The only luck I've ever had with home warranty kind of things is Minnegasco Service Plus (or whatver Minnegasco calls itself now.)

For a nominal monthly fee on my gas bill, it covers all my appliances with no out of pocket for repairs and a good price on replacements if the item is unrepairable. If my furnace stops working at 2AM, I'll have a tech at my house by 3AM and they will keep working the problem until it's fixed. They just repaired my 80's dryer without question and without any trouble. I'm thinking about calling them just to look at my furnace just for fun. They're great.

I had a home warranty on my first house from the builder. They had an easy solution to honoring the warranty. They declared bankruptcy and skipped the state. Apparently they'd done that before. I'm glad I sold that place before real problems started showing up. Other houses in my development had significant problems with drainage and grading.

They also "forgot" to put gutters on all the houses. I never got that one recouped.

My wife is a production biochemist in the manufacture of proteins.

I love that she works works with the protein "Sonic Hedgehog" and that she had no idea it was named after the game character.

When I was in high school, I had a cough that hurt so bad that every time I coughed or sneezed I literally screamed in agony. So I started holding in the cough like a fool.

After a day of this I was having trouble breathing so I finally let myself cough. It was the most disgusting loud gurgling bark. I horked up an entire mouthful of phlegm and blood. Scabrous and green.

Suddenly, after the agony died down, I felt so much better. I probably should have gone to the hospital because I definitely had pneumonia but I figured, if it was coming out, there wasn't much they could do for a viral lung infection. It worked.

I was back at school the next day with a trash can sitting next to me to spit my green lung butter out. One teacher complained but the class had my back and told her to leave me alone so she did.

Apparently I grew up in a different time, I don't think I'd get away with that now.

Be happy that you have an emotive face.

I don't make expressions. I have to force them and I end up looking really weird. Pictures of me where I'm smiling on purpose make it look like I'm an alien in a human suit who's learning how to smile.

I prefer to not ever "What if..." things. Sure, I'll consider possibilities. I'll hedge. I'll make sure that I'm prepared for contingencies.

When it comes to the action though? I prefer screaming "I regret everything!!!" and go for it.

It's never failed me. If you think it's time to go to an job interview with nothing but your pants on your head and a smile, go nuts. Maybe it'll work? The fact is, I've pre-regretted my actions so I don't have to worry about.

Ideally the water is coming from a free-flowing aquifer. You dig down a few hundred feet. Sometimes the water is sitting on top of the rock. Sometimes it's below. Sometimes it's in a mix of gravel. It could be 100 feet down, it could be 1,000 feet down. It depends on where the water is.

If the water is from an artesian well, it could be coming from a thousand miles away through the bedrock from the mountains. It could be refilled from rain water that leaks down through the water table. It could be from underground streams.

Unless the water is very shallow, there shouldn't be any bacterial contamination. You test the water to see that it's safe to drink. You're looking for bacteria, heavy metals, pesticide runoff, that sort of thing.

My parents well is about 400 feet down. Through the bedrock. The water is from an underground stream and comes up through the cracks in the rock and keeps the field next door always wet, even in a dry year. The water is high in iron but doesn't have heavy metal contamination to speak off. The copper/nickle is closer to the surface in the clay. The clay is full of iron too. At about 6 feet down, the clay has enough iron in it that a magnet sticks to it. Below that, it's a neutral gray clay that goes down to pea gravel, then bedrock. You can get water out of the gravel, but the refill time would be ridiculous so you pull from below it.

All that clay and rock acts like a filter to keep contaminates out of your drinking water.

They did try hiring a water witch. That didn't work.

You literally just kind of dig around until you find water. It's down there. There are surface markers that will clue you in to where water is. A tree where there are no other trees. A low area. A gut feeling. A place where the plants are different.

It took my great-grandparents years to find a spot for the well on their property. They used a cistern for many years for drinking and the ravine for watering the animals. Eventually, they found good water. They just had to dig enough holes.

LOL. The next thing you'll tell me is that outlets aren't supposed to be blackened and melted..

Well, my dream last night was that I was back working at a job that I hated but also was no longer competent at. I was working for my friend who resented me and hated me in the dream and he spent the whole time insulting me. Then I screwed up my task worse than I ever had in my life and awoke feeling a sense of fear, loss, and disgrace.

In real life, I have a good job that I'm happy with.

Or maybe I want to chase the dream of being attacked by giant insects with human eyes and teeth like a wolf that bite and claw and tear the flesh from my bones as I try to kill them with my bare hands.

Have I told you about "The Things in the Dark?" They're the worst. You can kill them but it's very hard. They usually come back to life anyway. They have no faces but they have teeth and claws.

I'd like my dreams to stay as dreams please.

My wife did the exact same thing to me. Then she said the wheels fell off her car and she was standing on a busy street during rush hour. She won't even tell me if she's OK. I said, "Get out of the street. Leave the car alone. Call 911. Do not go back to the car."

I haul ass from work and go to where she is. Nothing of what she said was true. She'd broken a ball joint in the driveway of her work and everything was fine. Just a broken car not even in anyone's way. Why she thought screaming about hitting someone and standing in a busy street was a good way to describe that, I have no idea. Why does that include uncontrollable sobbing?

