My Shit

You won't get a hot bath at my house without at least a little work.

The hot water heater has been down for a couple of days. M and I fought with the Home Depot, Lowes, and finally Sears of the course of 12 hours today trying to get a hot water heater installed "same day." Same day, by the way doesn't really mean the day you buy the appliance. It means they day the installing company can pull their head out of their ass, go get the appliance out of a warehouse, and actually then maybe find your house.

The story of hot water heater #1
M calls Home Depot -- located about 3 miles from his house -- at 9:30am today. They sell him a 50 gallon, best GE (note: grades for GE water heaters are good, better, and best with price and efficiency going up with each step and heating time going down), with same day install (note: there is no optional, "I don't give a shit when you come to install my appliance" deal for less money, you only get the ass reaming), and a 12 year warranty. When the install people call they are brining a 40 gallon, good grade, 6 year warranty water heater. They didn't have the one M wanted so they down graded him, didn't adjust the price accordingly, and may or may not make it out that day to do the install. Here is a big Go Fuck Yourself to Home Depot.

The story of hot water heater #2
M calls Lowes -- located about 20 miles from his house -- at 11:30am today. At this point we are trying to beat the noon deadline for same day install. They don't have GE, the best warranty is 6 years, the efficiency and heating times get close, and the price is slightly less. Install is more but they say they can do it same day. At 1:00pm we still had not heard from the install company. We try looking the company up in the Yellow Pages and can't find them, call the store, and they say they'll call back. 1:30pm they call back to say they are doing what they can. Their install guys can't make it and they are trying to find any company that will do it that day and will eat the cost difference themselves. Just before 2pm they call back, they have a guy, he'll do it after normal work hours and should be there at 4pm. I leave at 2pm to check out a job site and run some errands and am back by 5:30pm. I go downstairs and there is no new water heater. This house has a special low emissions water heater. The exhaust is mixed with air, which cools it, allowing it to be vented with PVC pipe rather than metal and also make 90 degree bends rather than shoot straight up out of the roof. This is called a power vent water heater, is rare, hard to find, and never in stock. Lowes, thanks for all of your help, we really appreciate it, your customer service beat the snot out of Home Depot, but we still don't have hot water.

The story of hot water heater #3
M calls Sears (Lowes and Home Depot don't even carry power vent hot water heaters and it is either buy a power vent or redo the exhaust -- which would require a hole through the floor and ceiling of the spare bedroom) at 7:30pm to order the hot water heater. They usually take 14 days to come in but they are trying to find one locally. They hope to have one here and installed by Feb 1^st. So the story really isn't over. I'll believe that we have a new water heater when I can turn on the faucet and actually get some hot water. Until then, my hot water gets made with three big stock pots on the stove.

M and I have started sending back our junk mail. I don't mean "return to sender" either. I mean, we open all the junk mail, put in something like a coupon or the contents of some other junk mail into the return envelope, and put that return envelope back in the mail. I know this is a small effort but I take pride in knowing I hurt the bottom line of a big annoying company just a few cents at a time.

The most annoying though are the pieces I get from companies where I already do business. So far I just throw those away since I want them to perform well so they don't jack my rates. I think I'm going to have to make a form letter like:

Dear ______ company

I already use your services. Quit sending me junk.

Mr. My Shit
666 Highway to Hell
Piss Off, CT 66616

Note: I'm not really in CT, I just hate the state. It is the worst possible state I could think of and would be closely associated with junk mail and hell.

Oh yeah, check out my new Superbee Photo Blog.

I get to stay at home today! The hot water heater went out yesterday. In trying to find parts, not finding parts, and finding a place to shower I managed to not go to bed until midnight. This means I didn't get up at 5am to go to work. If I don't get up by 5am, I don't beat the traffic, and my 50 mile 1 hour drive turns into a 50 mile 2.5 hour drive (or worse). I called the boss at 7:30 to say I had not even left home yet. He told me to just stay at home. This is actually not a bad thing.

Now that I have the finances in hand I have grande loads of work to do and much of it can be done while sitting on my couch, listening to classical music, working on a company laptop at home. I have experience with managerial accounting and have had course work in financial account (aka. don't really know what I'm doing -- yet). I really wanted the books so that I could analyze the company on a managerial basis. The books were so poorly kept, in such bad shape, and things were not scheduled to turn around any time soon that I was given the task of fixing things. Now I have to setup the general ledger and figure out how to do all of this stuff! All of this work just so I can get the data to do my analysis.

We would really like to pay ourselves more and get an office. When the financial planning amounts to the statement, "we're getting there," you know you are in trouble. Hopefully I'll be able to get a gasp on all of this very quickly. Once that is done then I can find out why we are bleeding money, start plugging some of the holes, get us in the black, then start doing some planning for future growth, an office, and raises and bonuses.

Any one got a Snickers? I'm going to be here a while!

Kind of received a promotion at work. I am the only one in my company with a college degree. I have an MS and a BS actually. And several years of experience. I guess the guys I work for got tired of me explaining to them that we were running the business end of the business very poorly . . . so now I get to do it!

Went to visit the girl this weekend. All I can say is, "wow."

Someone is trying to kill me. Today when I went to cross the street I didn't step out right away because cars usually run the light after it turns red. Sure enough two cars ran the light. I started to walk but, for some reason, kept my eye out. Good thing I did because a big dump truck came up over the hill, roaring through the light. If I wouldn't have suspected this guy wasn't going to stop I would have been hit. He missed by just a few feet -- I felt the breeze -- anyway. Then as I was driving up Georgia 400 (the most dangerous highway in the world) a Jeep almost hit me. He came onto the highway from a ramp and just kept on moving across the lanes. I must have been directly in his blind spot. I slammed my brakes (no one behind me) and swerved to the left (just a grass median and not another lane of traffic). If this keeps up I'll be able to check up on Tiffany much sooner than I want to.

There was small accident tonight. The Arrogant Bastard pint glass was lost.

Things are getting back to normal again -- or, at least, my version of normal.

I have been working on a paper I intend to publish.

I ran (warm up) and lifted last night.

Things will never be normal again. I saw a blonde girl in a sports car today and I had to look. I knew she didn't drive a Mustang but the blonde just caught my eye.

I'll be working on the Bee again this weekend. Working on my Superbee is just a great way to take my mind off of things, almost all things, and that is good.