KirstenL4W

Remember when I mentioned about the leaky sink and the moldy results? Well, here’s the rest of the story.

So as not to gross anyone out by sticking them in your face, you can go here to see the photos.

Almost a week after the original fix, we got someone out to fix under the cabinets. It took that long because I called the office and wouldn’t let them in without anyone being home, so I had to make an appointment so I could let boyfriend know. So, they came out, slapped down some peel and stick vinyl floor tile, caulked it and called it good. Well, all was not good. They totally ignored the little cabinet to the left of the sink, which was also damaged. The huge gap under the dividing wall between the cabinets should have been a clue, since the floor was severely warped and the two cabinets share a floor. But, no, it was not fixed. So on Monday I called the office again, and told them that I was not happy with the fix and that part of the damage was completely ignored. I was told that the maintenance supervisor was just back from vacation and he would head over to look at the damage. He did, and Boyfriend told him to come back the next day since Boyfriend works from home most of the time.

The next day, they come back to try and fix this and immediately start in with the peel and stick vinyl floor tiles. Boyfriend stops him and tells him that there’s mold. Boyfriend was told that the white stuff was hard water stains and that mold is black, but maintenance humored Boyfriend and poured some bleach on it before covering it up with the vinyl tiles.

Now, I’m not an expert or anything, but if you look at the photos you will see that there are plenty of black bits on that cabinet floor. And I know enough about hard water to know that the buildup of limescale is not furry!!!!! Anyone who has seen a rotten piece of fruit, however, knows that mold can be furry.

Since the apartment has considered this problem to be fixed, I have taken pictures and documented our experience in the event that I ever need to prove that we did everything that, as tenants, we are legally obligated to do. But seriously, this just sucks that such a “nice” apartment complex would be that lackadaisical about mold.

I’m willing to bet that some unnamed neighbors will soon be having similar maintenance issues. Our water was off for a good part of the day, so I encouraged Boyfriend (who works from home most of the time) to call. Technically, they’re supposed to notify us in the event of an outage of essential services, and since the water was off for a short time yesterday also, we figured they knew it would be off again today. Anyway, it turns out that a neighbor in our building had a leak - a major leak - that required maintenance to shut the water off to fix. They couldn’t fix it yesterday, so they tried again today. It comes as no surprise to us that maintenance had a hard time with the leak. If this leak is a major as the office made it out to be in their attempt to elicit sympathy for the need to shut the water off, and it had been occurring for more than a few hours when it was discovered, and if maintenance fixes up the damage resulting from the leak with the same expertise they did our cabinet, then it looks like we’re not the only ones with problems. We should find out who the neighbor is and get friendly with them, because should this spread, we could very well have a case for at the very least getting out of our lease without penalty.

Hey all, just a quick update - My mommy finally got a blog!!! I encourage all of you to visit and say hi. Here’s her (edited for privacy) email that I got announcing it. Go here to visit her. (I’m emailing this, so if the link doesn’t work, go to www.bubba9399.blogspot.com - she was so excited she put .blog instead of .com in her email).

Mommy wrote:
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 17:54:50 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mommy
Subject: Blog me
To: Kirsten

Maybe you can tell me how to improve my “looks” on the blog.
(Whenever you have time)
Love,
Mommy

I received a comment to my previous post that was obviously nothing but spam. I have comment moderation enabled so that I do not subject all my faithful readers to the spam that I receive (it’s not much, really). Once in awhile I have been known to post spam because at that moment in time I have a witty comment available.

For those who are wondering, here’s the entire text of the email I received notifying me of the comment:

knicksgrl0917 has left a new comment on your post “Focus on Repairs”:
hey! i’m going to cali this weekend and won’t be back until september…here is the website i was talking about where i made extra summer cash. Later! the website is here
Publish this comment.
Reject this comment.
Moderate comments for this blog.
Posted by knicksgrl0917 to All About Me - And Then Some at 7/28/2007 5:06 PM

The part that says the website is here had a link to the website, which was a “Get Paid to Take Surveys” site. Now, here’s how to be a spammer, for those who are interested.

