I Love Spending $1230

We got our new furnace installed yesterday. It took the dudes about 4 hours and it cost $1230. Not bad considering the next lowest quote was over two grand. This was just a company of two guys, lower overhead since they do all the work quoting, buying, accounting, installing, etc. They did a nice job. The installation is clean and professional.

The unit is so much smaller than our old one. It’s also a quiet. When the old one would turn on there was this huge noise and the lights upstairs would dim since they were on the same circuit. Then it was noisy while it was running. This one you can’t really even tell unless it’s dead quite in the house. We should see a pretty nice reduction in our gas and electric bill. We’re going from 50% efficient to 80% efficient, no pilot light, and no huge electric motor to spin up. Maybe it will be enough to combat the rising energy prices and we’ll just be a wash.

I need to buy some foil tape and go around and get our ductwork sealed up better. I was feeling around and pretty leaky.

I played some rat hockey last night. I wanted some time to get used to a new stick and blade I got. It’s a Warrior Dolomite shaft and a wood Fury blade with a Sakic curve. It’s pretty close to the Drury curve I like on my Mission stick. I cut a new end plug for it to the “correct length” (stick goes up to your chin when you have your skates on). This was a bit longer than what my Mission stick is so it felt kind of awkward. By the end of rat I felt more comfortable with the stick. I really like the wood blade with the composite shaft. I can take a pass better and it’s a bit beefier than the Mission blade.

We have another game on Sunday. I’m guessing attendance will be a bit on the slim side with the holiday weekend. I need to try and be a bit more confident on the ice. I kind of have that new to hockey mentality in this upper league that as soon as I get the puck I need to get rid of it. I just need to have some balls and skate with it a bit and look for the right play.

Holy Balls, This is Hockey

Interesting weekend. On Friday I was sick, must have had some bad shellfish ;)

The the old girl finally kicked the bucket. I've been waiting for our 35+ year old furnace and blower unit to die. I knew it was just a matter of time. That shit just isn't engineered to last that long. I was sitting using the computer upstairs. The unit kicked on and I heard what I can only describe as what it would be like if you threw a kitchen knife into big steel fan spinning. That nice sound of shearing metal and the clanging aftermath of it bouncing around against other metal.

Then, just like an unbalanced load of laundry the bastard started to shake bad. I ran downstairs and shut it down. Sure enough, one of the blades of the fan sheared right off. Of all the failure modes this one was the about the best at the best time of year. The heat exchanger could have cracked when it was -20 outside and started to poison us.

This way I get to shop around for a new one at a more leisurely pace. I found some guys through some friends who will do it for a good price. Luckily it's been like 75 all weekend so we haven't needed the AC at all.

Here are some death photos.







Then on Sunday it was my first B-League hockey game. Holy Shit! I thought I was playing hockey before with my buddies on the frozen fields, and then here in Peoria in C-League. Nope. I was playing something that used the same equipment and followed the same basic rules.

What I played last night was this explosive high powered game where you need to give every bit of energy you have for the 1:30 or so you're on the ice. I didn't really understand what anaerobic meant until last night.

The league is actually an A/B league because in the summer there aren't enough A-Leaguers to form a full league. So I'm skating against dudes who have played some college or some juniors or other very high caliber players. It was fun. I'm on a good team, and we won 10-8. I made some good defensive plays.

I made some "how the fuck is this guy even on skates" plays. The most memorable was being on the blue line and side-stepping and falling with no one near me. You've got to watch out for that blue line, it trips you sometimes. I broke a stick blade right at the hosel.

It was fun though. I like not being one of the better players and having the pressure to try and make something happen My job is to concentrate on not fucking up and just making basic quality passes and try and be in good position. Hopefully by the end of this summer I'll be at that point.