Her mom is just as bad. She calls the house and I say, "How's it going?" There's a long pause and then "Oh... Not good." Even longer pause. "You remember my aunt so-and-so?" I say, "Yes. What's wrong?" "Well..." Even longer, longer pause. "She's been taking care of my sister after her surgery..." "I know! What's wrong?!" "Well she fell down..." "And??????" "She's fine but a little shaken up."

What?!? Jesus Christ! That's not even a story. That's nothing. Every time she calls it's like that. Makes your day just a little shittier."

I'm suddenly reminded of an event from college.

I had a friend who was dating this doofus of a guy. Seemed harmless enough. Just a doofus. Anyway, one day they go out and party and he has a bit too many. They go back to her place and have sex.

Here's where it gets weird.

After they're done, he looks her straight in the eyes and says "I love you just like I love my sister." Then he gets up, opens the closet door, squats down, and takes a huge shit. Then passes out face first on the floor.

And that's how their short relationship ended.

I would doubt that anyone cares if you're colorblind or not. I'm red-green colorblind and no-one cares. I am irritating sometimes in that I have to ask people "What color is this?" but it's not a big deal.

If I never brought it up again, no-one would notice.

Tried that once. Didn't work. I think I used the wrong stir stick. Maye a broom handle would work better. I mean, I know a hammer's the wrong tool but, if at first you don't succeed...

Thank you! I always want to write more but never get around to it. Instead I write blotches of purple prose off the cuff on Reddit. Sometimes I'm good, sometimes not.

I've been working on a screen play set in the North Woods and I'm also working on a humorous how-to on working in a call center (think "How to Apply for a Job." )but I know I'll never finish.

They wax and wain. They move, they change.

Even where I grew up, the woods are always changing. Some of our woods are old growth that have been changing over as the old White Pines die from blister rust. That opens up the canopy and regen comes up in it's place. Usually Aspen and Alder. In the meadow, where no White Pines have sprouted in hundreds of years, suddenly they start to spring up like magic when they feel the old tree has died. They compete until one major tree grows and the others whither. The Red Pines are expanding into the meadow to the east. When I was a kid, it was almost completely open. Now it's almost 100% covered with Red Pine. The twisted blue cedar remains the unchanged in it's little enclave. Unchanging. Next to the cedar swamp is the black spruce bog. All muskeg and skinny trees that could be 400 years old for all we know. Once you're inside the bog, it's pitch black at high noon. The ground is untrustworthy, you should stay out in the summer.

The creek meanders and new oxbows form. Where an oxbow lake appears, the Balm of Gilead comes up along with Diamond Willow. The Bam grows faster than weed. Many feet per year. Eventually, the oxbow dries up, the creek keeps moving, the beavers cut down all the Bam and aspen and make a new dam. Now there's a new pond for a while killing off some of the trees which will attract creatures that will live in the dead tree stump.

Tomorrow, new things will happen.

No one ever breaks into my POS minivan. I feel so left out. I wish someone would steal it but I'm afraid they'd bring it back once they drive it.

It really doesn't matter where you park. If someone wants to steal something, they're in and out and less than 30 seconds. Honestly, these days what's in a car worth stealing? No one has aftermarket stereos any more.

I whole heartedly agree. I loved the series on TV when I was a kid. I read the books 20 years later and loved I, Claudius as much as the series.

Then I got so bored reading Claudius the God that I stopped. Much like the series, once Claudius is emperor, the story loses it's way and just kind of goes out with a whimper.

If it's not doing the crazy bubbling thing, I wouldn't. Sometimes that type of valve won't shut all the way again because they hardly ever get moved. I've only done it because it was the only way to keep the water heater working and there was no loss if it didn't work.

It's worked the 3 times I've done it on 3 different water heaters but I'd hate for you to do it unless it's a last ditch effort. All three of those made that distinctive boiling noise. You know it when you hear it. It really stands out as weird.

If the thermostat reset doesn't work to make it run the right temp, listen to the water heater as it heats up. Does the water heater make a boiling sound when it's running? If it's doing that, you've got huge amounts of sediment at the bottom and that can be helped for a little bit.

Turn the thermostat off and run the hot water until it runs cold. Then you can open the drain at the bottom to empty the water heater from the bottom. There's a garden hose fitting on it to run the water into a floor drain. Flush it with cold water a few times and the water at the bottom should come out full of crystals. Keep flushing until you stop getting crystals of sediment.

Close the valve. Refill the tank. Set the thermostat to "A" and let it heat up. If it runs hot now, that was it. It does mean that the water heater is on it's way out, but you can squeak another year or two out of it by draining out the crud.

The gas company in my area has service that basically puts a lifetime warranty on all appliances. Furnace, water heater, washer, dryer, fridge, whatever you want. It's a reasonable price and will save your ass in the winter. If my furnace goes out, I'll have a repair tech out to my house at any hour. They've come out at 1AM before. If you can get it, everyone should use a service like that. I've used the service many times on my terrible old appliances.

I want one so bad now. I miss those old super heavy bikes.