Jesus Hopping Christ, More Flooding

Came home from a dinner out with Lonnie to celebrate his son Sam's 17th Birthday (Sam and his pals sat at another table, chillin'), and saw the neighbor's sump output blasting away and didn't see mine going. Came inside, made a joke to Mom about the basement being flooded, hit the last step to the basement, and squish.

One hour at time and a half later, Robert from Professional Plumbing (recommended!) drove in from Cedar Rapids to replace the sump. We were very very lucky. Last time the flooding had all night to get around; this time it was two hours. So we're taking turns on the wet vac until we can call our insurance guy Steve (also a solid guy) and Randy's Carpets to set about getting dried out again.

The new pump is a more powerful model. I can hear it working from upstairs. It is my new favorite sound in the world. I thought orgasms sounded great. This is way better; it's the sound of my basement not flooding.

Learned a new trick, too. When I saw the sump wasn't going, I unplugged the two plug combo and plugged it in again, in hopes that the power cycle might wake it up. Turns out I was half right. The float mechanism had locked up for some reason (Robert felt around down in the well and said nothing was blocking it) and when he removed the float's power and plugged the sump in directly, it started up again, but fitfully. The sump was almost done with this life, but the float was being weird. Anyways, either way it was time for the a new pump (and under warranty!).

My cell phone died last night nine days before the end of its warranty too. This is the kind of luck zen masters marvel over.

So it's a long night using the wet vac and listening to Luciana Souza on my noise-canceling earbuds.