Well I wrote something for Sunday - concerning a bunch of movies I saw that day because it rained, but I couldn't post it because something was wrong with our DSL connection. I'll post it later on when I get home if it's working.

And even though I promised to hit it hard for the next 90 days I didn't go to the gym this morning because I was up later than I wanted to be cleaning out a wood stove fireplace insert.

That statement is my segue to this: My Husband the Engineer Part 2

Our new house has a fireplace. The fireplace has what is called a wood stove insert. Neither the stove nor the fireplace has been used in years. Jon called a chimney sweep to come clean up and inspect everything. Once that was done, he bought a cord of fire wood.

He tried three times to start a fire; all three caused a great deal of smoke and frustration. Hey, our smoke detectors work so that's something. After his second attempt I told him to let the stove get cold then I would look at it. He explained he had all ready looked and couldn't see a problem.

Stove cooled down, it's now 9 at night and I have crawled halfway into a dirty stove trying to explore everything with my hands, because I couldn't see anything. I did discover that there was a big slab of horizontal sheet metal below where the stove opens up to its vent. This metal was blocking any direct view of the vent. By touch I was able to tell how the vent opened. I also found where the chimney sweep had knocked most of the carbon from the flue; right through the vent onto aforementioned sheet metal slab, effectively blocking the venting, hence the smoke flavored house.

So I got that cleaned and cleared and I kept my husband from trying to start another fire simply because it was so late at night and he had turned his attention to raging at Bell South because the DSL had quit working again.

He tried it again this morning but there was still copious amounts of smoke in the house. We are going to pull the stove out (it sucks, anyway. It might be more energy efficient, but I'd rather have a fire I can look at) and I bet we will get a nice shower of even more carbon. The damn thing doesn't have any kind of flue cap so it should be nice and nasty. Note to myself: buy some Lava soap this afternoon on the way home.