(Photo stolen from these guys)

Just in case you were wondering where to buy your Christmas tree this year, may I make a suggestion? Check out my other blog, Foolery, for my own personal how-to/where-to.

And it WON'T involve Stan and Ollie, so your personal property will be safe.

I am having quite a week. Busy at work, busy at home. And trying to watch every second of the new Ken Burns miniseries "The War" on PBS (if you haven't watched it yet, catch up -- it's on tonight and next week).

So I was unprepared for the plumbing problems. This weekend one plumber came to fix a relatively simple but quite important burst pipe. The rooster tail of water shooting over the driveway was very impressive. Dad casually mentioned that he was surprised that the increased water pressure hadn't burst any pipes in my house.

WHAT?!

That can happen? And for those of you who know anything about plumbing, you'll be able to tell instantly by my word choices that I know NOTHING about plumbing.

Nothing, that is, except that Dad is right, and in the last 24 hours we've had two more broken pipe or connector thingy's in our laundry room. I'm just grateful that Chas was the one who had to deal with fixing the first one, and calling the plumber for the second one.

The verdict? We need a new water heater. Does this mean we won't be spending money on food for a month? Because that's all I really want to know.

So, to entertain both of you today, I will link to something I wrote in 2005, then lazily reposted (on my other blog, Foolery) on such a day as today, when I couldn't really come up with anything worthwhile. It's a warning to those who would mess with the plumbing in a very old house -- especially a very old farm house.

(Photo stolen from this guy)