Housework

I've been doing a lot of housework. I finished the master closet rebuild, so it now has 2 rods for hanging on the left side (two half height ones), one full length one in the back, and then shelves on the right side. Two of the shelves have cedar inserts to help preserve the wool sweaters.

We also bought a new dresser, except we bought it at the scratch 'n' dent outlet with some barely visible scratches for a lot less money. It was an adventure carrying it up to the second foor.

Then we discovered that the roof leaked when we had the bad storms yesterday. DH went up and saw that there was a hole in the roof that we could see daylight through, right next to a PVC pipe of some sort (I think its a vent). Anyways, we temporarily plugged the hole with a plastic bag, but needed to get caulk for that. Today I got roofing caulk and did what I could to block off the leak. I think it would have been better if I were doing it from the outside instead of the inside. But, I cannot see any daylight from it now.

I also started working on the gigabit wiring (cat-6) for the house. I got it pulled from the closet where the wireless router is up to the closet, and I found where I want to drop it down for the office (aka 3rd bedroom)... and then couldn't figure out how to do that.

There was also a problem with the linoleum in the master bath. It was peeling away from the shower stall. So... out comes the bath caulk again, and some glue, and a temprary fix is put in place. We really need to renovate the master bath. But, no money or time for that right now. Especially since we'll need to hire contractor(s) as neither of us is up to re-working plumbing.

Non-house work wise...

I'm going to Albuquerque this week. My trip to Charlottesville (HQ) in December is in hold - the CEO banned non-sales travel this quarter - but they need me in ABQ for a data modelling.

Its kinda weird that my boss is 3 years younger, and slightly more "senior" people in the company are 5 years younger. I believe I can move up to the senior positions though. I just need to learn what the ropes are here to get there.

I coulda told you this

NY Times article on Indian technical competence. Or rather, the overwhelming lack thereof in a large chunk of their "engineering" graduates.

Odd Experience at Home Depot

I have been making very regular trips to Home Depot. Usually at least once a day. In addition to this, we ordered custom energy saving blinds for the family room. After this experience, the rest will be put in by me.

Placed the order the day we closed on the house. The order was to have someone come out and measure for the blinds that week, and then we'd get the blinds about 10 days after that. Well, the first week went by and no person calling to measure. I call HD on Saturday and they say they'll re-fax it. Monday, the new contractor calls and schedules a measurement on Tuesday. I think everything's in place now. Wednesday I get a call from HD. They've *LOST* my order. They have no idea what type of blinds I ordered or what color etc. I play phone tag with the person handling the order at HD for the rest of the week. Finally on Saturday, she tells me she'll be working from noon to 9. I needed to go there anyways, so, I show up at 4:30.

She's on lunch, and "will be back in 30 minutes". I go fill up my cart with the new shelving for the closet & a few other odds and ends. I go back 45 minutes later... she's still on lunch. She gets paged. I sit and wait. 10 minutes later she shows up. And then it takes her 1 hour to get my order done, since the original was "LOST". It only took us 5 minutes to place the order. In the time I was waiting there, 3 other couples came up and had their blinds (which had measurements taken) paid for and on their way. Ugh.

Finally, all of this is done. And then I find out that the contractor hasn't brought the template (required for this job since one window is a half-moon) over. Once the template is received, its about 10 business days until I receive the blinds. Then the contractor has to be scheduled again.

This is insane.

And, last but not least, during this whole time talking one comment by the woman dealing with my order. (background - I'm explaining why contacting my by my home phone is not a good plan since I work) "Oh, you're one of THOSE women" (said rather disapprovingly). WTF?

Maybe by mid-November we'll have our blinds. Until then, we're using blankets on the windows.

Lotsa Books

We did the obligatory IKEA run to buy bookcases. I underestimated our book needs, although that was partially because I missed 3 boxes of books. We bought 2 big bookcases, and we need at least 1 more. We have 360" of storage on nice bookshelves, and still have 5 full shelves of books on the old shelving plus some in boxes. We were also going to buy a cubby bookshelf thing and turn it into media storage in the family room, but, IKEA was out. IKEA put some other shelf system in the place of the 8 cubby shelving we wanted. So, we had it all loaded up and until we got to the register, we had no clue it wasn't the one we were looking for.

One set of neighbors came over and introduced themselves. They live on the corner, and there's a big pine tree fence (trees planted a bit too closely together to become full pines) between our houses. They seemed nice. I don't know much about them, other than they have 3 kids and have lived on the corner for 7 years. Oh, and they've been really fixing up the house they live in. The sides facing the street look fantastic. The sides we see are works in progress.

Service Improvements

So, we're getting settled into our new home. Among the good things are that I found out we qualify for FOIS. Nice, fast, cheap.

I'm also looking into getting projection HDTV in the family room. Probably a 96" projection. Because I'm thinking of front projection its not that expensive, although its still not that cheap.

And speakers. Must have speakers.

Oh boy, I have so many little projects.

And figuring out storage for ~600" (and growing) of books.