Busy busy weekend

Friday

went with Scott A to the "Magic Garage" in the South Bay -- every Friday, this guy opens his house up & has magic shows, both closeup and larger-scale. Quite a crowd -- they had to open the garage door to let the overflow crowd cover the driveway. Great shows, though there was a BIG gap between the 7:30PM closeup show and the 10:00PM main show, during which the even was basically a party... and I hate parties. At least the back yard was available for a retreat. But in all, a positive.

Saturday

Sorry, need to backtrack. On Thursday, the pilot light on the water heater went out. I got it to relight but it went out on Friday again, and wouldn't come back at all. Heck, I've been meaning to get a new one for years, this one I installed myself with a friend's assistance, and it's been underpowered from the beginning.

Off to my favorite hardware store, Pete's in Castro Valley. I ask if they have tankless water heaters. No, but they'll refer me to a plumber who can pick up the new unit at the supply store and then install it for me. I call. The supply store closes at 3PM, and the plumber won't be available until 4PM, but I could go down there, give his name, & buy it myself for him to put in. I do this, and it's a HUGE pile of cash, but it's very fancy and self-everything and lasts 35 years, so hey.

And then Jeff the plumber gets to my house and checks out the old unit. He clucks his tongue. "There's all sorts of things they did here that are horribly unsafe," he sighs. "To install a tankless to code, we'd have to add a dedicated gas line just for the unit, and run it from the meter box under the house. You got slab or crawlspace?" Crawlspace. "Good. That would probably run you only $2000 for that retrofit, before you get to labor for the actual install."

I am glad that I haven't already told him that I did it myself. This leaves me room to pretend that the previous owner was responsible.

Let's gloss over the next 6 hours and say that there's now a brand new 50-gallon tank water heater in my storeroom, happily supplying piles of hot water for showers, laundry and dishwashing. But I still have the tankless unit I bought from the supply store, which I will have to return on Monday.

Sunday

Trolley Dances with John Kenny. Very fun as always, with the best batting average in years (4 of the 7 performances are wonderful & the other 3 at least interesting). Then John wanted to take pictures for his photography class, so we went into the Church Street MUNI station and I let him use me as a model against the burnt orange panels and the filthy brown bricks. Then we moved to the Powell Street Station and he shot more pix of me against their white bumpy-hexagon wall tiles there. Being a male model is hard work! Afterwards back to E-Space for dinner with Mike O at the Emeryville Black Bear Diner -- I've eaten at the chain many times, and loved it, but this time the service was just terrible (food still good & plentiful of course). A shame, hopefully something management there can correct.

Tomorrow (Monday October 21)

is also the first rehearsal for my next theater project. I will be portraying a drunken beatnik poet. Nature has equipped me well for this task.