Last night well after 10, Jane went down to the basement to get her laundry…and found a big puddle.
Our sump arrangement for the marine tank in the living room is right by the washing machine.
Two days ago, I spent at least two hours cleaning the skimmer — a fiendish plastic column, double-sleeved, with a removable collection cup atop, a device that is driven by a pump to froth water up the column into bubbles, which, if sticky enough, rise in the column to collect in the cup as nasty blackish green liquid to be thrown away: these are spare amino acids—fish waste, fish poo. The stuff that is the foam that collects on beaches from the surf of the natural ocean.
The skimmer has two air holes. But should the exit hose for the majority of the water clog—somehow—WATER jets from a particular air hole that due to its location—partially falls into the sump. The rest goes, we find, onto the table. Onto the floor. Despite the fact the hole is actually over the sump. But when it fountains, it goes, well, outside.
This water loss of course means the water level in the tank sinks, which sucks air into a tube arrangement connected to a sensor.
This signals another pump to turn on and pump fresh water into the system. In the usual course of things, this is because evaporation has made it necessary (water evaporates, salt doesn’t, and evaporated water has to be replaced by fresh water, not salt water.)
So—when the skimmer spat salt water out of one section onto the floor, the autotopoff obligingly put more water in. Fresh water. This alters the salinity of the system.
Double whammy. If Jane hadn’t caught it in the act, the entire freshwater reservoir could have emptied, pouring 30 gallons of freshwater into a 100 gallon saltwater system.
I tested the salinity. It’s supposed to be 1.024. It was 1.018. Double damn.
Fortunately—very fortunately—I have some 1.024 water. And the condition had not been of long duration. I began dipping 1.018 water out and replacing it with 1.024 water from the reserve supply.
After a while of this, I had the salinity back to 1.022. Not great, but you can’t push salinity too rapidly higher, or you can kill things from the change. If you don’t, they can die from the lack of salinity.
So today, on my agenda, is rigging a disaster tube onto the skimmer which, in such a situation in future, will route the water from the airhole on into the sump…and continue raising that salinity, which will be a tick higher with evaporation. I’m also going to turn on the portable dehumidifier, which will push evaporation faster. And I’m going to go on until I have the salinity at 1.025, right in the middle of the safe range. And I’m going to try to figure why that hose clogged.
Jane’s doing the taxes—oh, joy.
Fishtanks. When they behave well, they’re a pleasure. When a little tube that’s supposed to empty into the tank is positioned so it becomes a fountain two inches high—it’s a pain in the ass.
I’m having my morning coffee. After the third cup, I’m going to go downstairs and attack this situation.
I’m going in. Wish me luck.
I’m hearing the music they always used to use for Rube Goldberg devices in the old Bugs Bunny cartoons — “Power Station”.
I’m going to need a word with my quack. Since I just passed a certain age milestone, he wants me to come in and get tested for all types of stuff. I will probably do it, grumbling, but the first batch was this morning. He told me I needed to fast for the blood test, but he didn’t say for how long and that I could drink water while fasting (DH, having gone through this already, explained more). He also failed to tell me that he was asking for a pee test too. I’d say this is a fairly substantial failure to communicate, and casts a bit of doubt on some of his suggestions. All this before I was allowed to have coffee, too!
Good thoughts for your battle with the tank, and for Jane, many prayers about dealing with the Infernal Revenue Service. Is the paperwork easier or harder since you got married?
If I may mind your P’s (ew!) and Q’s (I know, I’m dithpicable), Raymond Scott’s Powerhouse, second part, selected by Carl Stalling. The Toy Trumpet should also be familiar.
Ah yes — do not confuse with 80s pop bands, not the same. Still, appropriate (Igor peering around the end of the sump, “Yes, Master?”)
Heh, when you write about dealings with the aquaria and plumbing, I keep thinking how that would make some kind of great plot complication and scenes for a ship-based story.
Besides, it’s an excuse for spacer lads and lasses to “swab the decks,” literally.
I suppose the Pride’s crew cleaning those perennial favorites, the air ducts and filters, and chasing Dinner through the ship, does come close. Heheheh.
I also think you could have a lot of fun with some semi-aquatic or aquatic space-faring aliens. (Or dolphins or octopi, or…something more alien.)
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Chondrite — Yeah, they generally want an eight-hour fast, nothing but water for the past eight hours, and samples of pretty much any body fluid they can get. 😛 Hmm…my birthday’s now less than a week away. I will be not quite over the hill yet, but within sight of it, for sure. However, given that a certain grandparental unit reached 102, I could be around for…another half-century or a bit more. Whew! So, one sympathizes!
