Dis an Dat

I haven’t posted in a while, so thought I’d catch up, while I’m waiting for the computer program that I use for 99% of my work to come back up…

Cats. Again, why? Just in general. Why? The 5 seem to be getting along as well as they’re going to. Ms. Purrsy, aka Purrsephone, still hates everyone, though she has taken to wandering the whole house, instead of hiding in just one room, and she has deemed be fit to pet her, on occasion, but she “complains” the whole time. The rest have taken to taking turns sleeping on my nightstand. I’ve discovered the futility of keeping anything on said nightstand, including my eyeglasses when I’m sleeping. I’ve got to keep them in a drawer, to keep them from being knocked off, sat upon, or slept upon… Now, if I can just keep them from knocking the lamp over onto my head in the middle of the night… Oh, and could we please not hork up hairballs in the middle of the bed? Wouldn’t really be too much of a problem, as the 2nd set was in the wash. But that’s another problem. (See below.)

The “Hot Water Heater Incident” is now closed. It cost a grand that we really didn’t have, but it has been replaced. A complaint was made to Lowe’s, regarding their lack of service, but that all, essentially, came to naught. The corporate office referred me back to the local store, which is where the problem was. The manager apologized, and said that they were in the process of hiring a plumber who could install gas heaters for their installation team. Fat load of good that does me. No offer of reimbursement for the additional costs incurred as even offered. They did offer us 10% off on our next project purchase… Gee. Thanks.

In other kaput type news, our washing machine died last night. Yay! Just what we need, another mechanical failure! It happened to go out while the “backup” sheets mentioned above were being washed. Now we’re stuck with a non-functioning washer, full of half-washed laundry. Laundry that we happen to have a fairly decent need for… The good news is that I think that I might be able to fix it myself, if I can find the part to a 10 year old washer, and the time to fix it.

One of my tires is also going flat, so that’ll have to be replaced, in the not so very distant future. Sigh.

The upside is that Sheeps finally got a job. She got the one we were hoping for, so things are looking up. The downside is that she doesn’t start until Friday, so we won’t see any actual income for a while. Oh, well. At least she’ll be working.

In local news, we passed some protestors on our way to the SCA meeting last night. They were holding up signs that read, “Protect our children!” and “Keep men out of the women’s room (and vice versa)”. They were looking for people to stop and sign their petition to get a citizen written law on the ballot to stop this. Uh… WTF? Well, it seems a local ordinance was passed to allow transgendered individuals the right to use the “proper” restroom. Apparently this is an opportunity for every sexual predator out there. Yeah, ‘cause if some sicko is feeling like molesting a woman, he would be stopped by a 2” by 6” placard that says “Women”. Say I go to a local restaurant, drink my standard 3 gallons of unsweet tea, and have to tinkle? But ho, the Men’s is out of order. Do I dash outside to find a fairly inconspicuous tree, or take my chances on slipping into the unoccupied Women’s to relieve my overburdened bladder? The tree’ll only net me a ticket. Citizen’s laws are so screwy that I’d probably end up in jail if I chanced the wrong loo. What a joke. Grow up people, and get with 21st century.

Work. Joy. We have one girl out on maternity leave, which increases everyone’s workload. Last week, another girl was on vacation. Daryl, the idiot, was on his last week of his two week’s notice, but didn’t bother coming in to work. Last Friday was what we call “switch” day, which is the last day of the month to get applications in to switch new customers to our company by the 1st of the following month. Otherwise, it is the 1st of the *next* month… Switch day is always very busy. So it was an absolute joy this month. On Monday, I get a “nasty-gram” from our supervisor. Seems one of the marketers wrote a note in the system on one of the accounts, but didn’t actually make the update she said she did. Nor did she send out an email saying she’d changed it (even though she didn’t…) “C” (who is on vacation, mind you), whose job is to monitor and prompt updates, didn’t catch it. “D” is her backup (he didn’t bother showing up, remember?), and he didn’t catch it either. “L” is the 2nd backup. (Guess which girl she is? Yep, maternity leave.) Nowhere in that “chain” does my name appear, and yet I was included in the raving email about no one doing their job. I was told that I was included as I am part of the team, and we all need to come together that something like this doesn’t happen again. Um… How about this? How about we don’t have marketers write notes about things they didn’t do. How about when they DO write things that they didn’t do, and don’t send out emails saying they did what they wrote that they did, but didn’t do, we don’t have a girl on vacation whose backup has quit and 2nd backup is out on maternity leave? WTF? Sometimes supervisors are out of their freaking gourds…

Well, according to the email I just got, the system is back up and running, so time to try and slam out some work. And hope that no one makes changes that they don't make. Or at leasts emails about not doing it... Uh, what?

