A dehumidifer will not suffice

[pseydtonne]

I had a busy weekend.

1. Maggie's parents came to visit. We got up early on Saturday and got on the Whale Watch trip. You ride a big catamaran for an hour into Mass Bay, see whales for an hour, then high-tail it back to Long Wharf. You could count all the native Bostonians on the boat and still have a finger or two to spare.
   
   I'd been on a couple ferries before, but I don't think I'd been on a catamaran before. This is a boat with two parallel keels, so it soars fast over the water (we were getting 42 MPH according to a Coast Guard Reservist with a GPS in his hand) and leaves this wake that looks like a Midori milkshake.
   
   When we left the Wharf, it was 85 degrees and the sun beat down us like police truncheons. As we booked into the Atlantic, the temperature dropped and the coolness suited me. Maggie was wearing her hoodie and hiding behind me for shelter.
   
   Then I ate a hot dog.
   
   I felt fine for about ten minutes. Then the boat started swirling around as the captain had found two lovely humpbacks. We saw all the dramatic poses you could imagine -- graceful dives, feeding with baleen glistening against krill, even a basking shark floating around to punctuate the moment.
   
   Then I started to feel ill. The boat moved more. I never puked, but I thought hard about it. You know when you can no longer deal with being stoned or otherwise hallucinating and you just want it to end, so you curl up and pray no one asks you "are you all right?" because then you'll get even more hung up on the bumming because you'll have to think about words? Yeah, and all it took was a boiled dog and a cruise. Don't take the brown mustard -- it's a bummer, man.
   
   Maggie came to hug me when the main whale activity concluded. I fell into a deep sleep for a half hour of the trip back. When I woke up, I felt fine but I definitely wasn't hungry the way everyone else was.
   
   
2. So I got a haircut. After that, I had enough time to get hungry. tkitch called and we co-ordinated him meeting us for lunch. I picked up the full tab, then got Maggie and her mom to ride with Kitch so that I could grab a moment with Maggie's father.
   
   
3. I formally asked him for Maggie's hand in marriage. I think walking across Mass Pike on the way to Kenmore Square was the right place for that. "Underneath the Citgo sign...". I'll admit I said "I've paid her rent for a year and a half. Is that good enough for a dowry?" I think he really needed the mini-ceremony of this event -- a suitor asking for his eldest daughter.
   
   
4. I got the go-ahead. We are now properly engaged to be married.
   
   
5. Then he and I figured out how to get this broken-off mounting screw out from a computer case and thereby put his drill to use.
   
   
6. The parents went back to their hotel, so Kitch and I headed out for some computer parts. I grabbed a PCI NIC and plastic inserts to give my good BP6 balance.
   
   
7. We also stopped at another store to get an air conditioner. It's pretty clear to me that my landlady's promise of central air conditioning for this summer, which she'd made when we moved in, is not being fulfilled. However, the store we hit didn't have narrow air conditioners. All they had were a couple on wheels, the cheaper being $400. I decided to try a dehumidifier for $150.

I'd like to take a moment to explain something I couldn't learn online. If you're stuck in an apartment with narrow windows and have debated using a dehumidifier instead of an A/C, here are reasons why that won't work:

• Dehumidifiers have hot exhausts, not cold ones. They aren't wicked hot, but they definitely don't help the heat problem.
• They suck up lots of water and fast. However, they collect that water into a bucket and you have to empty the bucket.
• The amount of water the bucket holds has no relation to the pint-rating you'll find on the advertised model number. It said "40 pints". Five gallons of water sounded fine. However, that means the machinery can extract forty pints of water within 24 hours. The bucket at the end of the machinery can only hold 22 pints. This means you'll pull five gallons of water out of thin air every day but you'll have to stop twice a day to dump that dreck into the bath tub.
• The bugger's noisy. It's noisy in that "why didn't someone mount that compressor so that it was balanced?" way.
• I'm grateful for same-week return policies.

I'll ask my landlady if she has any real plans for A/C; if not, I'll have to save up.

After they left for home, Maggie mentioned she'd still like some kind of engagement ring. She then dug up her great grandmother's ring, which she loved but was too small for her finger. We concluded it would be best to mount the stone on an identical ring of white gold and call it even. I can dig it -- the ring looks very Art Deco, right for the job. Could anyone emulate that? Hmmmmm...

-I'm looking in a certain skilled friend's direction, Dante

Comments

[anotherjen.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on your engagement!!!

[bluepapercup]

Congratulations!

[tkitch.livejournal.com]

*claps*
congrats once again! Awww, aren't the wubbirds cute? :)

[galaneia.livejournal.com]

Congratualtions!

[ltbloodrose.livejournal.com]

Congratulations, D! You better invite us.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Congratulations!!

[hakamadare.livejournal.com]

dude! my heartiest congratulations to the both of you :)

-steve

[chaggalagirl.livejournal.com]

maybe i should make my own sort of announcement... hrm...

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

Congrats :-)

My parents have a dehumidifier in their basement. It's a combination noise-maker/space heater.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

If you do, don't hide it behind a cut tag about a nasty hot dog. ;)

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Use a swamp-cooler, aka "free" dehumidifier. Put a gallon of water in the fridge. Take it out when it's cold, stick it in a big bucket, and let the condensate collect on it. This makes the house cooler and less humid at the same time. Eventually the water jug will reach room temperature and you'll have to re-refrigerate it, so you're not getting cooling for free -- and you'll have to empty the bucket, of course -- but it doesn't anything up front.

Rings can be adjusted. It's really not that expensive. Or...new. And yes, jewelers love trying to copy old rings; some of them are even passable at it.

[uber-dragon.livejournal.com]

Congrats!! That's wonderful.

[chaggalagirl.livejournal.com]

lol! seriously.

i've made him repeat that lesson to everyone, including himself.

me: what did we learn?
him: don't eat a hotdog.
me? where don't we eat hotdogs?
him: don't eat a hotdog on a boat.

hee. :D

[michigansundog.livejournal.com]

/waves

Congrats you two! I'm so happy for you both!

Must see ring; we'll go from there, ok?

Oh what a beautiful day!