And the rain it raineth every day

THAT was interesting....

I was in here about an hour ago reading my mail when I heard the sound of raindrops. In the hall. I ran out the door and found the ceiling was dripping... and I'm on the first floor. Upstairs, I found someone had flushed the toilet, left the room, and it had not only overflowed but continued to do so until I arrived. Turned off the water, ran downstairs for the shop vac and started slurping up water. My daughter, right next to all this finally noticed something was up... so I had her run soggy bathroom towels, rugs and whatever down to the washing machine. She also thought to put down pans under the downstairs downpour, bless her. It's all vacced up now (had to empty the thing twice), I turned the water back on and the toilet just sat there innocently filling up the tank then stopping like nothing had ever happened. I put down a towel, warned Vicky to watch the treacherous thing after flushing it, and came back down here. Oh what fun is homeownership... (I'm just glad the hamper was downstairs next to the washing machine at the time, so I didn't get more laundry than would fit...)

Well now - the machine has finished washing without sounding the off-balance warning once. I think it's the first time it's washed those rugs without doing that. I guess something around here likes me. Unless.. nope, checked and it's NOT overflowed.

Sigh - I'm just glad I was up late - otherwise I might not have discovered this until the morning and not had time to deal with it. Now if the downstairs ceiling/upstairs floor will only condescend NOT to develop dry rot...

Chuckle...

ataniell93 pointed out this lovely bit of commentary...

Long live Roger Ebert...

Stray Idea

I posted the original of the following in a discussion on a mailing list, regarding immigration to the USA, legal or otherwise. Figured I'd share it here, too.

Personally I'd like to have a special deal for our two neighbors, Canada and Mexico. Anybody who lacks a felonious criminal record and hasn't done something to make Homeland Security nervous can come in for a year, and are given the right to work. By the end of the year they must check in and prove that they have a visible means of support (a good job, a mate with a good job, parents with a good job - a student can just point to parents back home supporting them). After this they can check in yearly and tell the government where they are, for the next 7 years. By that time they should know if they want to stay here or not. So they must either file for citizenship, or leave. Anybody who fails to check in yearly gets booted as soon as they are located, no questions asked (well... if they couldn't check in due to something excessively weird presumably they'd just do it then). They can get a driver's license and it does say that they are non-citizens - if they don't like it, it's not like they can't file for citizenship earlier than the 7 year limit. If it isn't already, disallow Welfare for non-citizens. (Do not disallow Social Security or Unemployment Insurance - if they work, they pay into it like everybody else.) Employees who are here legally cannot be taken advantage of, so maybe the wages will go up and the conditions improve; somehow I doubt this is really going to make the cost of food go out of sight, regardless of who claims what. Waiting a year or so to get your paperwork through to prove you don't have a felony record beats killing yourself travelling through some of the nastiest desert on this continent or suffocating in the back of a semi or similar things.

Probably have to make it easier to get citizenship - but then this only requires filing for it, so whatever time the government spends bureaucritizing around doesn't get the applicant into trouble.

Not that I expect anything like this to be done, at least not while the current administration is around. My profound apologies to anybody who's tried to visit this country lately and gotten harassed. If it makes you feel any better, they hassle us too. :(