Repairs

Minor plumbing job yesterday. The "chain" on the flap of the downstairs toilet had torn. Unlike every other toilet chain I've seen, this one was actually part of the flap itself, so the flap also had to be replaced. I bought the full assembly kit, in case there was more that needed fixing, but it was just the flap and chain. I can't complain too much, since the full kit was $6 and the kit with just the flap and chain was $3.

Also, I'm typing this from my laptop for the first time in several months. Sometime last fall, after HP had replaced the motherboard and some memory modules, it started acting up again. I was too depressed to deal with it, so it went into its carry case and got stuck in a corner for a good long while. About a month ago, I dug it out and turned it on again. It was mostly working. The only problem was that when it would go into sleep mode, it wouldn't come out again. I had to manually turn it off and back on again. Annoying, but workable. Then... uh, first, some advice. If you're hunting for a remote under a couch cushion, make sure that there's not a laptop cart behind you. I managed to knock the cart over, and the laptop went flying. Apparently I had a literal hard-drive crash, where the reader crashes into the hard disc. By some miracle, my warranty covered this, and while they were replacing the laptop hard drive, the other problem came to light, so the laptop got sent out to HP again. They replaced a bunch of stuff (including a damaged outer casing from where, ahem, it had impacted), and now it seems to be working. *knocks on simulated woodgrain* They did manage to save my pictures, but I'm going to have to go through and relocate everything manually so that I can find it easily.

Oh, there was one other item I had to deal with. When I went to get my snow tires changed off, I found out that my summer tires were starting to crack. The only one still okay was the one I had to replace after the blowout (last fall? summer?). They should have replaced BOTH of the front tires at that time, but I had a moronic tire guy who didn't even suggest it. So I now have three brand new tires and one almost new tire. Hmmm... My tires were about 5 years old... Not sure what they were rated for, though.