Yesterday in more detail

Here's what I was writing yesterday before I came across my flooded basement.


Where to I start today? Well, maybe with yesterday when my "check engine" light came on. My five year old Camry has never had that light come on, so I was concerned immediately. I knew I had to bring it in to have it checked, but when? el supremo de NM is coming to town Tuesday night and we're driving around until I drop him off at the airport on Friday. So I decided to make an appointment for this afternoon but later in the afternoon.

Today started by heading into the office to get working on various client stuff. After being fairly successful, I headed back home the two miles straight north. Now, the temperature was 91 and humid as all get out as I left the office. It took me about 15-20 minutes to get into my neighborhood and the temperature had dropped down to 78!! Then the rains came.....and they came.....and they came....for a solid half-hour at least.

After the rain ended, or what I thought was the end, I headed down to Starbucks for my afternoon coffee. Unfortunately the rain started up again and it poured....and poured....and poured some more. Finally, I had to leave otherwise I wouldn't make my car appointment three miles north.

I thought I'd just hop on the Lake Shore Drive and head north. Unfortunately, the underpasses that allow you to get onto LSD were flooded! The water in Irving's underpass actually had whitecaps on it!! Worse yet, it had a van with water over the hood of the car stuck underneath. I tried the next underpass with the same results....exactly. Another van stuck in the same spot underneath the overpass. So I decided to head inland and took Broadway up north instead. That's right, I said I decided to head inland. Crazy.

Pick up the story today:

Well, I made it to the car shop and spent $330 for repairs to my thermostat which controls the coolant to the engine (seemed like something I should have fixed). Then I headed home. It was all of three hours after the last deluge that was so intense it had caused manhole covers to flip up and go askew. Now however, it was like nothing happened. Maybe my basement didn't flood, I naively thought.

Well, it did and I spent the next six hours vacuuming up water so that I could tear up the carpeting so I could vacuum the pad underneath so I could tear it up and throw it out. You can't move the carpet if it's soaked and you can't pick up enough padding wet padding to make progress, so you have to use a wet-vac on both before you do anything with them. Ugh. Made enough progress by midnight though that I was ready for a hot shower and bed. Plus my back couldn't take anymore.

So I turned on the water and waited for it to get hot...and waited....and waited...and waited. Fifteen minutes later I realized something was up and it was probably the pilot light. Bingo. We have two water heaters for the building and both pilot lights were out. After another fifteen minutes, I was able to get one lit. The other remains unlit to this very moment. We can get by on one as long as not everyone is showering at once. Didn't help me at 12:30 a.m. though as it takes a while to reheat that much water and for it to reach me, so it was a cold shower and then bed. Not ideal by any stretch.