Rhettorically Speaking

Well, I finally ran a road race....5K Run/Walk with my office in support of Kaiser Permanente. First, I gotta say that KP puts on a great event....sponsors, tents, power-bars, bananas, music, volunteers and a show ending fireworks display. It was a wonderful experience. Now, I have to first admit, I am not a runner. I signed on for this gig about 6 weeks ago fully intending to train properly for the run. Looking back, it sure would have been smart to do so. But what I did instead was let all the other important things in life take priority. The last three weeks have been more about sick kids and worrying about them than anything else. This is where my wife gets huge credit. When my 11 year old had a nasty flair up of his asthma with a cold on top (check out "The responsible one" blog), he would often wake up in the middle of the night (and usually two or three times on average) and Kath would be there quick as a flash. I however would wake up to see Kath heading to...

Well, it only took 9 years to get around to it, but I (meaning "we") finally fixed the faucet of the tub in the kids' bathroom. When we first moved into our current home, the handles on the tub faucets all needed to be changed. They were the plastic "cut crystal" look that had lost its sparkle long ago. When I tried to take the old handles off, the plastic broke in my hands. Not a problem, until I tried to remove the screw that holds the handle....they were frozen (meaning rusted) in place. I tried the liquid wrench type oil hoping it would loosen the screw, but no way, no how. So, for the time being, I got a pair of the friction fit handles that have set screws to clamp onto the outside of the valve so we could turn water on and off. This worked fine for the first seven years, then the cogs on the end of the valves became stripped and the handles would not grip as they should. So....what do you do? Of course, you buy a new set of the same handles to gr...