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I now know far more than I really wanted to about my oil boiler. (Who am I kidding? That thing is fricking PIMP. It’s apparently the best boiler that money can buy, and it’s built like a brit shickhouse.)

After running it out of oil the other day and suffering through a night where the temperature in the house hovered at 56 degrees Fahrenheit, Burns and McBride came out this morning to fill it, but were flummoxed by the fact that there seemed to be two delivery connections. I pointed out that we have two tanks, and they pointed out that there’s only one vent, so it’s possible that only one of the connections works, and the other is vestigeal. They said they’d send out a Delivery Manager to take a look.

I met him at the house, and he turned out to be a nice gentleman, who confirmed that there are two delivery connections, one for each tank. He only filled one tank, because we discovered that the air vent seems to be partially clogged (something else I’ll have to get fixed), and he was afraid of building up too much pressure in the tanks. He said that the boiler might have difficulty starting up, because of air in the line, but showed me how to bleed that, and went on his merry way.

And of course I couldn’t get the damn boiler to fire. It’s heavily computerized, and has logic to prevent it from running if it realizes it’s only spraying air. So it’ll try for a bit, and if it doesn’t get any fuel, it turns off, and starts flashing a little green LED. There’s a button on the front to reset it and try again, so I figured I’d bleed out the air, then hit reset, and everything would be gravy.

I loosened the bleeder screw, which I expected to work like the one you find on automobile brake calipers; you have somebody press on the brake, you loosen the screw, and air and fluid comes pouring out. In this case, the oil only dripped, which I thought was strange. Anyway, I hit the reset button again, but nothing happened; the little green light kept flashing, and the motor on the front didn’t turn on. I tried switching off the power to the system, tried messing with the thermostat, but got nowhere. After 15 minutes of frantic googling, I discovered this handy online manual, which explained that to prevent fuel oil from filling up the burner, you can only reset the system three times before it goes into “restricted mode.” Getting it out of restricted mode just involves holding the button down for a long time. No problem. I figured if I could just get the motor to kick off a few times, it would eventually pump all the air out, and start getting good oil.

After resetting the system 9 times, I started to rethink my strategy.

I realized that the reason that brake fluid comes pouring out of the caliper when I bleed the brakes is that someone is pushing on the brake pedal, producing pressure in the system. The only pressure in the system was being provided by gravity, and it apparently wasn’t enough. It occurred to me: what if I reset the system while the bleeder valve is open? Every time I reset the system, it ran a motor that I assume must be some kind of fuel pump. Would this pump the air out? I loosened the bleed screw a turn, and hit the button.

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOSH

Oil/Air foam came spraying out of the valve. This was a positive development. The motor eventually turned back off without firing the burner, but I figured it just needed another go. That didn’t work, but one more round of bleeding the air and one more reset led to:

WHOOOSHclickclickclickWHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH

Amusingly, no matter how new it is, any oil-fired boiler is instantly “Old Girl.” The instant the boiler fired, I yelled “That’s it, Old Girl! Hell yes!” A few moments later, when “she” coughed and sputtered when another little air bubble hit the burner, I coaxed “No, no, Old Girl, stay with me STAY WITH ME!”

In the end: she was busily heating up the water for the radiators, and I smell like a damn refinery. I had to return to work afterwards; I’m surprised my coworkers didn’t insist on burning my clothes and hosing me off outside.

Just watch.

It is cold. It is mid-December cold, in mid-October. As much as I enjoy a nice cold, snowy winter, this is ridickerous.

Worse yet: we were led to believe that our new house had a full tank of oil, enough to last 2 or 3 months, as we have a double tank totalling about 550 gallons. That was incorrect by a factor of, say, 10000%, since we ran the heat for one night and are now out of oil. On the coldest night of the autumn so far.

How cold was it? When I got up this morning, the temperature in the house was 56 degrees. Survivable, but still insane. Burns and McBride are supposedly coming today to deliver oil; if they aren’t there by noon I plan to start making calls.

Just as a side comment: when people say things like “Global warming my ass! It’s 40 degrees in October!” are we just allowed to scream “STATISTICAL SIGNIFICANCE!!! LOOK IT UP, DOUCHENOZZLE!” at them until they cry? I say yes.

Here is a short list of talking heads that I trust:

• Jon Stewart


• Rachel Maddow

That’s about it. I kinda trust Keith Olbermann, but let’s face it, he’s a blowhard. He talks a lot of smack, but I’ve noticed that only Rachel has people on that actually disagree with her. Who do you trust, if anybody?

From the Coming Out marches on Sunday, courtesy Andrew Sullivan:

Brilliant. In fact, I think it’s time to enact a basic rule: if you’ve ever been divorced, then you are not allowed to say anything negative about gay marriage, and how it’s a “threat” to family values. Same goes if you’ve conceived a child out of wedlock or committed adultery. I’m not saying I should be allowed to judge someone if they’ve done any of those things; while I’ve never done them myself, I’m certainly no saint. I’m just saying that if you broke up a family, I’m not putting up with your hypocrisy.

