texting endorsement. The test for such an endorsement should be done on a simulator, because no one could pass it. And because no one could pass it, it would be pure profit for the state.

Win-win!

People stay in the same situation they are today (no texting) but they feel like they have an opportunity (hope) and the state gets more money (which will help the schools, I’m sure). It would end up being a voluntary tax, like the lottery.

Hold on while I get a Facebook fan page setup to garner support for this plan…

He scorns the tumult of the city, The shoutings of the driver he does not hear.

Job 39:7

We had a thunderstorm with a lot of lightning, just after the kids’ bedtime. My wife and I noticed one particular flash of lightning that originated near the ground (not close though) and was greenish. And then the power went out.

My comment was that it looked like a transformer blew up. When the transformers around here blow, they are hurt-your-eyes bright, the light from the blast is green, and there is a very loud buzzing noise during the blast.

After the storm calmed down (and the power came back), I put Alpha back to bed. He was asking about what if the power went out, what if this, what if that, etc.

Then he asked, “What happens if another transformer comes?”

Transformer comes? That’s an odd way to phrase it – the transformer goes out when it blows up.

Then I caught on.

“No, not that type of Transformer. Just an electrical transformer. It’s part of the electrical system. I’ll point one out to you next time we drive by the substation.”

I didn’t exactly confirm my suspicion, but I got the inkling that he thought a Decepticon got in a good hit and blew up the Transformer and that Transformers blow up with a greenish blast.