Odds & Ends

First of all, to answer the question from CK, yes the hat is a new addition. The top of my head has been getting a little too much sun.

Second, after they build the hotel on Alcatraz island, will the guests show up? Will the trip there and back be free and where will they park? Will some try to swim back to the mainland?

Finally, Friday the 13th was another uneventful day in the life of Daddy and Nana Kaos. A decent round of golf after breakfast with friends was the highlight of the day. Then came Sunday with mixed results.

I got in line for CWS tickets around 7:30AM, waiting for the box office to open at 10:00 AM. I met a fan from LSU, a couple of guys from Pennsylvania (father and son together on Fathers Day) and a woman who kept telling anyone that would listen that if her car was towed, her father was going to have to pay the fee since he is the one that told her to park where ever it was she left her car. Then we waited for the storm to start.

A little after 8 there were a few drops, then some brilliant flashes of light followed by some rather loud and rude rumbles. About 8:15 the little drops got a bit larger and the wind picked up.

Just before this the LSU fan went over to the paper vendor and got some plastic bags and we all put our electronics in our bags just before we started thinking that maybe it was not a real good idea to be standing under this tree (but it was a worse idea to be leaning against the chain link fence or to hold a chair with metal legs upside down to keep the rain off (yes, there were people doing that).

With the combination of the rain, wind and lightening strikes, I decided to vacate my position in line and went to shelter in a nearby portable toilet. Thank the good lord that they had just been refreshed and since I did not turn the "vacant" sign to "occupied" only one lady tried to take shelter as I had.

After about 30 minutes in the shelter the rain subsided and back in line we went (the two from Pa. were in the toilet next to mine, the LSU fan held steady with a small umbrella supplied by his wife that he called a hat cover). Then I was saved.

There are usually people walking the line with reserve tickets for sale. I had already turned down a few because they did not have the seats I was looking for. Then the right guy came along with a ticket just past the dugout on the first base side of the field about 15 rows up. After forking out the normal ticket price (scalpers are shot on site at the CWS), I left for the safety of home before the next wave of storms (actually they never came).

So back to the ballpark and with ticket in hand I enter to watch the Fresno State - Rice first round game.....and as usual, the Fresno crowd is out in full force and loud. The team must have fed off of the fans, they score four runs in the 2nd inning. After four home runs and some great pitching they wind up with a 17 to 5 win so it's back to the series tomorrow against North Carolina (the team that Oregon State beat last year for the title0 and that means I'm back in line tomorrow (hopefully I can stay away from portable shelters).

Now to the Friday the 13th part. We had to have a fan motor for our air conditioner last Monday (it started making a funny sound and the fan did not seem to be working). After I got home from the game, the unit was on and making a funny noise again, then it shut down. I cranked the temp down to get it to come back on, nothing.

Downstairs I go and and it hits me, that electrical burning smell that tells me to shut it off, now! Outside to check to see if the fan is running before I shut it down and I see this:


















That is copper tubing not white plastic PVC pipe and it is 90 degrees outside. The tubing is frozen, a result of the fan blower motor not functioning. We had the condenser motor replaced last Monday because the repairman said that was the problem. Today we replaced the blower motor.

Lucky for us that it was another top 10 day and we did not need the air and the AC repair company gave us a credit for not finding the problem the first go round.