From the “What in the hamfisted hellion” department, we have 30 Ridiculous Pictures Of The Backstreet Boys.

That’s well past ridiculous.

I love Ryan Howard. Not as much as I love, say, Chase Utley, but I love him nonetheless. A quote from Cliff Lee, the Phils starting pitcher for yesterday’s game:

That hit by Howard was the biggest and most impressive hit I’ve seen in my career. The only thing that might have made it better was if it woulda went out of the yard. He came down to the end of the bench and said, ‘Get me to the plate, boys.’

If you missed the game (because you’re an idiot), the Phils got solo home runs from Victorino and Werth and held the 2-0 lead until the bottom of the sixth, when Tulowitzki’s double scored Helton. In the bottom of the eighth, things fell apart for the good guys, when a series of base hits surrendered by Lee and then Ryan Madson led to three Rockies runs.

Of course, the 9th inning led to defibrillators being warmed up throughout the Delaware Valley. Uncle Cholly sent Greg “Lou” Dobbs up to bat for Ben Francisco, who had replaced Raul Ibanez in left field and taken the pitcher’s spot in the order (reason 3,273 why the National League is the only real major league: the double switch); Dobbs struck out. Jimmy Rollins hit a hard grounder past the mound, and while Barmes was able to snag it, he couldn’t get the ball to first in time to beat the speedy switch-hitter. Victorino then hit a weak grounder straight to Barmes, but was too fast for the double play; Rollins out at second on the fielder’s choice.

Victorino wasn’t being held on, so he quickly swiped 2nd base while Utley, with the best eye in professional baseball, worked a 2-out walk, bringing Ryan Howard, The Big Piece, to the plate. He worked the count, and finally got a ball he could clobber for a long double to the wall, scoring both Utley and Victorino (who was stupidly looking into the outfield and was almost overrun by Utley; head in the game, Shane). Finally Jayson “For What It’s” Werth singled, driving in a hard-running Howard, who had to sit down and have some oxygen afterwards.

Miguel Cairo, who I keep forgetting is on the roster, grounded out to 2nd.

Brad Lidge, whose sole purpose in life at this point is to force me to drink scotch, came in and got a quick ground-out from Eric Young Jr. Then Carlos Gonzalez got a single, and everyone’s sphincters tightened a bit. Dexter Fowler lined out to short and I peed my pants a little. Todd Helton singled, and I poured a big glass of whisky; the only thing that kept Gonzalez at second was that slipped on his way to third. Finally, Tulo couldn’t check his swing and struck out on a DELICIOUS slider from Lidge, and I was glad I’d invested in adult diapers.

The National League Championship Series opens at Dodger Stadium on Thursday at 8pm. “Get me to the plate, boys,” indeed.

My son Charles is very large for his age, and shows every sign of becoming a rather sizeable fellow. I suspect that football coaches will notice this. And I will do everything in my power to discourage him from playing. Why? Read Malcolm Gladwell on the subject.

[L]ate last month the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research released the findings of an N.F.L.-funded phone survey of just over a thousand randomly selected retired N.F.L. players—all of whom had played in the league for at least three seasons. Self-reported studies are notoriously unreliable instruments, but, even so, the results were alarming. Of those players who were older than fifty, 6.1 per cent reported that they had received a diagnosis of “dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, or other memory-related disease.” That’s five times higher than the national average for that age group. For players between the ages of thirty and forty-nine, the reported rate was nineteen times the national average.

Ever wonder what the story of the tearing down of the Berlin Wall would be like if it were told using 10-story marionettes? Well, here’s your answer. Warning: nobody does creepy like Germans.

The Phillies continue to figure in the decline of my health. Last night’s game started shortly after 10pm and didn’t complete until 2 the frick 14 in the morning. Surprisingly, I managed to stay up for the entire thing, fueled by coffee and scotch. As a result, of course, I want to go back to bed, and cannot, because of kajl;x;lvj

Sorry, faceplanted into the keyboard.

It was quite a game, particularly because of the cold weather. The 35F temperature at Coors Field at the start meant the game was the coldest post-season game in history. (There apprently was some freaky 28 degree game once, but it was in April, during the regular season.) Chase Utley led of the scoring with a 2-out 1st inning bomb to right center, but then Happ gave away the lead in the bottom half. Eventually the Rockies got the score up to 3-1, until the Phils big 4th inning put them up 4-3, and of course in the bottom half of that inning a Carlos Gonzalez home run tied it again. In the top of the sixth, the Phils knocked in another, and were matched in the bottom of the 7th. Finally in the top of the ninth, Ryan Howard hit a deep fly ball with runners at the corners to take the lead, and Brad Lidge, despite giving the entire Delaware Valley a collective heart attack, earned the save.

At 2 fricking 14, ante meridiem.

So this morning’s a little brutal; I’m very tired, a little hungover, and still fighting a bit of a chest cold that has me hawking up lungers the size of salt water scallops. I guess what I’m saying is that being a Phillies fan means that sometimes you feel like you have tuberculosis.

They play again at 6pm, with Cliff Lee, coming off a complete game 1 gem, facing up against Ubaldo Jimenez, who sucks.