Calfgrit7 and I went to see Walking With Dinosaurs. It’s a truly awesome show, and photos just can’t do it justice. Even video can’t give you the full feeling of seeing and hearing the life-size and life-like creatures right in front of you.

The puppetry and animatronics are amazingly well choreographed, to the point of looking completely natural — the dinos even blink. The structure and skin of the creatures are detailed down to scars, wrinkles, and even mucus. This is Hollywood-quality effects.

I bought the mid-range tickets and was so impressed with our spot in the audience that I can’t even imagine what view the high-priced seats could give that we didn’t get. Any closer and CG7 would have been terrified — some of the dinosaurs, like the tyrannosaurus, came right to the edge of the stage and roared. The wide-angle photo, here, distorts the view we had — we felt much closer than the image looks like.

There’s even more to the show than just dinosaurs walking around the stage. It’s entertaining, educational, and even humorous at times. I highly recommend this show. Although half the audience was kids under 12 (mostly boys), you don’t need kids to go see this. There were some kid-less couples at the show, and this was far more impressive than any movie I’ve seen. The fact that all the dinos were “real,” right there in front of us, puts movie special effects to shame.

Bullgrit

Due to logistical problems because of the ongoing house repairs, I wasn’t able to make a post for today.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

Most of the time, when you need a plumber, you need a plumber now. Our water heater leaking is one of those times. We can live without hot water for a few days, but with all the water damage in our house, from the leak, the repair guys needed the old water heater removed so they could repair the floor under it.

The first plumber I called was suggested by the repair guys. I called him…

“Hello,” he answered. I was expecting something more than this.

“Um,” I said, “Is this John Turner?”

“Yes,” he said.

“You do plumbing?”

“Yes.”

OK. This guy sounded put out by this call. I said, “I have a leaking water heater that I need to have replaced.”

“Well,” he said, “I’m on vacation right now.”

“Oh.” Oops. That explains the way he answered.

“I’m actually on my honeymoon.”

“Oh! I’m very sorry. I just called the number that was given me.”

“That’s OK.” And he gave me the office number for the company he works for.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

We noticed the linoleum in the boys’ bathroom was bubbling up all of a sudden. “That’s odd,” we said. I thought maybe the boys had spilled a lot of water out of the tub, but we hadn’t see any water on the floor. I knew I’d have to pull up the flooring and take a look under there.

The next day (today, as I write this; yesterday when you read this), we discovered water on the floor around the water heater in the laundry room. It wasn’t obvious, and I could only see it when I looked between the washing machine and dryer. All the evidence was, really, was a glistening reflection of the overhead light.

I pulled out the washing machine to get a closer look, and oh my God! There was a lot of water on the floor around the water heater. I crawled under the house with a flashlight and found standing water under the laundry room. Oh crap on a stick!

I called my home owners insurance company and a plumber. After a couple more phone calls, and less than two hours wait, I had repair guys here looking things over. The water heater would, of course, have to be replaced, and water had leaked into the boys’ bathroom and the edge of their bedroom — I saw the damage with my own eyes. The repair guys got to work immediately, tearing up the flooring and boards, and setting up fans.

The plumber will come tomorrow (today as you read this) to hopefully replace the water heater immediately. But the clean up and repairs and drying will take several days to finish.

Cowgrit took the boys over to her mother’s house, and they’ll stay there at least a couple of days. We won’t have hot water until the new heater is installed, and we’ll have a total mess in the house for a few days after that. We’re lucky that Cowgrit’s mom lives in the area, otherwise we’d be living in a hotel for a couple of days.

Man, what a headache this is.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com