Well, I wish you both luck.
Jane and I are pushing to get info out of our accountants as to whether we are better off filing jointly or separately and what this will do to her Washington Heathcare arrangement—none of the calculators figure our situation with one on Medicare, one not. Frankly, I think the accountants don’t know either.
In general, once you’re legally married your federal tax liability is less if you file jointly than if you file married filing separately, which are your only two choices. As to the health insurance issue, that’s something entirely different. Your accountants can do a tax projection(s) to show you the difference in the taxes and hopefully someone knows the rules about the affect of your marriage on Jane’s health insurance situation.
We are in the midst of getting DH signed up for Medicare, Medigap & prescription drug coverage to start on March 1. I won’t be 65 for a few more months, so I also had to figure out what to do to get him off our current insurance and still keep me on it. I think I’ve filled out the proper forms to accomplish this and they will go in the mail tomorrow.
That’s the problem. We can’t get anyone to tell us whether our filing jointly would screw Jane’s eligibility for the Affordable Care Act program in our state, which gives her actual health insurance for the first time ever. If you recall this ongoing soap opera, when she got dangerously ill and needed a transfusion, our so-called medical insurance, which was very glad to take our money for 20 years, declined paying for a life-saving transfusion because it was performed on the wrong side of the wall inside a hospital—in the ‘outpatient’ clinic. She now has real coverage, and we don’t want that changed. None of the calculators cover our situation, which cannot be that uncommon, and we cannot find anybody who can answer the simple question as to will this be a problem.
You may want to bite the bullet, if you can’t get a straight answer about the insurance out of anyone before you must submit your taxes, and file separately this year. I’ve seen far too many people screwed for either lack of insurance, or finding out that their insurance ‘doesn’t cover that’. I’m lucky; I don’t get paid extravagantly, but what we don’t make on my paycheck is made up for in benefits, including good insurance coverage for both of us. DH had to go to the emergency room last year with a kidney stone. The submitted bill was over $3000; we paid about $50.
I’ve discovered what might be a glitch in my own refund. I filed earlier this month, the IRS says that the money was deposited to my savings account. So far, so good, EXCEPT, I went to my Savings and Loan Association’s website to get their routing number. The routing number they have on their website is for an intermediary bank, NOT their own routing number. So, my refund, which should have been in my account today, is lost somewhere between the IRS and my account.
It means having to get on the telephone to the local IRS office, tell them the problem, and hope I can get a decent response and assistance from them. In past years, I’ve had good luck dealing with IRS employees when I’ve had a problem, but with recent cuts in budget, and the attitude that the IRS seems to be garnering with regards to its existence, well, who knows what will come of this next call. I have to wait until after they reopen from lunch, so I’m killing time until then. I’m not at all pleased with my Savings and Loan Association’s webpage and have let them know, as well. I expect to hear from them eventually, too. I’ve been a member there since 1966, perhaps they’ll take that into consideration.
In the meantime, the money I had earmarked for a new mattress and box springs is probably taking a vacation somewhere between Pel and Fargone……
I would take the financial hit (generally quite severe) and do married filing separately until you get an opinion from the IRS. If that is ever straightened out you can always file an amended return as joint.
I got an email from the S&L that essentially stated, “Well, you should have called us and asked us….” Sure, on Sunday afternoon, you’re going to answer your phone to give me a routing number? Even my investment houses, such as Franklin-Templeton have their routing numbers on their websites. Thanks a lot. I have to wait for the intermediary bank to reject the deposit, send the money back to the IRS and then six weeks later, the IRS will mail me a paper check.
I have let the S&L know that I am not happy with this at all.
Checked on the refund yesterday, the IRS says the deposit was rejected by the bank (good) and that a paper check will be mailed to me on Tuesday, March 3.
As for asking the IRS about their opinion, the problem stems from reduced staffing and services in the IRS, they don’t provide a lot of information to the taxpayer who calls. I tried to contact the local tax office and all I got were pre-recorded messages telling me that if I were responding to a call or message from the IRS office, to please call the extension given in the message. Um, in other words, if we call you first, we’ll talk to you, but if you call us, forget it, we’re too busy……and I’ll leave the political snidery out of it……
Well, Joe, if you want someone to provide you a service, somehow they’ll expect to be paid. If you want the gubment to provide “free” services, you’ll still have to pay for it. That’s almost exclusively through taxes you pay. It’s your choice, of course, you can cut out that “free” gubment service and pay for it directly in the private, read “for-profit”, private sector.
