Better Off Jed

Our A/C is busted. My wife was out most of the day yesterday and had pushed the thermostat up before she left. When she came home, she found the house several degrees warmer than what she had it set to. Our house is hard to cool, so I just assumed the HVAC was having trouble keeping up.

Evening came and the temperature in the house still hadn’t dropped at all. Our first level felt comfortable to me, but my wife and kids were upstairs where it is much, much warmer. My wife and daughter have no tolerance for the heat, so they were both freaking out. So, armed with no knowledge on HVAC systems, I did a 3 point check:

• I checked the compressor:  it was running.
• I checked the unit in the furnace closet:  it appeared to be working…well…at least it was making noise.
• I checked the vents:  uh oh…no air is coming out of the vents.

We have a service contract with BGEHome, so I gave them a call to schedule service. I was told that there was some kind of hold on my account. There was a billing issue and they couldn’t schedule an appointment. I was dumbfounded because I’m sure I didn’t owe them any money. Unfortunately, because it was the evening, they told me to call back at 7:30am the next morning to figure out the billing issue.  We were in for an uncomfortable night.

My wife and daughter slept on the couches on the first level. My son wanted to stay in his bed and I opened most of the windows upstairs and slept in my bed. In my youth, my parents didn’t seem to run the A/C that often — at least it felt that way to me. I used to keep a spray bottle next to my bed and spray myself with water to keep cool. I haven’t slept with the windows open in over 10 years for two simple reasons:

1. As already mentioned, my wife can’t stand being uncomfortable.
2. I have bad seasonal allergies and I have found that keeping the house closed up helps a lot.

I was not expecting a restful night, but we all seemed to sleep pretty well. I called back at 7:30am only to be told that the billing department doesn’t open until 8am. At this point, I am starting to get upset.

I call back at 8am and speak to a billing representative. He tells me there is an outstanding charge for $50 on a service contract for a humidifier. I was very confused because:

1. I don’t have a service contract on our humidifier
2. We had a problem with the heat this past winter and had no problem getting a service technician to come out.

It turns out the service contract he is talking about is for the humidifier in our old townhouse, which I haven’t lived in for 6 years!!! Not only that, but I never even had a service contract while living in that house. Now I’m really getting angry because this just doesn’t make sense and I just want to get our A/C fixed. The guy said that he couldn’t waive the fee and I may have responded by uttering some obscenities, which is out of character for me. I guess the heat can do that to you.

I asked to speak to his supervisor and he transferred me to the head of the collections department. Of course, she didn’t answer and I got her voice mail. As calmly as I could, I explained the issue and asked her to call me back. I really didn’t think I was going to get anywhere today.

Surprisingly, the phone rang about a half hour later. The collections manager was very nice and after asking me a couple of questions, she waived the fee and transferred me to get my appointment scheduled. They are coming this afternoon anytime after noon. Last time we had someone out, I don’t think they came until 6:30pm. Hopefully, we are early in the schedule.

“I was cooking dinner…” could be the beginning of the answer to many questions, such as:

• What were you doing in the kitchen?
• What were you doing last Thursday at 6pm?
• When did you come up with that great idea?
• etc.

You wouldn’t expect to hear “I was cooking dinner…” as the beginning of the answer to the question, “How did you tear a tendon in your leg?”  However, if asked, that is exactly how my wife would start the answer to that question.

On Monday night, a colleague friend and I went to the 6pm showing of Inception. About 30 minutes into the movie (just as Ellen Page is learning 1st hand about shared dreaming), my cell phone vibrates.  The caller ID indicates that the call is coming from home. My wife knows better than to call me during a movie, so I ignore the call.

My wife and I have a system when I can’t answer the phone. If I don’t get the phone and it’s an emergency, she’ll call back right away. I was surprised when twenty seconds later, my phone rings again. (Of course, in these modern times, she could text me and save a lot of time and trouble, but that’s a different story.) Again, the call is coming from home. Again, I know my wife knows better than to call me while I’m in a movie. Now I assume that one of my kids is calling because they want to buy a song on iTunes or they want to record something on Tivo and there’s a conflict. So, I ignore it again.

Twenty seconds later, my phone rings a third time. Now, I’m concerned. So, I go into the movie theater lobby and call back. My wife sounds very upset and she explains to me that she hurt her leg and can’t walk.

