A few weeks ago I had a solar water heating system installed for my pool. It went off with only a few minor hitches - but overall I'm pleased with the results. Last weekend the water was ~86F/~30C. Warm enough to take the chill off, but not to warm to relax unsuspecting bladders. It is nice.
The only part that you would call a hitch would be the trench in my cement patio for the feed & return lines that take the water from the pool pump/filter assembly to the heat exchangers on the roof. You see most of the pipes are a few inches below the top level of the patio, but right where it hits the small (3 high) cinder block wall, it rises flush to the top level of the patio. Once they come back out & bury it to a decent depth - we'll be able to cover it up with cement & decorative stone.
UNTIL then - I've got a trench, and a neigbor with a sprinkler problem.
My neigbors, nice family, friendly kids, and golden retriever pup - have never been an issue in my life. But their broken sprinkler system is.
A few nights ago I was freaked out that my new heating system had sprung a HUGE leak. But after a little checking, the pipes were fine - the water was comming thru the wall from a sprinkler in my neighbors back yard. When I figured it out, I when over and nicly asked my neighbor to turn it off. He was fin about it.
Then last night - around midnight - it happened again. My trench was flooded because my neighor left the sprinklers on again. So, with fear of being "the" crazy neigbor I rang the doorbell - so that I could inform them of the problem. Unfortuantly they wouldn't wake up.
What to do? Should I go in their back yeard and turn it off? No, That would be tresspassing.
Should I thurn their water off at the main in front of their house? No, That would be rude.
Should I call them? No, I don't have their telephone number - only their landlords number & calling them would make for future hostilities. I desperatly want to stay a good neigbor.
So I did the last thing that was available to me. I called the non-emergency line of the brea-yorba linda police department for advice. Sure it's not a domestic despute, but they would have the ability to go in their back yard and turn off the water.
Thankfully, the cops had a better solution - they could look up telephone numbers from addresses & called them for me. ::whew::
The water was turned off, but have I become the crazy neighbor that called the cops because my neighbor left their sprinklers on in a non-drought year? I hope not - but I fear that I have.
Just like the organics that ride the rails of the intercontinental train system with out paying for transit and sneaking on without the operators full knowlege and consent - I consider all the crap that was installed on my sister in laws computer to be HoboWare.
I define HoboWare to be any files/applications/settings that serindiptiously sneak on to a users computer - even if that method is via promising wonderfull services to idiot users - and making my life a living hell as I try to remove it because her DSL internet "experience" is now more sluggish than a 28.8k dialup to bombay.
Let's see - what sork of crap did I remove...
6 Internet Explorer Toolbars.
Mutiple BHOs that would modify web pages to include adwords.
Wintools - ran as a service & a process. Kill one & the other would restart it. (the trick is to suspend them both before killing them)
viruses
All this and more lead to 8 Hours of MSNMessenger remote desktop hell as her PC was so bad that even Norton Internet Security Suite couldn't install.
BTW: I find it interesting that remote desktop is standard on XPPro & "apparently" not included with XPHome - and yet MSNMessenger somehow has it? whatever. I just want to bitchslap the product manager that decided to associate ESC with canceling the remote session - Ugh. Not using Esc is a hard habbit to break.
*sigh*