NotTheRock Musings

On Friday I shared the fact that our upstairs A/C unit had decided to call it quits randomly that morning. Well, being in a new house, we have a lot of things covered for a fairly good period of time. As it was, it was the first day of summer and I found it an interesting coincidence that the A/C failed on that day. I also was concerned, given that it hasn't even gotten to the normal summer heat levels we have been told to expect here in H-town.

I called to let my contact with the builder know about the problem at about 11 AM. He promised to get an A/C specialist out to our house. And that did happen, after several more phone conversations and the upstairs rising to 91 degrees. At 5:30, a nice guy showed up and inspected everything, from the breaker box to the outside unit to the unit in the attic. He concluded that we had a weak breaker since he tested the A/C unit and it all was working fine. He said if it happened again to call the emergency number and they'd send out an electrician. Fine.

We went away Saturday night and got home Sunday evening. It was 93 degrees upstairs. And that's not where I set the thermostat, just so we're clear.

I called again yesterday morning and was less pleasant this time, since now we would not be home. I asked my neighbor to look after things and let anyone in who needed to be in. My builder contact told me he'd send out an electrician. And he did. At 3 PM. And my neighbor reported that they inspected things and didn't really fix anything, determining it was "probably the A/C unit," and simply turning the breaker switch back on.

Hey, thanks, guys! Show me how to do that... because I couldn't possibly turn on a f-cking breaker switch! Idiots.

So to recap: the A/C guy says it's the electrical. The electrician says it's the A/C unit. And the "solution" both times has been to reset the breaker. In a six-month-old house.

I can see this is going to be fun. If this happens again -- which it will, there's no doubt -- I will let me contact at the builder know that he's going to get a phone call each and every day this entire summer until this problem is fixed. And fixed does not mean, cross your fingers and hope it doesn't happen again.

People piss me off.

Labels: A/C, hot, stupidity

Some people loved him -- others hated him. I happened to think George Carlin was a brilliant comedian. Sure, sometimes his stuff felt a little tired or overused. But when you consider he was a top-draw comedian for over 35 years, it's pretty impressive.

I often wondered how long he'd last, what with all the drug use, constant smoking, obvious drinking, etc. George never really looked healthy. In fact, if you look back at his 70s performances, he looked old then. And so it was that old cranky George Carlin died yesterday at the age of 71.

Some of my favorite jokes and one-liners came from George Carlin routines... here's a sampling, many of which old friend Xtrosity and I still use all the time...

On air travel:

"Here's one they just made up: 'near miss.' Two planes narrowly avoid hitting one another... they call it a 'near miss.' It's a near HIT! A collision is a 'near miss.'"

"'Please check around your immediate seating area for any personal belongings you might have brought on board.' Well.... I might have brought my arrowhead collection. I didn't.... so I'm not going to look for it!! I'm going to look for things I did bring on board! Would seem to enhance the likelihood of me finding something, wouldn't you say?"

"'...for any personal belongings...' What other belongings are there... besides personal? Public belongings? Do these people honestly believe I might be traveling with a fountain I stole from the park?"

"'The captain has turned on the no smoking sign.' Well, who gives a shit who turned it on? It's on, isn't it?"

On needless words:

"Too much use of this prefix, 'pre.' Place the turkey in a preheated oven. That's ridiculous. An oven can exist in two states only -- heated or UNheated. Preheated is a meaningless fucking term."

On little things that make us all the same:

"Do you ever look at your watch, and you don't know what time it is? So you look again, and you still don't know... so you look a third time, and somebody says, 'what time is it?' and you say, 'I don't know!'"

Anyway, I thought I'd post a clip on, naturally, death. There are tons of YouTube clips floating around out there by George and this one mocks the idea of heaven but it's still pretty funny unless you're too sensitive. Which was really the way all of Carlin's routines were. Funny, unless you were too sensitive.

Labels: George Carlin

You win, house. I'll move from the office we have set up on the second floor down to the kitchen table on the first floor, as I sit here working from home on this typically warm June Friday.

And why will I move downstairs? Because the upstairs zone of the A/C has decided to quit working. It's now 87 degrees upstairs. And I don't care how many fans you turn on, nothing's going to make that feel like anything but an attic.

The good thing is that your A/C breaking down in Houston is considered an "emergency" and you can call your home builder's emergency number if they don't answer the regular one. It hasn't come to that yet, but I'm a bit sticky right now.

Labels: conceding defeat to my house yet again

Well, it's time again for me to upgrade the old cell phone. I know we all have those "can you believe it?" conversations about technology and our increasing reliance on it, but hey, I've always liked cool little gizmos. Granted, I rarely can operate cool little gizmos, but cell phones for some reason have always been something I'm pretty good at.