So what happened?

My wife was cooking dinner. She reached to get a pot off the stove without a pot holder and burned her hand. In reaction to burning her hand, she kind of jumped back and started to turn toward the sink to run her hand under cold water. It was during this movement that she felt like something had slammed into her calf muscle and she collapsed to the ground in agony. When she looked back to see what had hit her leg, she was surprised to see that nothing was there. She tried to get up, but couldn’t put any weight on it without experiencing extreme pain.

So, I rushed home from the theater with my friend, who happened to be staying over. We didn’t want to go to the ER because we knew we’d be waiting for hours, so I called an Urgent Care office that I’ve used before. I said, “I’m coming over with my wife who hurt her leg.” They said, “You better hurry, we stop taking patients in 15 minutes.” Somehow, I got my wife into the car and we were able to make it with 3 minutes to spare.  (BTW, thanks to my friend for watching my kids and thanks to my kids for being on their best behavior.)

The urgent care doctor’s initial concern was that my wife had torn her Achilles tendon. Thankfully, he confirmed that her Achilles was intact. He diagnosed her with a severe muscle pull, which just didn’t sound right to me given the symptoms, and told us to follow up with our primary care physician. The next day, I took my wife to our doctor and immediately she thought that my wife had some kind of tear and she ordered an MRI. The results of the MRI confirmed that my wife had torn a tendon. She told me which tendon specifically, but I can’t remember. It’s the one that connects the calf muscle to something. Thankfully, it doesn’t sound like she’ll need surgery.

My wife has an appointment with an orthopedist on Tuesday. In the meantime, she has been able to get around without too much pain by limping on the ball of her foot. Our biggest concern right now is that we are supposed to leave for a family vacation in two weeks that involves a lot of walking. I have a bad feeling that we’ll have to cancel. We’ll have to see what the orthopedist says.

When my kids were very young, probably between the ages of 6 months and 2 years, I used to put them on the bed, face up. I’d stand on the floor over them, and put my hands just above their shoulders. I would push up and down on the bed, lightly bouncing them around and say, “Earthquake, run for cover, earthquake,” over and over and over.  It always made them giggle and they loved it.

Imagine my surprise this morning, when I woke up just after 5am because the bed was lightly shaking. My wife instantly said, “I think we’re having an earthquake.” We live in Maryland, and while there have been very minor earthquakes reported in the past, they are so few and far between that I just didn’t believe it — especially in my sleepy state. I thought I heard a loud truck rumbling outside, so I suggested that it might be caused by the truck. She said, “How could it be a truck? Have you ever felt shaking inside the house from a truck outside the house?” Hmm…maybe she’s right.

I was exhausted and, although I was now leaning toward the fact that it was an earthquake, I just wanted to go back to sleep. My wife was a bit more concerned than I was and kept peppering me with questions about what we should do. I asked, “Is anything falling off the walls?” “No,” she replied. I rolled over and grumpily said, “Then let me go back to sleep.”

I woke up around 7am, grabbed my Droid, and checked the web. Yes, in fact, we did have an earthquake:

A 3.6 magnitude earthquake rattled the Washington area early Friday, with thousands of residents reporting that they felt the ground shake as they slept or were waking. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was centered in Montgomery County and struck at 5:04 a.m.

What I found interesting is that the epicenter was about, 30 miles away from us and it was still strong enough to wake us up. The shaking was definitely an odd sensation — something I’d never felt before. It kind of felt like there was someone on each side of the bed, lightly and quickly pulling and pushing the bed back and forth. The motion was definitely lighter than those coin operated “rumble” beds that are found in the seedy hotels that you see occasionally in movies.

Who knew that the first earthquake I would experience would be in Maryland?  At least I didn’t think it was terrorism.

Last night, my son asked my wife the following question:

Were Jack and Jill the first people?

I am still not clear on what prompted the question, but we certainly got a good laugh out of it.

Yesterday, I was watching the Red Sox playing the Orioles on TV.  The game was in Baltimore. It was the bottom of the 10th and the Orioles were at bat. My wife walks in to the room and sits down with me.

The pitcher throws the ball and the Oriole at the plate swings and misses. My wife, sounding confused, says to me, “Was that a ball?”