Soup Sandwich

So, whose karmic Cheerios did I piss in? I’d have to say that, whomever it was, we are most assuredly paid in full.

I was driving home from work the other night, just as the ever-present afternoon monsoon was starting up. I pull out of the driveway at work and ‘errrrrk’ my windshield wipers stopped working. Twenty fretful minutes later, I arrived home alive, somehow. I think it’s a fuse (at least I hope it is, ‘cause otherwise I’ll have to replace the wiper motor, which promises to be a great big load of “not fun”. I haven't even had time to check it out, as my few spare daylight hours have been spent on other matters, as will soon become clear.

Sheeps has not landed a job yet, but the prospect is there. The one job that we really want is still in process. It pays well, and will be great for us, but it is taking soooo long. She has a 2nd interview on Monday; more of a info session with one of the directors she’ll be working closely with. This is a very good sign, but it still means 2-3 more weeks of processing. Damn university jobs! We have a small nest egg set aside to get us through this period, but it is getting tight.

That's about when we discovered that the foyer was sitting in about an inch of water. It would seem that the water heater finally gave up the ghost. It was 25 years old, so it most assuredly had done its duty, but still… Why now? Water was leaking out of the top of the thing and dripping down the sides. Not good. We couldn’t even turn it off, as the valve just spun. It was “live with the water dripping ‘til we can get it replaced' or turn off water throughout the entire house. That wasn’t an option, so it was 'multiple sponges in the hall' time. Oh, well, the parquet floor needed replacing, anyway.

It is a gas heater, so the change-out is beyond my meager mechanical skills. Lowe’s advertises that they install appliances, often the same day, so we decided to let them do the dirty work. We looked on the website to price out heaters and check for installation, and, sure enough, they replace water heaters. We called the 1-800 number and after verifying that it was a gas heater, the clerk tried to “ring us up” right then and there for the $300 heater and installation fee of $300. We said that we’d prefer to do it “in store”, and she cautioned that they only had 1 left. We decided to chance it and go in the next morning. Oddly enough, they had plenty in stock. We even decided to upgrade an extra 10 gallons and go from a 30 to a 40, as it was only $10 more.

We weren’t sure if they delivered when they came to install, or if we’d have to drag the thing with us to the register. We hit the friendly “need help?” button, and shortly 2 associates appeared. We asked how to start the process of purchasing installation, but they both firmly denied that they installed gas heaters. “But the clerk on the phone said you did, and wanted to take our money there.” “She must not have known it was gas.” “She specifically asked if it was gas, propane or electric.” “Well, she was wrong.” “It says right here on the box ‘Installation guaranteed’.” “We’ll call our installation team and check.” They walked around the corner, and were back in less than 30 seconds. There’s no way they could have called in that time. “No, they don’t do it. You need to call a plumber.” So, grumpily, we carted the heater with the message on the box that they did install and guaranteed it, and headed for the check out counter. “Do you want to purchase a 5 year warranty on that for only $50?” “Uh, no.” I don’t think we’ll need that, as the box says it is warranted for 6 years… I am not at all happy with Lowe’s right now.

To make matters worse, I got food poisoning from lunch at Subway, and spent a good portion of the early evening at work, painting the walls of the bathroom a particular shade of used roast beef. I couldn’t even go home, as a certain “short timer” decided to call in sick that day (yesterday). I had to pick up some of his slack, in addition to my already full workload. There was no way I could go home early. I barely managed to get out “on time” as it was. I should have taken today off and rested, but I knew in my soul that he was going to skate out on today, as well. And I was right. There is a disgruntled co-worker in his very near future...

So, in the meanwhile, we call the plumber who has done work for me before, and he can’t get there that day. He said he’d come by the next morning (today) and give an estimate. Well, he estimated, all right. The turn off valve at the heater was broken and needed replacing (we knew this, as we couldn’t shut it off), and the gas vent to the outside was too small and out of code, and also needed to be replaced. I didn’t know that, but am not surprised, as the house was built over 50 years ago. All told, the bill came to $700. The $600 repair that we really couldn’t afford is now over a grand. Sigh. It was something that had to get done, and at least I know it was done professionally. Did I mention that Lowe’s really pisses me off?

Well, we may be poor, but we're poor with hot water!

And to top it all off, we get to travel to Tampa again this weekend, to finish the work on the townhouse, and get it ready for sale. Joy. At least we had last weekend off to relax.

Now it’s time to tighten the belts, and hope UF wants Sheeps for the job, and that they can get their act together and get her working before another month rolls around…

Gakked from Marius

Here's what you need to do if you want to do this mosaic:

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name.

Here is my mosaic: