Posts (page 2)
Well, the BART thing worked out, so no worries about that anymore. The MacBook thing worked out too, sort of. I went to the genius bar at the Bay Street Apple store in Emeryville. A very helpful she-male took care of me. The hard drive is dead. Since I've never had any repairs done to my MacBook, and even though it was no longer under warranty, they offered to replace the hard drive with a new one at no charge. I guess that's good. I tell you though, I would not want to be one of those genius guys. The stuff they have to put up with! These idiots who know nothing at all about using a computer - I mean not even the basics - but are unhappy with the way their computer is working. I can't go into the details, but this idiotic woman next to me was not going to be happy unless her computer was "fixed" immediately. It was painful to listen to her. They told her it would be 2-3 days before she could pick up her computer and she was not having it. Then they told her for $100 she could by some Mac Care plan that would move her to the front of the line, but she still wouldn't have it back until the next day. She refused to pay the $100 because of all the "frustration" she has been through and refused to accept anything other than getting it fixed same day. She kept saying this annoying line "you are dealing with a red head here." I was so sick of listening to her.
3:30 on Friday before a BART strike and no new talks scheduled. Great. It takes a lot of balls to turn down a contract after the two other unions agreed to it. And by the way, my BART fares have gone up almost every year for the past four, but my salary has not budged. Monday is going to suck.
Can someone tell me how much it costs to ride the AC Transit F bus into the city? It picks up two blocks from my house. I'm too lazy to look it up.
So Tony called this morning to tell me that the screen on our macbook just shows a big question mark and he can't get it to do anything. Great. Another to do on my list. So I have an appoinment at the "genius" bar for Sunday at 1:45. I hope this is fixable, because this MacBook is just three years old. Or maybe that is the life-expectancy for the top of the line macbook? And all Tony freaks out about is the $4000 worth of music on it.
Javi now has his own "crew" that works with him. Pretty shoddy work. I'm not sure what to do, since Tony already paid him $400 in advance to do the work. It is cool to see the attic cleaned out and the floors down, although I wish Javi would have glued the subfloor down instead of just screwing it. I'm going to have him just finish the basic work and then hire dad's guy ($20) an hour to frame in the other side of the attic and figure out how to support the floor. Once it's all framed in I'll have the electrical done, then I can either sheetrock it myself or hire Javi for that. Then the upstairs will be done!
So my weekend of relaxation while Tony is in Seattle now consists of borrowing my mom's truck to buy the insulation for Javi to install, going to the genius bar and dragging all the junk that was in the attic out to the street for curbside pickup on Monday. Oh, and BART strike will be fun to deal with!!!
These phone scams regarding the copy machine are really starting to get out of hand! Just received this call:
Me: "Porter Novelli"
Him: "Hi, this is Jim, the service guy for your copier"
Me: "I don't have a service guy for my copier."
Him: "Blow me."
click.
So we've had these two small urns/vases overflowing with about ten year's worth of change plus another bowl or two full in the kitchen. Tony's been hassling me for year's to take it to a coinstar and turn it into money, but it seems like whenever I think of it the coinstar is "out of order." So yesterday, Tony and Javier (yes, he's back, more on that in a minute) took all the change to the Coinstar at Pak 'n Save and netted $387 in cash! Which Tony proceeded to hand over to Javi so he can "get started" on building out our upstairs master suite. See, new neighbors moved into the apartment building next door and they tend to have the tv or music on late at night. I think they are pretty good about keeping the volume down and have no problem sleeping, but Mr. Oreja Sensitiva on the other side of the bed can't sleep and has to move to the living room. So he is convinced that if we move upstairs it will be quieter (despite the fact that the apartment dwellers are on the second floor, and us moving to the second floor actually puts us even closer to them). OK, I give him the fact that we will not have windows on that side of the room on the second floor and that the other windows up there are new, double-paned and quieter, and that we can really heavily insulate and put in some soundproofing. Anyway, Tony has been on me for months about getting the upstairs done, and I just don't have time, so he started talking about having Javi do the work. I told him two things: one, we won't be able to pay Javi until the school year starts and tony is back to full time work and two, I only want Javi doing the cosmetic work, the structural stuff I am going to need to do myself with Dad's guidance (or hire someone with more experience than Javi). So of course, Tony starts calling me at work saying Javi is over and wants to know "what the plan is." I don't really have a plan because there's some structural stuff that needs to be figured out, but I told Tony that Javi could start by removing and filling in the windows on the apartment side of the building. AFTER September, when I have money to pay him. Hence the $387 to Javi yesterday so he can start now. But I have to buy the materials, which I do not have money for right now. Tony seems to think he can just project manage the upstairs himself with Javi doing the labor. I don't have a good feeling about that, especially when I hear that Javi knows an electrician.
I love that someone took the time to put this together.
This is the lamp and the sideboard I mentioned in an earlier post. I think we are getting very close to crossing the line into too chinese-y.
It was two weeks ago monday that I took Tony to the emergency room at 12:30am (below, isn't he cute?) because he was so sick with what he thought was the Hiney (or H1N1 or Swine Flu). Two days later I came down with the same thing he had. Now two weeks later Tony gets a call from the hospital that the results are back and YES INDEED Tony tested positive for the Hiney! Of course there is nothing to worry about now, since we have both been better for more than 10 days and we aren't contagious, but of course old mother hubbard thinks he has a temparature again.