My wife is certainly not a sports aficionado by any stretch, but she certainly knows the difference between a ball and a strike. I look at her like she’s crazy and say, “Ummm…did you not just see the guy swing and miss?”

She says, “Yeah, I know…but I don’t understand why was everyone cheering?”

Now, that is an excellent question. Let’s ponder that for a moment. When an Oriole player swings and misses and you hear the crowd erupt with applause, what does that mean?

1. The Orioles are horrendous, therefore…
2. They do not draw a crowd, therefore…
3. The number of visiting fans in the stands are significant enough to be heard on TV

1 and 2 I can live with. Number 3 bothers me. I really get irritated when the visiting team’s fans are as loud, if not louder, than the home team. It has happened with the Redskins several times in the last few years especially when they play the Eagles and the Steelers.

I attribute it to a few things. When teams suck, the fans of the home team don’t show up — that’s a given. If those fans are season ticket holders (like in the case of the Redskins), they will put their tickets on Internet sites like eBay and StubHub. This gives the away team’s fans a large supply of tickets to choose from. Also, the Baltimore/Washington metro area is full of transplants from other cities, so it is only natural that they show up in droves when their home team is in town. I think baseball and football are the most susceptible to this phenomenon. Last year I went to an Orioles game against the Angels, I was stunned by the number of Angels fans.  In fact, the whole row in front of us was people in Angels jerseys.

I remember several years back, the Wizards would actually market the visiting team’s players to drive up ticket sales. Come see Michael Jordan and the Bulls demolish the Washington Wizards!!! That’s taking it to extremes, but if you can’t sell your team, you may as well cash in on the other team.

The Orioles actually beat the Red Sox yesterday in 11 innings. Until the Orioles dramatically improve, singing Take Me Out to the Ball game just won’t have the same impact.

Our house is 18 years old and it still has the original roof. Some of our neighbors have gotten new roofs (rooves?) within the past couple of years, so I know that is an expense that we will have to undertake sooner than later.

Yesterday, there was a guy canvassing the neighborhood from a company called Atlantic Remodeling. He mentioned that they could provide a free estimate that would be good for a year, which I figured couldn’t take too long. The guy said he’d set up an appointment for later in the evening if my wife and I were available. I agreed even though I knew there was a 0% chance that I would agree to any work that evening.

At 6:30pm last night, the salesman arrives. He seemed really nice and knowledgeable. We walked around the house and he pointed out some areas on the roof that were sure signs that we needed a new roof. Of course, he’s going to say that, and I’m not that gullible. However, there was one ’sign’ that he mentioned that I knew was a problem with our current roof, so my opinion of him was pretty favorable — I trusted the guy so far.

He went into his sales pitch. Although a bit long and sprinkled with asides about his personal life, he seemed knowledgeable and I feel like I learned a lot. He really had me thinking positively about him and the company. Again, I was definitely not going to sign any contracts that night, but I had my mind made up that they would be a strong contender — of course he hadn’t actually worked up the estimate at this point.

After the sales pitch, he asked us if we were serious about him and the company and would we like him to work up an estimate. Of course I said yes, because the estimate was what I was most interested in. He goes outside, takes measurements and works up the estimate. He presents us with the estimate in a manner that I would describe as seedy: he had his estimate form, filled in the numbers, folded up the paper, slid it across the table, and said, “Let me know what you think of this.” My wife actually laughed at this move.

I was not too surprised to see a figure about 3x more than I thought was reasonable. I immediately declined, so then he says that if I sign tonight, he can reduce the price by 25%.  That price was still much higher than what I thought was reasonable. I said no, and he was shocked that I could turn down such a great offer so quickly. We spent the next several minutes in what felt to me like an infinite loop of “why won’t you sign? is it me? is it my company? is it the price? how can you turn this down?” I was starting to get really irritated.

Then, he asked if we would be interested in being a “showcase house”. Knowing that another reduction in price was forthcoming, I said I would be interested. All of a sudden the estimate was about 1/2 the original amount and still about 50% more than I thought was reasonable. Again, I said no and, again, the infinite loop of “please explain your decision” began.

