A disclaimer

The project yesterday went well, but I want to warn my readers - be very careful when attempting any sort of electrical work. If you have any doubts about what you are doing, stop and get a professional electrician to do the work for you. Having an intact home and healthy life is worth the expense as opposed to risking either.

I've done a few electrical projects over the years, and yesterday's is about as complex as I'm willing to get. Among other things I've tackled is to install a ceiling fan (in our kitchen with a friend of mine helping), to change over old switches, and to rewire an outlet. I've also removed a few old circuits from the house as well. We've got a lot of old knob-and-tube cabling here that I've been slowly removing from the system. Most of that's been done by the pros, though. Next year's electrical project will be to break out a separate circuit for the A/C unit in our master bedroom. It shares with much of the other stuff in the bedroom now, and the UPS for Jane's iMac trips every time the compressor energizes. We'll use a real electrician for that job.

I have done most of the house's newer phone wiring, though, and all of the data wiring.

We also have some plumbing repairs on the to-do list, a couple of our old radiators are rotting away and should be replaced. I've shut the water to them JIC, since they're not in an area that really needs heating, but they need to go after this coming winter, if not sooner. I'll have that done by a pro. The most complex plumbing projects I'm OK with are toilet replacements and fixing leaky faucets (if it doesn't require a full replacement). I repaired a leak coming out of our old dishwasher once, too.

I've hat a lot of blog hits by people looking into the Gourmet Garden restaurant in Swampscott. Just so you all know, it's pretty good. We don't go there too often, but the last time we went was this past Wednesday night - Jane's been under the weather the last few days and I decided to drag her out of the house for a bit. We hadn't been there in quite a while, but we were craving Chinese food.

Everything was good, with the exception of the sweet & sour chicken. Usually sweet & sour chicken is something I only order in Chinatown, where the restaurants know how to make it right. However, I thought I'd try theirs and it was kinda blah. Real sweet & sour chicken is not heavily battered and served in reddish sauce. That's an American's idea of what it should look like.

The moo shi, however, was terrific - and I'm not even a big fan of moo shi. Everything else was first-rate, too. They have a sushi bar in their bar area, also quite good. I haven't had too much off their Japanese menu, but I assume it's as good as the rest.

And the trip out was good for Jane, as well.