1. Comment people you don’t know referencing conversations you’ve never had.
2. Leave links to websites that supposedly allow people to make money. Doing this without full disclosure is even better.
3. Leave your profile private. That was the case here. Now I can’t visit your blog to see exactly how legitimate you are, nor can I flag you blog to the authorities. Smart move on your part.
4. Tell me up front that you want a link to your own spam blog. Entice me even further by telling me you’ve linked to me.
5. Write your comment in a foreign language and include lots of links. I don’t know whether you’re legit or not, but I’ll click your links for the fun of it.

This list is in no way complete, but it does outline some of the tactics I’ve seen that I can remember at this moment in time. What other suggestions do you have to become a blog spammer?

Remember back last fall when I got a new car? A lovely 2005 Ford Focus that looks like this:

Well, it’s still under warranty, since it’s only 2 years old and 29,500 miles. It still looks great. But go? Does it? Not so much.

About 2 weeks ago I brought it in for some warranty service. The air conditioner wasn’t cooling properly (which, when its 115°F outside, air conditioning is no longer a luxury, it’s a necessity), and the radio was doing weird things when it played CDs. I also found out after Boyfriend brought it in that it had a transmission issue, which Boyfriend noticed but didn’t tell me. So, a week later I get the car back. The radio has been replaced, the transmission was completely rebuilt because it was so on its last legs, and the air conditioner was not fixed because of “previous work and aftermarket parts.” Well, a conversation with my dad told me that the fan was not cooling the condenser, and Boyfriend should be able to fix it easily.

So now, the transmission is still really not right, in fact it acts quite a bit worse than before I brought it in. And, when I was driving to work the other day, the battery light came on for a few seconds. I drove it just fine all week, got home from work Friday afternoon, parked the car and hung out with Boyfriend for a bit before heading out. Get in the car to go out, turn the key, and nothing. No response except the dash lights.

A quick side note about batteries and desert climates: Because living in the extreme heat of the desert and doing mostly city driving, all cars here are considered to be in an extremely harsh driving environment. It is well known here that even with a 5-year battery, the average life expectancy is only about 2 years. I was lucky to get 3 years out of the battery on my Kia.

If it is in fact the battery, it should be a quick fix and had better be covered under warranty. I don’t leave shit on in the car, but the fact that the dash lights came on tells me that the battery still has a bit of a charge. Research on the battery light indicator tells me that it could possibly be the alternator. I don’t know, but I do have a feeling I’ll be getting to know Bill down at Ford Country quite well.

Because of all this, Boyfriend and I have started discussing other transportation options for me. He has a vehicle that he drives for work, which they’re pretty strict on. He also has his own, older but in tip-top shape huge beast of a truck that I hate driving because I like little cars. (No big car is better commentary please). His truck also sucks on gas, as most trucks do. So, the options are:

1. Get to know Bill at Ford Country very well and invite the wife and kids out for dinner in hopes that I’ll get top priority service.
2. Purchase the extended warranty. Dad can get it for me at cost, which will save several hundred dollars over buying it here from Bill at Ford Country.
3. Trade the damn thing in for something with a very well know reputation for reliability, like a Toyota.

Personally, I’m sick of this car thing. If it had a 100,000 miles more on it, then I could understand having so many issues with it. But this is still under factory warranty. It’s still just a baby. And because it’s so new, I have a hard time with #3. I do have a car payment on this car, but because Dad worked his magic I have a very low car payment, and I’m nowhere near upside down, so money-wise, it doesn’t make sense to get a new car. Which leads to #2. This is what we will most likely end up doing. The $700 for the warranty will probably pay for itself in the first month (if I had to pay for that transmission repair, it would have been roughly $2,100 according to the paperwork I got back). I still have a year or 6,000 more miles to purchase that, but it’s looking like the best choice.

Here in the desert, the season when it supposed to be most likely to rain is known as monsoon season. Now, those of you reading from parts of the world where monsoon means that it doesn’t stop raining for months at a time, I understand you may be laughing at me. But in the desert, a quarter-inch or mere centimetre of rain is serious business. The desert ground is not unlike concrete, in that it is not absorbent. The water from the rains just runs off into the lower lying areas. For those not familiar with the topography of Las Vegas, we are in a valley. For this reason you will frequently hear the metro area referred to as “The Las Vegas Valley“. Water tends to follow gravity downwards. What am I getting at? Well, I’m not drowning. But I am sitting here, staying up a bit later than I ought to be, enjoying the smell of the rain, the flash of lightening, and sound of thunder as I blog, listen to Boyfriend play some silly computer game while sorta watching tv. Yeah, I know, all the electronics during an electrical storm. Whatever. Read the paper to see if I fried.

