a) conventional wisdom hereabouts notes that firewood should be stored away from the mists of our winters. Alas, my home currently mostly lacks such a place.
b) what’s the going rate for a cord of dense wood hereabouts, anyway?
c) no, really. where does you alls keep the good burnin’ wood? Izzit near? ‘Cuz I’m needin’.
Today’s the day we move the rest of the stuff. We rent the truck in about an hour.
As a new homeowner with a fireplace, I have need to know the URL of a Burn Ban status page. I wonder if someone’s scraped an RSS feed of this together, as I’m itching to gaze into the embers.
I surprised Viv with a Christmas tree this evening, telling her I was running back to the apartment to shift another load.
Oh, and I finally got my IP assignments from my ISP. Whoop de doo.
After discussions with Qwest, my ISP, and some research, I have an RMA for the router that Qwest billed me for, the only problem being that within the past 30 days I WAS NEVER SENT A ROUTER BY QWEST. The router I was billed for is nonexistent. I was sent a router several months ago, which I paid for, and I’m inclined to return it. But alas, less than a week ago, I trashed the shipping material.
My ISP assures me that a) the router they installed is generating rental income for them and b) no router they would install would be billed to me by Qwest, as they are separate operations.
My vanishing phone number has been explained, as well. It seems that my ISP, unbidden and unapproved, dropped a whole new line to the house in order to establish ADSL, instead of regular DSL. In so doing they thoughtfully moved the existing handsets onto the new circuit, presumably allowing them to bill me for the “service,” in addition to whatever other charges are to be levied. A swift call to them identified that balance as a mere $123 and some petty coppers.
Ah, the sweet, clean air of the free market, where service is sublime and price competition flattens cash outflow. The hell with that! Nationalize ’em! Slow and ineffective service that costs little and is subject to my will as a voter beats slow and ineffective service that costs a shitload and is beyond recourse every single day of this century or any other! Citizens, why do you tolerate this sort of crap?
Qwest is billing me 200 dollars this month for a phone number that does not work and a DSL router I actively fought delivery on. Wish me luck, persistence, and restraint in my interactions with customer “service” personnel.
Just over thirty days after the remodel started, Petr is packing up. The top floor is ready for us and the debris is hauled.
I called him on October 25 or so, and he called me on the 27 saying he could start the next day. He estimated two to three weeks and it came out to just over four. Additionally, the weeks he worked were far from 40 hours long, which was fine with me. The remodel cost about twice what we hoped it would but our initial budget was developed based on an expectation of double overruns, so as much as I would have liked to hang onto the money, I’m happy with what we received for the cost.
We did not cash out our savings in entirety by any means, and I’m confident we’ve enhanced the value of the house. Now I have to figure out how to keep on the beam for the next few years addressing the deferred maintenance issues and the additional improvements and alterations that could benefit the place, such as doublepane windows, an upgraded power system, and so forth.
The boxes are landing, bit by bit.
The floors are done! This is the original flooring from ’48.
The Petrs are finishing up the moulding. There are only a few details left in their part of the project.
And in other news, my phone saga keeps on giving! Our long-standing number was successfully transferred to the new house after much gnashing and wailing; sometime last week we noted with surprise that our answering machine appeared to have ceased picking up. Calls to the number were not picked up in test calls, and tonight I finally had the bright idea of calling the number while looking at the phone. No ring – but a busy signal!
To my aggravation, when I picked up the phone to call my cell, the number that registered on caller ID was some number I had never seen or heard of. Qwest verified with me on the phone that this was some sort of error and will investigate. Argh.