So before this continues you have to promise: you won't share a word of this with my father, all right? Because it would break his heart and you don't want to do that for a kind old man.
The sink. When last left, I'd broken the hot water shutoff valve and a professional plumber came in to replace it. And judged that he couldn't get the old faucets off so there was nothing to do but replace the old, broken sink with faucets rust-welded to the ceramic. With ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger's agreement I went sizing new yet cheap sinks. As you might expect for a vanity 33 inches wide --- you can find premade ones 30 or 36 inches wide, but never 33 --- the size was weird too, a couple inches bigger than almost everything in stock at Ace, Menard's, or Lowe's. Except for one, which, happy to say, was also the cheapest. We're happy for that not just for money reasons but also because we intend to do the big bathroom renovation in the coming year, after the big plumbing renovation.
And, sink replacement. My father was extremely happy with the prospect that I'd do something as plumbing-complex as replacing a sink. In principle, this isn't actually complex: unfasten the sink from underneath, pry it up, drop a new one in place, and reconnect everything again. Sinks are extremely standardized in pipe sizes and relative placement and where they aren't, it's in things like the service lines to the faucets that flex and can be easily fit to place.
But after the fiasco of my faucet replacement, my heart wasn't in it. I scheduled a plumber's appointment and we got him coming in a week ago Thursday. In the late morning, luckily away from any of my online meetings with coworkers. Also, awkwardly, about the time that bunnyhugger (who'd had a later night) got up and needed to use the lone bathroom, which was out of commission. (We probably could have asked the plumber to clear out a minute but at that point he'd been in the house long enough to make it awkward that she hadn't been obviously around all along.) She made it through with her dignity intact.
And not a couple hours later we had a brand-new, gleaming white sink with chrome faucets, something looking better than it ever will again. And it's so good. The water turns on, and off, easily and completely. The basin's more rectangular than the oval we'd had --- I couldn't find the shape of sink we used to have --- but it also seems a little deeper, and between the depth and the smoother flow --- no half-broken semi-rusted aerator turning our water flow turbulent --- I'm even splashing less water around. If you can imagine me leaving the sink not looking like an otter was playing there.
It's more than a week now and the novelty and smoothness and delight of it hasn't worn off. And, gads, it's so amazing how it is to first, have a longstanding problem solved, and so good it feels to have something be solved relatively easily. There's no spinoff issues, no side effects, just, things dramatically improved. Who knew that could happen?
And now I bring you pictures, as we get to the newest roller coaster at Dollywood:
And here's that promised roller coaster. At least, part of the entry, which has a theme of trying to find the big bear rumored in the area. Thus the sign promising the hint of a bear. The claw scratches remind me of those on Rougarou's sign, at Cedar Point, but that's probably because claw scratches all kind of look alike this sort of thing.
Big Bear Mountain roller coaster passing by a nice little hill.
Here's the queue, our longest wait for anything our whole one-and-a-half-days visiting. Even so the queue area wasn't filled up, testament to how lucky we were with the whole trip.
Part of the waiting area is a bunch of stuff about the big bear sightings and signups to go on the search for it and also reminders that you shouldn't be doing this for real, leave bears alone, they got enough problems.
Despite the sign pointing to the bear, they wanted you to go that way too.
And here's finally the station; there's a train just about to leave. And it's got headlights, to match the ride's offroad-vehicle-expedition kayfabe.
Trivia: In the 1761-62 sea trials of John Harrison's H.4 chronometer, sailing from England to Jamaica, the clock lost only five seconds on the way out, a navigational error of only one and a quarter nautical miles. Source: Time's Pendulum: The Quest to Capture Time - From Sundials to Atomic Clocks, Jo Ellen Barnett. Barnett says that including the return leg the clock lost not more than two minutes, and thirty miles, but doesn't say how much more. The phrasing does make it sound like the trip out got lucky.
Currently Reading: Infinite Cosmos: Visions from the James Webb Space Telescope, Ethan Siegel.
