Mr. Fix-It…not

It was a little cold with that North Dakota wind blowing around on Saturday afternoon, so bundling up was necessary.

By Allan Olson

This past weekend provided two days of opposites.

I had spent time during the week trying to figure out water pressure issues that I have been having at home. Thinking back, the issues have probably been going on longer than I realized, but since I’m not much of a Mr. Fix-It, I didn’t pay heed to them. Anyway, after conversations with multiple people and of course some online research, I found myself still not much further ahead in figuring out the problem. It came down to one of three things – a water leak, pressure tank or pressure switch. In order, those were the most to least expensive options.

Naturally, my brain went right to the worst case scenario – I was sure there was going to be a leak. But nowhere were there any signs of leaking. So then I figured it must be the pressure tank. I finally broke down and purchased a new tank and a new switch – since it’s advised to change the switch when you change the tank anyway. 

I called my younger brother and after some messaging back and forth early Saturday morning, he came out to help fix the problem. He started with what he had suggested all along – changing the pressure switch – since that’s the least expensive option. Upon starting that process, he noticed the switch mechanism was sticking, and further inspection upon removal showed burn marks on the switch. Once the new switch was installed and water was restored, the water came spraying out of showers and faucets at a much greater volume than before. We opened all the faucets at one time or another and they all appeared to be spraying at a good volume. 

As an added bonus, we decided to try the dishwasher, which I had declared out of order until the repair guy could show up; it appears that the problem with that appliance all along was not the machine itself, but rather the lack of water pressure being delivered to it. Now it looks like I can cancel the service call on the dishwasher and return the pressure tank. Thank goodness!

My brother left and I started getting myself ready for the rest of Saturday’s agenda – geocaching. At the beginning of the month, a friend had mentioned a geocaching event in Grand Forks, set specifically for Australia Day. I noted my interest as long as I didn’t have to drive. So earlier in the week plans were confirmed; there would be three of us attending from the area. Late Friday evening we set the departure time for noon Saturday, and by a little after 2 p.m. we were crossing into North Dakota. A friend was supposed to meet us at a difficult cache near the bridge – one he had found and suggested we attempt. We were game, but he wasn’t there. We gave it a half-hearted search and determined we had no idea, so we moved one.

Our next two stops took us on a search on the NDSU campus via an interactive app feeding us information to get us to the final location. One was a game of hot and cold in which you had to ask it which you were; after a couple of wrong turns and one lucky guess we found the cache, signed our names and went back to the vehicle. 

We moved to the next location and solved the riddle of the chicken, fox and the feed, and how to get them across the bridge correctly without the chicken eating the food or the fox eating the chicken. Because I screwed up on one part of it I had to start all over, but it was fun so I didn’t mind at all. One of the others with us did his correctly so I didn’t really need to do it again, but I chose to anyway.

After that, we scouted a couple other areas and decided it was about time to eat. We made one quick stop at an electronics store to exchange something for me, and then we were off to the pizza joint. Nearby was one more cache that I couldn’t find the last time I was in town, and since it had been replaced, I really wanted to grab that one – so I did.

We headed to the event about two miles from where we dined, and again scouted another possible cache to find, but since it required trudging through the snow we passed on it and just headed to the event a little early instead. Once inside the warm building we determined that our 15 minutes early wasn’t that early, since others were already there ahead of us.

At the social event I gathered some information about getting that cache under the bridge, and armed with photos, I was ready to tackle it again, but my two co-travelers didn’t really want to go trudging through the snow and touching all that cold metal to try to find it, so we opted to head straight home instead.

I didn’t crawl out of bed until 9:30 a.m. on Sunday, a strange occurrence for someone who’s often up before 6:00. It’s far more likely on non-meeting/game nights that I’m in bed before 9:30 p.m. Even after crawling out of bed, I wasn’t very motivated to do much of anything, so I watched Netflix and lounged in my chair instead. Eventually I started to work on my taxes, but decided I really don’t like doing them and instead put a message out to the last tax person that did them for me to see if he was interested in doing them again. I guess if nothing else, I will just file them online and hope that I did them correctly.

The rest of the day I spent at my keyboard working or making food for the family, since the flu bug that has already hit every other member of the family finally hit the best cook in the house. All four kids missed a day of school in the last two weeks because of it, and I had one evening that I felt unpleasant but thankfully that was about the extent of it for me. Knock on wood.

Please remember to watch out for the buses that will be carrying our most precious cargo. Also, snap a photo or two to preserve a lifetime of memories. Thanks for reading, and have a great week! Feel free to drop me a line at cltimes1@arvig.net or stop by the office for a visit.