I'm currently carrying around the Motorola Razr V3, which I've actually really enjoyed having. Battery life isn't very good but I don't think any phones are anymore since they're all getting slimmer and slimmer, thus reducing battery size and, apparently, capacity. My Razr locks up like a bad Windows application from time to time, but overall I like it because of how slim and light it is. I can slip it into any pocket -- even my really tight Jordache jeans that show off my ass -- and it's never in the way the way my Blackberry often is.

So I was looking for something to mimic that convenience while being a little bit newer technology. And since I'm up for my bi-annual $100 credit, it was the time. So I perused the selection and I decided on the Samsung Alias SCH u740. Not sure why it needs all those qualifiers in the name but it does. It's actually slightly less "tall" and a bit narrower than the Razr, which I find amazing. It's fractionally deeper, but only like by a couple tenths of an inch. And it has a neat-o feature where it's a clamshell phone but also has the full "qwerty" keyboard.

Here is is:

Labels: ATT blows, cell phones piss me off, Verizon blows

Okay, so Italy was amazing. We only visited Venice on this trip since we only had a fews days and decided the "big" Italy trip will have to wait for an anniversary or when the kids are grown.... and can send us on it. Or something.

Going back, we spent a few days in Paris, where I had a work obligation for a couple of days, which meant that Watersyne was on her own for the most part. She did pretty well, actually, and ventured around Paris more than I think she would in most other cities -- even American ones.

After my client obligations ended, we hopped a plane from Paris to Venice, which was about an hour and twenty-five minutes. It's one of the few times in my life I've flown from one country to another with neither being the United States. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

After landing in Venice, we had a car service from the airport to the hotel, which was provided gratis by the hotel, all thanks to Watersyne's hotel points. Which, as mentioned a few posts back, also got us four free nights at the hotel -- in a suite, no less. We're really not the high-rollers we appear to be. Honest. We shop at Target, for pete's sake.

The hotel was not an quaint little Venetian place, but actually a global chain. But so what? We were there.

We actually had a 25 minute train ride to get into Venice, which was interesting by itself since waiting on the train and riding it, etc., was very reminiscient of Metro North or NJ Transit back in the NYC area.

We rode into Venice each of the three days we were there, and on the first day, we rode in, saw a some of the city as we cruised in, and then exited the train station... which opens up right out into Venice and the Grand Canal. It's kind of breathtaking. And my darling Italian Princess was almost in tears at seeing the motherland for the first time.

We then spent those three days walking around Venice. It's probably the most unique city I've ever visited in my life. Sure, Paris is cool and New York is amazing, etc. But there's nothing even remotely similar to Venice. It's all water, just like you've heard. There are absolutely zero cars -- because there are zero streets. The "streets" are actually just walkways and alleys, etc. The main arteries of transportation are more canals. Water, water, everywhere. Side streets are just side canals. You walk the city and are constantly walking over little footbridges over small canals. When you need to cross the Grand Canal, you have to walk to one of the three major bridges over it, or else you need to take a boat.

The traditional and cool way to cross is on a Traghetto, which is an old-fashioned gondola, rowed by two gondoliers. There are maybe a half-dozen Traghettos along the canal and it's just 50 cents (Euros) to hop on and be rowed across. Usually about 5-10 people hop aboard and ride over, with natives standing on the short ride. We sat.

Another water-traveling method we used was the Vaporetto, or "water bus." And it's just what it sounds like. All along the Grand Canal are Vaporetto stops, and there are tons of different "lines" -- the 1, 2, 51, 52, 3, etc. Different lines went in different directions and made different stops, just like real buses or subways. And you're riding on a large boat with standing room as well as seats. They kind of remind me of a ferry in New York. Those passes can be bought in daily, two-day, three-day and seasonal varieties. And it's rare that someone checks to make sure you're legit to get on the Vaporetto. It's largely on your honor. We never cheated, but we easily could have.

And what a way to see the Canal. You can ride it from top to bottom (of the Canal) and then out to Lido, a long, narrow island where Venetians go for R&R. We went there, too, and walked on the beach and in the water. Watersyne collected some awesome seashells that we can display in our house. Until the animals living in the shells crawl out and go, "Wait, what the hell? Where are we?"

We ate well, no doubt. But I have to say honestly that I've had better pizza in New York. Maybe I'm picky because of where I grew up... maybe if I'd grown up in the midwest or here in Texas I would have been blown away by the pizza. But I wasn't. It was good, but not mind-blowing. Same with the pasta -- very good, but nothing I would say I've never had anything better than. My theory is that Venice might not be the best place in Italy for Italian food -- it might make sense to reserve judgement until we get to Rome, Florence, Sicily, Capri and the Tuscany Coast someday.

The gelati was great, too, by the way, and very plentiful. Seemed we were always walking by an ice cream place. Not a bad thing. Especially for a fat guy like me.

Speaking of that, the exercise was awesome... tons of walking, to the point where we were truly exhausted each night.

All in all, an awesome place to have seen.... incredibly touristy, but still amazing and it's great that we were there.

Click for mucho size. (Thinking of having that tattooed on my penis.)

Labels: Italy, Venice