It was nice to get some time to relax this evening. I took a short nap since I was soooo exhausted today, then made some dinner and sat down with the laptop so I could be online while still being able to spend time with Boyfriend. He’s not been feeling well lately, which we suspect is due to the mold. (No comment on that situation at this point.) Anyhoo, when we’re both on the computer we don’t usually get to be together because of the setup here at home. We have a 1 bedroom apartment, and his computer is in the living room. Because there’s no room left out here, when I moved in my desk went in the bedroom. It sucks, but it will have to do for now until we get a house. But thank goodness he has a laptop, so I can spend time with him while computing. I’m currently set up on the sofa so that I can easily look over the screen here and see the left half of his wonderful face staring intently at his screen as he tries to survive his silly little game.

Anyhoo, the storm seems to be over for now, the clock is getting later and later, and I really need to get some rest.

Google Reader it is. Thanks for the advice, everyone. I already have the Google toolbar, so this makes it easy, and all the blogs I love to read are there. It’s made my blog reading so much quicker now that I don’t have to go to my own blog and click on all the links in my blogroll. There are only 3 blogs (indicated in my blogroll by a *) that don’t have feeds (Mist1, I’m talking to you!) so I still need to remember to come here and actually read them the old-fashioned way.

I’m still contemplating a complete move over to Google, including my main email address. That will take a bit more time to think over, because I’ve had my current email for about 8 years now, so old habits die hard. Like I said, still looking into that.

Last night Boyfriend and a bunch of our friends went to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I’ve seen the movie, but never seen it live, so it was quite the experience. It wasn’t at all what I expected, either. The crowd was way rowdier than I thought they’d be, and since the venue doesn’t allow the audience to bring in props, they sell their own weenie-bag of props for $1. The bag included a piece of newspaper, a few sheets of toilet paper, 3 playing cards, a party hat and noisemaker. No toast, no rice, no squirtguns, none of the good stuff.

The rest of this week has been fairly uneventful. The remodel continues in my department at work, though my cube is done and I have settled in. The heat continues to wear me down, even though I don’t spend much time in it. Twice this week I’ve come home from work and taken very long naps. That totally screws up my routine, so I can’t do that anymore. Ah, and yes, I’m sure you want an update on the whole leaky sink issue. The sink is fixed and doesn’t leak, even though the ill-fitting drain assembly looks like shit. The cabinet, on the other hand - well, the cabinet directly under the sink was “fixed” by maintenance laying down a new layer of thin parquet to cover up the damage. It’s still warped, and the mold is still there, just covered up. Absolutely no attention was taken with the cabinet directly next to the sink that was also affected, so this is still unusable. We’re gonna go talk to them to see what they want to do about this. Should I mention that we’ve both been feeling a bit stuffy and congested the past few days?

So that’s about that for now. Today we’ll try to see the new Harry Potter movie with some friends. I’m not that huge a Potter fan, I’ve never read a single one of the books, but I’ve seen the movies thus far, thanks to my wonderful Boyfriend. So that’s the goal for today: Harry Potter, don’t forget to eat due to our lazy asses around the house this afternoon or our busy schedules later, and try to get to bed at a halfway decent hour so we don’t start the week in a major sleep deprived state.

First of all, I’d like to say thanks for all your suggestions on feed readers. I’ve decided to try out Google Reader, since it seems that I am slowly but surely moving everything to Google. I got myself a Gmail address (still using as a backup at this point) and I use Google Docs on a regular basis for things that I need to share or need to access on multiple computers. Anyway, a few of the blogs I want to put on Reader don’t have feeds, so they are starred* in my blogroll only as a note to me to check them from time to time.

Now, for the news. Yesterday I cam home for work and decided to do some chores before Boyfriend came home from work. (Usually he works from home, but goes into the office once in awhile. Yesterday was one of those days.) I got right to work doing dishes, which has been frustrating because our brand new cheap ass apartment issue dishwasher seems to actually dirty the dishes rather than clean them. So wash by hand it was. But, the sink doesn’t want to hold water - if I fill it up it still drains out. So I wash dishes by running the water, which Boyfriend hates because of the waste.

