Well, yesterday didn't go quite as expected... Our house has two furnaces, one that heats the basement and first floor, the other for the second floor. Last night the temperature got down to 4°F – and both furnaces went on the fritz! The downstairs furnace is brand-new, just installed a couple of months ago, so I wasn't happy with that situation at all. However, with a little troubleshooting I figured out that it wasn't the furnace itself that was busted, but rather the external condensate pump. I just unhooked the pump and put a five gallon bucket under the condensate line, and the heater started working again. Phew! Within an hour the house went from 55°F or so up to 70°F where we like to keep it during the daytime in the winter. Our (wonderful!) HVAC guys showed up just after noon, replaced that condensate pump (after verifying my diagnosis), and then troubleshot the upstairs furnace. The problem with it turned out to be mineral “growths” of some sort in an odd-shaped plastic chamber that routes condensate away from the manifold pressure sensor. They got that out and managed to clean it up; slapped it back in the furnace and everything started working. They're both still working fine this morning (the next day)...
Yesterday morning I visited a lawyer – not something I expected to do in my retirement! :) I was there with a friend, to sign documents establishing a trust for her and her (many!) children. It felt rather odd to be in a lawyer's office again – last time I did that, it was as CEO of a public company, back in about 2002. I've managed to successfully avoid it ever since. :) One element that made the visit especially odd was the apparent age of the attorney: roughly 12. This fellow actually graduated from law school in 2014, but he's blessed with a very young-looking face. He doesn't look old enough to have a driver's license, much less a license to practice law!
We were quite surprised yesterday when our contractors showed up to work on our retaining walls and walkways. It was cold outside, well below freezing all day long, and yet these four guys were out there playing in the dirt. They got the old, temporary, wooden retaining walls removed and started on the footing preparation (compacting, then a layer of road base, then pea gravel, then rock fines). If they come back today they'll actually be placing rock. It's way too cold for me to be doing work like that, but somehow they're managing...
Yesterday evening Debbie and I drove down to see the Christmas lights in Ogden's “Christmas Village” and at Willard Bay State Park. Both were really nice, but my favorite was the Christmas Village. We just drove around it in the car, but we're going to go down again to park and walk through it. Highly recommended to anyone who enjoys the spectacle of Christmas lights!