I explained that I had no intention of signing anything and this was the very beginning of our research and that I needed to get more estimates. He seemed incredulous that I needed to get more estimates. During one of his personal asides, he mentioned that his girlfriend had bought a new car earlier in the day. While I was trying to convince him that I would be an idiot to sign with the first company to provide me an estimate, I asked him if his girlfriend bought the first car she took out for a test drive. Of course, she didn’t. I was pretty pleased with myself at that particular moment.

His irritation with us seemed to increase and I could see he was starting to turn into a pushy salesman, so I stopped him and said, “Up til now, I’ve had a favorable opinion of you and your company and I’d hate to think you’d want that to change.” He seemed to get the message and he started his “last ditch” effort and said something like, “I certainly don’t bat a thousand, but I usually close on the first meeting 40% – 50% of the time. I must not have done a good job tonight.” Ugh.

He finally gets up from the table and says that he has to call his boss and then he’ll go. I thought for sure that he was going to come back with another price reduction, but he didn’t. Finally he left — TWO HOURS after our appointment began. How did I get hoodwinked into that? That meeting should’ve been 1/2 hour at most: Measure the roof, decide on options, present price.

I was telling my sister about my experience and she found this complaint about Atlantic Remodeling: http://www.complaints.com/2006/april/5/Atlantic_Remodeling_roofing_estimate_14468.htm

The experience described in the link above was eerily similar to mine (without the fear that our salesman was going to get violent — I could have taken him ). Also, if you read the comments below the original posting, there are many others that had similar complaints about Atlantic Remodeling.

My wife and I decided that we will no longer be naive and participate in cold sales calls. From now on, we’ll toss the fliers and only talk to people that our friends recommend.

Note the repeated use of the word “complaint” near the words “Atlantic Remodeling”.  That’s so this blog post will be ranked higher when someone searches on “Atlantic Remodeling complaints”.

I just had the following exchange with my daughter on IM. I am very impressed with how she gets that she’s too young to understand love. And, she seems to get my little joke/wish at the end.

One of the chores that comes with having two kids in elementary school is preparing lunch for them to take to school. This really should not be that big of a deal, but I can’t stand making lunches. Much to the chagrin of my wife, I just flat out refuse to make lunches. I think I made lunches two times this year…under protest of course. I know…not very chivalrous of me, but I can have at least one chore that I refuse to do, right?

When I was a kid, my mom made my lunch every day…all the way through high school, in fact. My lunch was very simple and was pretty much the same every day of my public school career: a sandwich, fruit, dessert, and milk money. And I liked it. No complaints from me.

My kids  are very picky, especially my daughter. Coupled with the fact that my daughter requires a gluten-free diet, the sandwich, fruit, dessert pattern doesn’t work so well. Also, my wife wants to add a vegetable to the mix as well. She’s also worried that they don’t have enough to eat, so she could pack them 5 or 6 items. I, personally, think my wife packs them too much food. Invariably, my kids come home every day with some part of their lunch uneaten.

The other night after dinner, my wife gave me a choice. Make lunches or give my son a shower. Of course, I chose to give my son a shower. I then made a potentially damaging parenting mistake. I knew I should just stop talking even as the words were coming out of my mouth, but my brain couldn’t get my mouth to shut up. I said to my son in a macho tone, “When you get married and have children in elementary school, you aren’t going to make lunches, right?” The expression on my wife’s face confirmed my stupidity.

Luckily, my son is a better person than me…or so I thought at first. He declares, “No…I’ll make lunches for my kids.” I was so relieved. As we started walking upstairs, my son leans over and whispers to me, “I didn’t mean it. I’m not going to make lunches.” My mouth fell open in shock and then I just burst out laughing. I never thought my son had a future in politics…until now.

I just installed the WordPress app on my Droid. I can now blog from anywhere. But…will I?

For short posts (like this one), I can see the advantage. For long posts, I am not so sure yet.

We shall see.

My sister and my son had a 30 minute IM session on Google Talk not too long ago. I have never had the opportunity to IM with my son. I saw him come online and thought it would be fun to chat with him, however, my excitement was shortlived:

[16:47] Me: hi!
[16:48] Him: daddy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
[16:48] Me: how’s it going, buddy?
[16:48] Him: good
[16:48] Him: daddy
[16:48] Me: yeah?
[16:50] Him: i wantdid too playnot chat
[16:50] Me: ok…sorry…i’ll talk to you later.
[16:51] Him: bye