Live Help Update
The drought continues up here in Northern New England and today is another dry scorcher. So, I’m taking the nuclear family unit out for some chill time at the lake.
Live help later this evening, after a cold and bubbly liquid dinner. 
Appliance Tip of the Day: "read this first.
Beer Drinking Update
Beer. More than just the sacred nectar of the Samurai, it’s also the secret behind my radiant good health.
Cheers! 
Hillstomping Update
Like Moses from Mt. Sinai, I’m back from our three-day hajj to the mountains — refreshed, renewed, reinvigorated… and with just the right touch of diarrhea. Yea verily, I am born again from the womb of The Mountain, the slightly-bruised fruit of the North Wood’s loins. I have seen the Promised Land; someone stole the milk n’ honey and left piles of schist everywhere. More visual documentation is here.
The highlight of the trip was bagging Mt. Washington, the highest peak in New England, with my camping bud, Dave Yale, and my semper fi canine hiking bud, Ouzo. We summitted via the Tuckerman Ravine Trail and returned via the Nelson Crag and Old Jackson Road Trails for a total mileage of about 12.9823475987 ± 0.987459. Note: the significant digits in the measurement and error terms are not compatible so please consult a pair of calibrated eyeballs before attempting this route yourself. Have a nice day.
Live Help Update
Today we’re hitching up the popup and taking off to the White Mountains for a couple days of camping, hiking, and intense beer drinking. We’re meeting up with our camping buds, the Yales from PA, at Moose Brook State Park. We’ll be back on Tuesday…maybe. Live help? Ain’t gonna be no stinking live help. In the meantime, drop some coinage into the United Samurai Beer Fund, it’s good for your soul. Later days, brah.
Bad news for you cheesedorks out there (and you know who you are):
Charles Cooper, the executive editor of commentary at CNET news.com, excoriates the grubby "Lower Slabovians" who expect free content on the internet. I love this quote: "Content was neither born free, nor was it meant to be that way." Think about that as you’re fixing your broken stuff with the help of this website.
The United Samurai Beer Fund®: your ticket out of Lower Slabovia.
Ever tear something apart only to realize, to your horror, that you don’t remember how the damn thing goes back together? Or, you get it back together but you have a few extra screws and things left over and for the next few weeks you got this nagging tug at your gut as you wonder where they went…and whether or not it matters. Well, my intrepid grasshoppers, how ’bout we quit flying blind and get a parts breakdown diagram for our appliance before we embark on our repair odyssey? Sure takes out the guesswork. Could even show you what part you need to get it fixed. Sound like a good idea? Ok then, come git you some o’ dis.
Hillstomping Update
Feast your hillstompin’ squinties on these cool pictures from our splendiferous hike up Mt. Chocorua yesterday. Feel the love, yo.
Forum Update
Victory is MINE! Those nazis at AA have raised the white flag 
and are in full retreat with their tails between their pale, skinny legs. Let that be a lesson to anyone foolish enough to threaten the Samurai. 
Hillstomping Update
Beautious hike up Mt. Chocorua today! Perfect weather, de minimis bloodsucker activity, and cool, dry air which made for spectacularly crystal-clear 360° views from the summit. The summit of Mt. Chocorua is a rock tower poking up into the sky giving a vantage point for some of the best views in the White Mountains. Would’ve had pictures to post but the battery in someone’s fancy-ass digital camera was dead because he didn’t recharge it before the hike. 
So, we’ll have to wait for the pictures to be developed from my low-tech, but ever-faithful, Olympus analog camera–probably tomorrow.
The AMC Guide says Mt. Chocorua is the most-photographed mountain in the Whites. Translation: most heavily trafficked. The place was a beehive with people. And for good reason–you get tremendous views for relatively little effort compared to, say, Mts. Willey or Wildcat D. But Chocorua has a sister peak, Middle Sister, that offers views almost as fine but without the crowds. Ouzo and I split off from the other Hillstompers, who headed on down, and we lingered on Middle Sister awhile, enjoying the views unmolested by the hoard.
Ok, time for another brewski. 
Live Help Update
We’re going to hillstomp up Mt. Chocorua tomorrow (Thursday). It’s not on The List but it sure is purdy. So I won’t be online for live help until later in the evening. Be cool, yo.
I dunno, she looked pretty fine when I was slamming down the suds last night at the brew pub.
Featured Forum Guru
Today’s featured forum guru is Moostafa Hakkahalah, the Ayatollah of Appliance Repair. Moostafa comes to us from Jalalabad, Afghanistan, where he powers his iMac off a camel dung and lime juice battery that he designed himself. It’s exactly that kind of Afghani know-how that makes Moostafa such a valuable guru in the Samurai School of Appliantology. We are indeed fortunate to have a man of his many talents helping out in the forum. You can read more about Moostafa in his profile.
If you need help with an appliance problem, go ahead and post it in the forum. Moostafa is just one of the many fine gurus standing by to lead you to appliance enlightenment.
In-line water filters installed on your icemaker water supply line can remove bad taste and scale from your ice as well as protect the water inlet solenoid valve, saving on annoying and costly repairs later on. But did you know they should be changed every three to six months? Yes, my icy grasshoppers, it is true.
As the filter removes the impurities from your water, it not only becomes saturated with those very impurities, but it is transformed into a veritable metropolis for bacteria. These little creatures multiply and grow to such an enormous extent that they actually begin to clog up the filter with their dead corpses. New little bacteria babies begin living and feasting on the rotting corpses of their fallen parents and cousins, clogging the filter, causing low water pressure, and the resulting hollow ice cubes. At this point in the filter’s life, millions of dead and living bacteria, the mixture variously called scum or puss, normally not visible but in extreme cases may cause the ice cubes to appear cloudy, begin sloughing off and traveling with the water to your icemaker. As you use the ice, you ingest these little creatures where they attempt to make their new home deep inside your intestines. The results could range from simply bad tasting ice, to a feeling of a sour stomach, to mild nausea, to violently vomiting up the entire contents of your stomach along with much bile and other slimey secretions.
Most refrigerators today with ice makers or water through the door have water filters built in, which is much more convenient than installing one in the water supply line from your water source. Your refrigerator water filter is most likely located either inside the refrigerator cabinet, near the top or in the grill at the bottom of the unit. Use this handy list to find the filter you need for your fridge:
PureSource Filter – for Frigidaire refrigerators equipped with PureSource water filtration systems.
SmartWater Filter – for GE Water by Culligan filtration systems.
Ice and Water Filter – for Whirlpool, KitchenAid and Kenmore refrigerators where filter is in the front grill.
Handi Plumb Filter – for ice makers that were added on to any brand of refrigerator.Ok, go buy your icemaker water filter now and don’t forget to change it at least every six months.
Forum Update
Well, it was bound to happen eventually: my obsession with beer has offended militant alcoholics. The Assistant Deputy Vice-Adjunct Executive Director for Alcoholics Anonymous has threatened to shut down my website and forum as well as post my home address and phone number on AA’s website unless I remove all references to beer from my website. My bowels are in an uproar and bile is burning the back of my throat. The anxiety has prevented me from sleeping at night or performing my husbandly duties.
Time for another brewski. 
