Week so far

Yesterday was pretty busy. In the morning, I waited for the heating and air conditioning guy to come out to clean the air conditioner and try to figure out what was wrong with the furnace. This winter, the furnace had a tendency to click (it stopped and started) numerous times before turning on and staying on for good. We had the home warranty people out to look at it earlier, and they cleaned the flame sensor and, when that didn't work, they replaced it. However, that never seemed to fix the problem. The warranty people have a reputation for being incompetent so we had the guy we usually hire to clean the furnace look at it while he was out. It turns out that it was just a broken connector, a very inexpensive part. He put on a new one, tested the furnace a bunch of times, and it worked after that. I'm still amazed that the warranty people never caught that.

I wonder if doomsey and I are going to renew our home warranty again next year. Since we've had it, it just seems like a waste of time and money. The people they send out are usually very incompetent and they never do fix the problem. The plumber the sent us to fix a broken pump about a year and a half ago was a real piece of work. The motor was on the fritz, so he ordered a new motor to replace it. Since he couldn't find a quarter horse power motor to replace it, he got a half horse power one. It turned out that the new motor was too big for the container. The really stupid thing was that he never tested anything before he left to make sure that it worked. In fact, when I was there, he got a phone call from his office saying that he had to go back to a house that he had been at earlier that day because the tub he had "fixed" wasn't working. I should have taken that as the warning sign it was, but I didn't. After he left, I did a load of laundry only to find that the floor was wet. The pump was not working. It turns out that the motor was a bit too big and that it was hitting the top of its container, so it never turned on. The guy told me that he was going to try to find the correct sized motor for it, but he never got back to me. When I tried calling him, he never answered my phone calls. Finally, I got in touch with his supervisor. It turned out that he hadn't shown up to work for a week and they were "worried about him." I kind of suspected that he went on a bender or something. In fact, they never did find the correct part. I kept calling the plumber, but they never got back to me or they told me that they were still looking for it. doomsey ended up fixing the pump himself. Thankfully, the plumbers never cashed the check that we sent them.

Let's see. What else did I do yesterday? I went for a three and a half mile walk and then I did some weeding in the garden. By the way, listening to music and audio books while walking and doing outside work makes the time go faster. It's really pleasant actually. I'm really enjoying the Neil Gaiman book I'm listening to now. And an added bonus...I stepped on the scale this morning and noticed that I had lost a little bit more weight.

The squirrel people are at my house again this morning. They removed the trap from my roof and they're spraying Sporacin in the attic to disinfect it. I tried telling doomsey this earlier, but I think he was too busy to notice or respond (he's incredibly busy at work this week because of some big deadlines), but there were two squirrels in the trap. Unfortunately, one didn't make it. The squirrel guy thinks it was the second squirrel that was trapped. It ended up dying because the first one ate all of the food. He warned me before I looked at it because he said that it sometimes makes some customers upset. I wasn't really. Such is life. They couldn't come out any sooner and we weren't comfortable going up there by ourselves.

And another thing...

We're really having bad luck with wildlife this year. The person who cleaned the air conditioner found a hornets nest in the unit yesterday. He was able to spray and remove it without incident.

I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that I don't get dive-bombed by any more robins while I'm doing my yardwork this year. Fortunately, I have a better garden hose (with a new attachment even!) that I can use to spray its sorry ass with if it becomes a problem.

Writer's Block: The Only True Question:

[Error: unknown template qotd]

This is kind of a hard one to answer. Pirates are kind of cool because they drink a lot of rum and seem to know how to party. On the other hand, when it comes down to it, they're thieves. They take over ships and execute crew members for monetary gain booty. Finally, life at sea had to have been brutal. Having scurvy must suck big time...

I think, in the end, ninjas are better. Okay, they may be mercenaries and assassins of sorts, but they have more specialized skills. Personally, I've always wanted to learn a martial art. It's not going to happen this year, though, because I'm on blood thinners.