Please pardon out mess ...

I vowed when I started this blog that it would not be one of those "here's what's in my fridge" blogs, where the writer posts photos of the inside of their refrigerator, and tells you in great detail what they are going to do for the rest of the day (laundry? really? do I care?) And writing about my bathroom renovation project is skirting dangerously close to the edge on this promise. But if you'll indulge me a little bit of a vent, I can once again focus on the more worldly topics of this blog. If you don't have any interest in home renovation, perhaps you'd like to skip this post and come back later.

So. Once upon a time there was a slightly leaky supply line to the toilet tank in the upstairs bathroom. A simple fix with a $5 part. But as I was on my hands and knees with my head behind the toilet (and yes, that was a new experience for me -- all previous experience involving being on my knees and a toilet has been in front of a toilet), I noticed the linoleum seemed to be very damp underneath. Very damp indeed. Crappy linoleum it was, so Unnamed Partner and I decided to pull it up and see how far the dampness went. It went very far.

You saw the picture last week, so you know how much fun that was.

We decided to go ahead and take up all the layers of linoleum and tile the floor. We realized that some of that dampness may have in fact been coming from ... wait for it ... the toilet seal. Yes. "Eeew!" "Yuck!" "Oh, sweet J!" So "we" (with big brother's invaluable help) put in a new toilet last week.

To take up all the linoleum, we also had to remove the sink and vanity, which was o.k., because it was very old and beatup and was actually much too big for that space. It also turns out that the shutoff valves underneath the sink were leaking ever so slightly.

I have kind of a love/hate relationship with water at the moment.

These shutoff valves should have been in the Smithsonian. Or else in an industrial supply catalog. They were a little bit of overkill from another era, and they were impossible to remove. We realized this would be a new skill for us to learn to cut and "sweat" the pipes to put in better shutoff vales, or call in someone (and pay for it!) But wait! There's more! We had successfully made it to the point of putting down the backerboard in preparation for the tile.

That's when I heard the water dripping from the kitchen ceiling.

Ripping up the subfloor, we found that the copper supply to the bathtub was lying in a notch on top of the floor joist, directly below the subfloor. Miraculously we had not put a screw into it -- but someone else had years ago, and as we worked on the subfloor and backerboard, we jiggled the old screw loose, causing a waterfall onto the kitchen ceiling below.

Time for Len the Plumber.

As for actual water damage, there was very little because we caught it in time. We can basically let the ceiling dry out a little more and paint should cover the spot. The pipe is fixed, and we have new shutoff valves. We can now put down the rest of the backerboard, and then begin tiling. And then we can paint the walls, and then put up the wainscoting. And then we can install the new sink and vanity.

And by the way, we're going on vacation for a week on Thursday. Thanks for listening.

Power cuts worsen as Iraqi grid nears collapse

Yet more proof why western efforts to create a sense of “nation” out of the historically soverign peoples of Iraq will not work. From the Guardian UK:

Iraq's power grid is on the brink of collapse because of insurgent sabotage, rising demand, fuel shortages and provinces that are unplugging local power stations from the national grid, according to officials.

Aziz al-Shimari, an electricity ministry spokesman, said at the weekend that power generation nationally was only meeting half the demand, and there had been four nationwide blackouts over the past two days. The shortages across the country were the worst since the summer of 2003, shortly after the US-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, he added.

...

“We wait for the sunset to enjoy some coolness,” said Qassim Hussein, a 31-year-old labourer in Kerbala. “The people are fed up. There is no water, no electricity, there is nothing but death. I've even had more trouble with my wife these last three days. Everybody is on edge.”

...

Iraq has the world's third-largest proven oil reserves, behind Saudi Arabia and Iran. But oil production has been hampered by insurgent and saboteur attacks, ranging rom bombing pipelines to siphoning off oil. The attacks have cost the country billions of dollars since the 2003 US invasion. Dilapidated infrastructure has also hindered refining, forcing Iraq to import large amounts of kerosene and other oil products.

Please read the entire story here.

No water, 1 hour of electricity, stifling heat: Life in Baghdad (for civillians)

A lot of the right-wingnuts assumed that the reports of no water in Baghdad were false. I've noticed that happens a lot when the first people to break a story like this one are the alternative news sources, rather than the mainstream media.

So, in order to demonstrate the veracity of this news story, here are a variety of news sources now reporting on the lack of water in 117 degree heat in Baghdad. (Most seem to be pulling from AP news reports. I'll keep looking for updates.)

Baghdad Without Running Water for Over a Day — Fox News

Residents and city officials said large sections in the west of the capital had been virtually dry for six days because the already strained electricity grid cannot provide sufficient power to run water purification and pumping stations.

Water Taps Run Dry in Baghdad — ABC News

Much of the Iraqi capital was without running water Thursday and had been for at least 24 hours, compounding the urban misery in a war zone and the blistering heat at the height of the Baghdad summer.

And from March 2007:

Lack of safe water endangers the health of Baghdad’s most deprived children — UNICEF

Even before the Iraq war began in 2003, millions of people were struggling with broken pipes and faulty systems. But since then, Iraq’s water problems have multiplied.

In the chaotic aftermath of the initial conflict, Iraq’s main pumping stations and water-treatment plants were stripped of vital equipment by looters. Acts of sabotage damaged infrastructure even further. Municipal water became dirty and contaminated – exposing children to dangerous and health-sapping waterborne diseases.