I know that, due to IRS budget cuts, we are only getting 1 box each of the 3 main tax forms, and NO INSTRUCTION BOOKLETS. Needless to say, the patrons who rely on us to give them tax forms are not happy about having to get the instructions on their own. You should hear some of the things they say to us (and we only provide the forms as a public good; we ain’t the IRS)!
Is there a tax attorney you could consult? I know most people think of accountants when they think of filing taxes, but tax attorneys would be the ones with the legal opinions and would probably give the better advice.
I don’t know if they’d charge you for the consultation if it’s only something that could be answered quickly.
Unfortunately, tax accountants are almost as in the dark when it comes to unusual income tax/health care insurance coverage questions as ordinary folk. This is the very first year that any state other than Massachusetts, where I live, has connected taxes with receipt or not (pay a tax penalty) of health insurance. Even here in Mass., the intersection of the new federal, Affordable Care Act tax code with our prior state code has us confused.
For a couple of years, I was one of the major Massachusetts specialists in how to determine who did and did not have to pay a state tax penalty for not having appropriate health Insurance (I and several others started the IRS-certified free tax prep network in Boston) but while I know the basics for this year’s new, ACA federal tax code, states with their own health insurance “exchanges” all have their own quirks.
Tomorrow, when I am feeling sharper, I will look at your situation again and also will check with my colleagues who are doing the actual tax prep this year. They may well know the appropriate fine point of the federal law or can direct me where to look.
And, yes, those of you reading this from other countries than the so-called “Good Ol’ US of A” and smirking because you don’t have to jump through any of these tax hoops when it comes to accessing and paying for health care are entirely correct: the USA has created a jury-rigged, complex and awkward system connecting two disparate systems – healthcare and taxes – in a stitched together, patchwork effort to expand people’s access to semi-affordable health care. Whatever one thinks of single-payer, “universal health care” and if it is affordable, gives you enough personal choice of physician, etc., it would be far simpler taxwise to handle than the current political compromise.
I asked my doctor once about tea while fasting, and he said as long as there’s no milk or sugar in it, it’s permitted. (Coffee, with its oils, might be a problem – but I didn’t ask, because it’s not something I drink.)
According to my DH who is a biological chemist by training black coffee is okay to drink while fasting, same as tea or water. Works for me since I drink my coffee black.
I read recently somewhere that a study or studies seem to indicate that there’s no advantage, results-wise, to fasting before a blood test. I wonder how long that will take to percolate down to our practitioners.
ditto on my tests…the labs have told me that clear liquids, including tea or black coffee are fine…and they didn’t say anything about the sweetener in the tea, at least, for fasting blood work.
Possibly not Earl Grey because of the oil of bergamot.
Then there’s my sister, who asked my-wife-the-RN whether Chardonnay counted as “clear liquids” prior to surgery.
Um, well, no. 😀
No sweeteners! Pref. nothing but water, or nothing, period.
The fasting before the blood work usually has, among others, a test for blood glucose, to see if your blood sugar s fine or is high towards diabetic or low towards hypoglycemic, when you’re fasting. If it goes too high or too low, it’s a risk factor or outright shows a serious condition.
Therefore, no sugar, honey, or other sweeteners, natural or artificial, so you don’t screw up your results. They’re looking for what your body does on its own with no outside interference.
A full-on glucose tolerance test is more involved, fasting, then they have you drink “glu-cola” for four to eight hours, at intervals, and check at each stage.
When I was last tested, in college, I was borderline hypoglycemic. I am generally fine, but try to watch myself. The opinion was that I wasn’t a risk for diabetes, but for hypoglycemia. My mom was diabetic, but not her mother. No idea about either my mom’s dad or either of her sets of grandparents.
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CJ, wishing you and Jane a good outcome,taxes and insurance. State versus federal likely makes a mess of that. Here, TX, still no recognition, and so any and all regarding visitation rights, health coverage, etc. requires special legal wrangling, as I understand it.
If Mr. Right and I ever do find each other, we either put up with that or move to an accepting state. My state still would prefer such notions remain unspoken and unheard…thought public opinion has improved for the under-25 range, a little.
I spent too many years, as a teen and adult, not accepting that about myself, though I spoke up for friends. I don’t know what would have made that better, made me accept that sooner, such as in college, when I really struggled with it.
So therefore, I wish people (myself included) could be better about it, more accepting that some of us are different. But that we want love and togetherness like anyone else.
Heh, I seem to have stood on a soapbox again.
Splash guards and diverters made from pieces of plastic milk cartons have always been a favorite with me.
Re the jointly vs separately, I think sticking by what we hAVE done until we hear differently might indeed be the better course.
IIRC married filing separately gives you less deductions than filing as single. Single isn’t an option for you anymore AFAIK.
True.