I finished washing the dishes and put them in the large drying rack (formerly known as the dishwasher). Then I decided to go under the sink to get a cleaner to clean a few things. I noticed that the can of Scrubbing Bubbles was wet. Weird. Then it dawned on me - the Mystery of the Draining Sink was solved. It was 4:45 at this point, and the office closed at 5, so I called up and requested that a maintenance person come over right away. Ten minutes later, my doorbell rang and Danny was there to fix it all. One problem - I knew more about this stuff than Danny apparently did. He didn’t have the proper tools, then he thought he fixed it when in fact he was looking at the wrong part of the drain. So, he goes to get a new drain assembly and starts to install it, with the packaging included. I pulled out the cardboard pieces and gave it back to him to install. I also slipped into the other room to call Boyfriend to tell him that I needed him home NOW because this guy wasn’t too brilliant. Boyfriend tells me later that Danny is the HEAD of maintenance. Great. Anyway, the drain is fixed, though the gasket is too large and the drain sticks up out of the sink. Now we just have to get someone else over to replace the floor of our kitchen cabinet and the cabinet next to it, because those rotted out.

Today is a lazy day, which is about to end. Boyfriend and other friends who are seemingly allergic to daytime have just made plans to meet up for dinner and to watch one of our friends play in his band. But I had a productive day, at least for a lazy day. I caught up on sleep, organized some paperwork, found a bit of space on my desk in the process, and went through some more music on iTunes so that I could get rid of songs I really don’t care for. I got them on there when I uploaded entire CDs from my collection, so I’m in the process of going through the approximately 2500 songs I have to get rid of the ones I really don’t like. And the CD burning is put on hold a bit until I get myself an external hard drive, because my 80Gb drive that I thought would be way more than enough space apparently isn’t. Of course, I wasn’t using iTunes at the time. Quick question for the pod people out there: if I simply move my music files, will I have a problem with those that are copy-protected? I know I can’t copy them or burn more than 7 copies of them, but will I have a problem with simple relocation?

That’s about it for now. I still have more blogs to add to Google Reader, but that will have to wait for now, since I need to get ready to go out with the gang.

Is there some sort of feed website where I can subscribe to all my favorite blogs and have all new posts on said blogs delivered to my email? I’d like to do this from one single source rather than a rag-tag collection of feeds, and I’d really like them delivered to the email address of my choosing, rather than having to visit yet another website (if I can do that, then I’d just read all the blogs). I’m trying to streamline things here so that I can easily keep up with everyone.

On a side note, does anyone know how I can smack the idiot know-nothings who don’t know what the hell song they’re sharing on L!meW1re? I get so annoyed when I see a song by an artist, thinking that particular artist covered a song I already like, only to find out that it’s not a cover, it’s the original version, and some idiot put the wrong artist to the song. Then again, I suppose the people who use L!mew1re are the same idiots who pimp out their MySpace pages so that they are rendered unreadable by the general population.

And you’d better believe it. I now have a job I love, but they are pretty strict about internet use at work. Even if I could have liberal use of the internet, I don’t have time for that, which is good. I wanted a job that kept me busy, and I have it. I really have no complaints there.

At home, as you all know, I no longer live alone. I like to spend time with Boyfriend. Dinner is actually a real cooked meal, usually cooked by me, rather than the “quick nuke it in between IM posts” stuff that I used to eat. Sometimes we go out with friends in the evening. Weekends usually see us really busy, with lots of activities planned or us going out of town. We went to Denver a few weeks back and will probably be going back again in a couple of weeks. This weekend there are friends coming to visit, and my understanding is that they have so many things they want to do on the 2 days they are here that we will barely get a chance to shit (there, that ought to affect my G rating!). I’m not complaining, it will be fun right up until I walk my zombie ass into work at 7am Monday morning.

I know you are all used to me posting often, at least 3-4 times a week. Now I’m down to about once a week. Basically, I don’t sit at work and blog anymore. I don’t come home and go right to the computer anymore. I have a Boyfriend and a wonderful life, and because of that, blogging is no longer the love of my life. Sure, I still do really enjoy blogging, so I’ll still be around. I’ll try to keep to at least once a week. The part that’s a bit more difficult to take is that I don’t have much time anymore to read everyone else’s blogs. I try my best to keep up, and don’t comment as much as I used to, but I do make every effort when I am online to read what you all are writing and doing. So I’m still here. I just have a life outside of the blogosphere now.