HOT WATER!

We just spent almost 24 hours without electricity. It was harrowing. Imagine a whole day without a power recliner.

No one is wondering, but anyway, I’ll give a sitrep. Things are okay here. The storm actually nearly almost lived up to its potential until maybe 5 a.m., and then it disappeared.

This is not what they predicted. We were supposed to have winds of 28 or 34 mph right now, depending on which Chicken Little gave the forecast.

I hate doing without power, but I am too cheap to buy a real generator big enough to run the house. We have had two short outages in 7 years, so figure $2500 per outage to keep the power on. It’s a lot of money to pay to avoid two or three baths in the pool and throwing out some freezer-burned meat.

While I was out and about today, I saw quite a few wires on the ground, some under trees, so I started to wonder if we were going to get power back this week. I went to WaWa and bought about 6 gallons of no-ethanol gas for my generator. I was lucky to get the gas. I just drove about 40 miles looking for more, and it was nowhere to be found.

I hadn’t been planning to use the generator, but we both wanted to take showers, and the water heater and pump need electricity.

I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get the generator going. I did all the right things when I put it away, but small engines are cursed.

Sure enough, when I put a quart of gas in it to test it, it would not run. I took the pull cord assembly off and cranked it with a drill, and it still would not run.

I started going through the procedures. I decided to check the fuel valve, and I found that no fuel was going through it. I started trying to take it off, and it turned out to be really obstinate. I started to wonder if I was wasting my time. Maybe the gas wasn’t deep enough in the tank.

I thought that, and then I thought, “It has to be deep enough. I can see the drain below the surface of the gas.” But I tilted the generator anyway, and gas ran out of the valve.

I could not believe it. The generator will not run unless it has maybe a gallon of gas in it OR you tilt it.

China.

I must have spent two hours trying to make it run, and there was nothing wrong with it.

I had to cannibalize two cords from my tools to make a cord to hook the generator up to the house. I have a bunch of 50-amp welding sockets in my shop, so I made what I call a San Francisco cord. It’s male on both ends. One 50-amp plug goes into my 50-to-30 adaptor, which came with a welder, and the other goes to an extension cord, which goes to a wall socket. Worked perfectly, but I had to order two new plugs.

I got the generator going for one reason: I knew that two things were true.

If fix generator, power come back on right away.

If not fix generator, power come back on in a week.

This is how the universe works. I fixed the generator, and two or three hours later, we had power.

The generator is small; 5500 watts. As I recall, it was the only one I could get before Hurricane Irma went by us. Until today, I had never used it to power the house. I used it to run welders before I installed new wiring in the shop.

Today we learned it will run one water heater, the pump, the lights, and the refrigerators and freezers. It seemed unhappy when my wife took a shower, but it didn’t quit.

Should I get a bigger one? I can get one with about twice the capacity from Harbor Freight, and it will have electric start. I could spring for a real generator that runs on propane and powers both air conditioners, but I don’t think I will.

Bigger generator. Not bigger wife.

I live in what may be the greatest neighborhood on Earth.

When Irma came through, and I was going crazy with looking after my dad and moving from Miami with no help, a tree fell across our driveway in the same place where one fell last night. We had to drive around it while I tried to find a saw. It was almost impossible to get one, even online.

A day or two after the storm, someone cut and moved the tree, inside our gate. They trespassed to do us a favor. People we had never met.

This morning, I walked outside–frankly, I was looking for a place to answer nature’s call, because I didn’t want to carry a Home Depot bucket to the bathroom to flush the toilet–and I saw a grapple tractor in my gate.

My neighbor was driving it, and he started asking where he should cut it and move it. Like it was his job.

I talked to him for a minute and said I would get dressed and come back to help. He said he would probably be done before I got back. Sure enough, he was.

Today I told my wife that if a neighbor came onto my property in Miami after a hurricane, it would be to steal my generator. My neighbors here practice what I call reverse vandalism.

This was a $1000 job, minimum, and he did it for nothing. I could have done it myself with my compact tractor, and I will have to finish it myself, but it was a very nice thing to do.

I don’t know what’s going on down south. I know it’s bad, but I haven’t been able to watch the news today, so I am out of the loop. I spent a lot of time praying last night because I couldn’t sleep. I hope it helped.

Milton exceeded my expectations. It maintained hurricane-force winds all the way to the east coast. On the other hand, the storm surge was wildly overestimated.

I wish we lived in the kind of country where the president would lead us in prayer before natural disasters, using the name of Jesus. We would see great results.

At least we have DeSantis.

I’m really excited. I’m going to take a hot shower. What a luxury. Right now I smell like Antifa.

Never think you don’t have it good. If you have a pleasant home, a car, air conditioning, a dishwasher, laundry machines, and hot running water, you have luxuries that would have astonished people throughout most of man’s history.