My boy Chase was keeping and eye on me and my dad while we were working in the crawl space. He doesn't like to be alone!
Our other helper was found under the lid to the water meter. The black blob you see along the lid is a black widow spider or Latrodectus mactans. I decided to put it in a jar so I could show it to Brandi. She and my dad wanted me to kill it, but I decided to do the right thing and release her in the woods.
Well now, it all started with good intentions. For months now I have planned on replacing my cast iron sewer line with a schedule 40 PVC line. I planned this because we were advised by Roto-Rooter that we had roots growing through the pipe as well as a "belly" or a dip in the pipe that was holding water. So, as standard procedure, I asked my dad (pictured below in the flouro green), a retired pipe fitter, to drive 543 miles south and help me save a few thousand dollars. And as always, he complained about it but did what a loving father would do and he made the trip. He also brought along a few supplies. 
So, now I have a septic tank that has apparently been in operation since 1951. I thought I was on the city sewer system but now I know why my grass in the front yard is always green. Time to call Stanley Environmental - to pump out the septic tank so I can then cave it in and cover it up. The nice men pictured above spent some quality time pumping over 1500 gallons of raw sewage from the tank.
The photo above shows them hitting the "solids" section of the tank. They've got a long way to go at this point. When I took this picture I thought the tank was only about 4 feet by 8 feet long. You can see below that I was WAY off. This tank was 12 to 15 feet long and basically full of crap. Oh, and it's only about 6 feet deep. Good thing I didn't fall in... I would have drowned.
So here is the empty tank. Our trusty back-hoe operator came back later and caved the side walls in and filled it with dirt and the broken pieces of my walkway. So what we've learned since is that the bathroom that Brandi and I use was on the septic system and the rest of the house was on the main sewer line to the city sewer system. My dad and I also discovered some shotty workmanship under the house - an uncapped broken line and leaky joints in the main line. In order to get everything on the main line, dad and I spent about 5 hours under the house running a new PVC line from the bathroom to the main line and replacing the connections that were leaky. That was four days ago and my dad claims he is still sore! Suck it up dad!
At the end of the day everything worked out. We left everything better than we found it and the inspection from the County passed. Who knows what surprises await us on our next project.
I started the day alone as Brandi continued to sleep off her sickness. I started out on the Castle Hill near our hotel walking on streets that weren't all paved the same.
I walked for close to 2 hours around the castle, down the hill and across the Danube. The photo above is taken from the Chain Bridge looking up the Danube at the Parliment Building.
I eventually made it back to the hotel just as Brandi was waking up and readying herself for a day of site-seeing. On our walk to the other side of the Danube, I snapped this photo above of Parliment through the trees as we were descending Castle Hill.
As we were walking through the streets of Budapest we came across a bunch of street performers. This guy was playing water glasses; each glass filled with a different amount of water to give it a unique tone. He was good - therefore I threw some Forints his way.
And since our walk walk was long and Brandi was sick, we decided to take the tram back up the Castle hill. 
So here we are in Vienna (Wien as the locals call it). And actually I'm posting this from Budapest 'cause I had to pay for the internet connection in our Marriott Hotel in Vienna. Our first day in Vienna was a wash out - not from rain, but from Brandi's cold. We essentially left the hotel for lunch and went right back to bed - although I did read a good portion of my book (The Angel of Grozny).
This is our Underground Stop. The public transportation in Vienna was outstanding! Clean, safe, efficient. And the iPhone app with the subway network was worth the dollar that I spent on it.
Apparently this astrological clock has been working for four hundred years - not bad. Every hour this thing does a little song and dance and hundreds of people stand in front of the clock looking up like idiots. I was one of them.
Prague is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful cities, but I haven't been overwhelmed like I thought I would. I guess my own hype got in the way. Regardless, we're on our way to Vienna tomorrow via the 12:30 train. Oh, and Brandi is starting to get sick - I might be doing a lot of site-seeing on my own in Vienna - which sucks 'cause I've already been to Vienna. (Tennis event - 1997)
