Author: Doug McCaughan

Father of 5. Juggler. Ticked off at blogger.com.
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Now that’s why you spend extra money – customer service

Our Delta kitchen faucet has been dripping for weeks..er, months. Each drip is the resounding echo of money going down the drain. It is also environmentally irresponsible. Our fix was to put a sponge under the drip so the sink would quit imitating a bass drum. I dreaded replacing the washers but finally decided to do it only to find that mineralization had frozen the screw which holds the hand to the faucet so tightly that I thought I’d break the handle getting it off. I soaked it in vinegar for days and, eventually, it broke free. That’s when I discovered you cannot replace the washers. Delta uses a cartridge which you can from Amazon for $20 or HomeDepot for $25ish. When I went to HomeDepot, the kind salesperson suggested that I contact Delta because they warranty these things. Sure enough, I called Delta today and in under 3 minutes a free replacement cartridge is on its way. In 7-10 days, our drip will be repaired. I cannot believe I put this repair off so long!

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Saturday

What a beautiful day to work in the yard or replace a garage door! Instead, the headphones are on, music playing, incense burning, and keys rapping. I have a programming project that shall be put to bed today!

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Syria

"What the nightmare is, which many of my republican colleagues appear to want, is to not have learned the lesson of Iraq. To get young men and women involved in perpetual warfare in the quagmire of Syria and the Middle East would be an unmitigated disaster that as President I will do everything in my power to avoid." -Bernie Sanders, Jan 17, 2016

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I have fought serious depression since college…maybe earlier. Let’s call it 27 or 30 years of being chained to my black dog. But I cannot find him. Not that I’m actively looking. As I posted a few days ago, I feel very much on top of my game, on top of the world! Everything seems to be clicking now. The gears are meshing just right. The puzzle pieces are coming together. Everything is working. The children are doing well in their lives. Of all the goals I’ve set for myself (e.g. cleaning up the mess caused by running my own business, fixing the problems with the IRS, making progress on the house, etc.) are being achieved. Only one major one (a health issue but that’s a different story altogether) hangs over my head but I even see that being resolved soon. I am responding well to obstacles and the unexpected. I am performing better at my job and for my freelance customers. I feel more organized and alive than I have in years.

I don’t know if that black dog lurks in the shadows. I see no evidence of him. My old friends will recall my "guardian angel," Murph, named after Murphy of the Law. Murph hasn’t been present in eons. Maybe the black dog has gone off with Murph. Now, yin and yang still exist. The universe wants to be in balance. So, things happen to try to rock my boat. As I become happier and more content in my life, the universe occasionally tries to right that by chopping at my ankles. I received a surprise today that left me baffled, shocked, and temporarily sad…but not depressed. For a moment, I was knocked off-balance but I recovered quickly. People have their reasons and motivations and it is not for me to judge. I need only remind myself how I feel now feels really nice and that I do not want to go back to walking my black dog.

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Awake but not up

My goal is to awaken every morning at 4:30am. I am getting closer to achieving that goal. Today I awoke at 4:22am. Wide awake! Even rose from bed and moved about. BUT, the fatal flaw, I returned to the bed for "just a few minutes." I left the bed to begin my day at 6:30am. Two hours of potenial productivity slept away.