The TV in the treadmill room is right next to a window. While walking
on the treadmill today, I glanced out the window and noticed neighbor
Travis in my back yard peering in my family room patio door so I went
to see what he might want. I opened the patio door and got the
trademark Travis grin and "Hi there!" That means he wants something.
I said hi there back. He said he had a little problem that maybe I
might have an idea how to solve. Sure! We went next door.

Wesley's pop gun won't pop. Wesley, 2-1/2, had chewed on the "cork"
(one of those polyethylene capplugs)until it cracked, leaks air, won't
pop. Ah ha. A lathe op. I said yes, I think I might have an idea. I
had him remove the barrel which is probably just ABS water pipe. I
took it to my shop, carefully measured the ID with a telescoping gage
and mike, machined a plug out of delrin a few thou smaller than the ID
of the pipe. Then I cut a groove to accept an O ring that would fit
just snugly enough to seal. Drilled a small hole for the tether
string, bored out the outboard end of the plug to reduce its mass a
bit, went back next door. I doubt if the whole job took 10 minutes.

The tether string wouldn't quite go thru the 1/16" dia hole I'd
drilled. No prob, I went back and opened it up to maybe 3/32. Trav
got the string thru the hole and we put a dab of silicone on the plug
to seal the hole. Tried it out.

Oh, man, that popgun never popped like that before. It sounds like a
dang .22 now! Wesley is gonna love it!

So then Travis asked if there was anything he could do for me.

Wull ... ya! I had a water softener in the garage that needed to go
to the basement, and one in the basement that needed to go out to the
curb. The one in the garage weighed 105 lb, the one in the basement
probably similar if we could get all the water out of the resin tank.
That's more than I should try to schlep up and down stairs anymore,
though it would have not been any problem at all 15 years ago. I had
the new one strapped to a two-wheel hand truck for ease and safety
going down stairs.

No problem! Then he went to get his little portable pancake air
compressor. I'd made some fittings so I could connect a hose from
output of old softener to sink, and connect a standard air hose to the
input. I got it disconnected from the plumbing in a few seconds,
walked it over to the sink, hooked up the output hose and air hose.

Man, did that work slick! It would have taken a long time to drain by
gravity and it probably would not have drained completely, but the air
blew that sucker dry in seconds. I remembered to grab the hose to
keep it from whipping like a spastic snake and getting us both soaked.
I had a bit of minor plumbing to do because the new one is
considerably shorter than the old one was. Once the old one was outta
there and out on the curb, I didn't want Trav to feel like he should
stick around and watch me putz and plumb -- and I needed two fittings
from Depot. I didn't really "need" them, but I decided that the
soldering would be much more likely to be successful if I used
couplings on stubs that were already in the bypass valve because then
I'd have gravity on my side with the molten solder. This lead-free
stuff doesn't wet, wick and "follow the heat" nearly as well as the
old tin-lead stuff did. So I went to get two couplings for 65 cents
each while Trav returned to be with his family today.

Hookup and test was uneventful. No leaks first try. YAY.

I shoulda done this years ago. I can now flush the toilet and have a
shower before the toilet refills, and I can have a shower when there's
a load of laundry running downstairs. Used to be, if I flushed the
toilet the shower would slow to a meager trickle. Now there is no
noticable difference, which is how it oughtta be.