Day 293: Mission Fix-It-Up

personal

Left Oregon today and came back to my parents’ place in Orange County. Not sure how long I’ll be here. My Taiwan visa got approved but there’s a bit of a situation with the embassy in SF asking me to come in and me being in LA so there’s going to be a bit of a delay. Until then, I’ll be chilling with my parents again.

I decided that instead of whining about how broken my house is, I’ll do something about it this time and try to fix things. I want to become more handy (I can talk to computers but put me in front of an overflowing toilet and there’s a 99% chance I’ll drown as the bathroom fills up like in The Shape of Water with waste water okay this mental image is gross so I’m going to stop now). For the major issues in the house, I’m going to try to fix things myself and if I can’t make meaningful progress after a day or two, then call a professional and have them solve it.

I wrote down some of the issues in the house today divided by the type of work:

Plumbing

  • Downstairs bathroom sink drains too slowly
  • Downstairs toilet has a very weak flush and has to have the lever held down
  • Master bathroom sink has a broken stopper that sometimes plugs the sink

Electrical

  • Garage opener attached to wall doesn’t work
  • Light in master bathroom doesn’t turn on

Other

  • Closet doors in master bedroom goes off track when opening and closing
  • Window in my bedroom is broken
  • Kitchen fridge doesn’t cool well
  • Bathrooms are freaking filthy

I mean, how whack is this:

I don’t even know if that shower works. But why would you use it to store random things even if it didn’t?

I asked my parents to help me compile the list of things that needs fixing, but they had a hard time thinking of things. I had to remind them of things like the light in their bathroom not working. They’d plugged some tiny light into the socket and told me that they’d gotten used to it.

I guess that’s the reason why my house has gotten into such poor shape — when things break, instead of trying to fix it, my parents and my grandpa will just learn to deal with it and come up with a stopgap solution rather than addressing the root cause.

Well, since I’m here for a bit, I want to do something nice for them and fix at least some of this stuff. Hm, but when do I work on Browserflow? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.