Images by John 'K'
Life as seen through my lens…
Settling down
Posted by on October 5, 2005
On the home front things are slowly getting back to normal. The bathroom where the problem all began is now fully restored. The carpetting has now been fully replaced and upstairs now just needs a small lick of paint and then it can be put back to normal. Downstairs the wooden flooring still needs to be completed, but that is scheduled to happen tomorrow. As such, we expect the house to be back to normal next week, and at that time we can start unpacking the stuff that’s been left in boxes for the past 2 months and finish settling in.
We have also become a 2-car family again. Even though my wife has yet to take her California driving test (nag nag 
), the commute between Pleasanton and Sunnyvale every day in a 3.8 litre gas-guzzling SUV somehow doesn’t make sense, so at the weekend we got a pre-owned (Honda certified) 2004 Civic coupe at a price less than the blue book recommended. It’s in superb condition, runs really well, and only had 21,500 miles on the clock. This should half my monthly fuel costs for the commute 
.
), the commute between Pleasanton and Sunnyvale every day in a 3.8 litre gas-guzzling SUV somehow doesn’t make sense, so at the weekend we got a pre-owned (Honda certified) 2004 Civic coupe at a price less than the blue book recommended. It’s in superb condition, runs really well, and only had 21,500 miles on the clock. This should half my monthly fuel costs for the commute .Do we even bother fully unpacking?
Posted by on September 19, 2005
Anyone who has been following my occasional postings will be aware that 6 weeks after moving into the house we are currently renting, we still don’t have all of our stuff unpacked and set up as a result of an event with an overflowing toilet.
We’ve renectly had the construction people in as part of the clean-up/repair process, and all the ceilings and walls have been put back and painted (although the paint job is less than perfect), and now we are waiting on the people who do the flooring.
To complicate things, the flooring people can’t get carpet to match the original stuff (which was removed from part of upstairs but 3 of the bedrooms are still fully capteted), and the closest they can get is lighter in colour than the old stuff. The owners of the house have seen this and would prefer to have everything carpeted the same, however the insurance company won’t pay for this. Also, if the whole lot is replaced, it means that the 3 usable (and in use) bedrooms will need to be cleared, re-carpeted, and then re-set-up.
Add to this the fact that the workmen in last week also managed to damage the wood flooring downstairs where it wasn’t planned for there to be any work done, so there’s more work involved with the downstairs flooring, and we’re likely to be in an unfinished state for a while yet.
Even once the flooring is done, theres some final work needed to finish off the house and have it back how it was before the flood (fittings, sockets, lights and the like).
Then…… once all of that is out of the way, we’ve found out that the current owners want to sell the house, and they must sell by the middle of 2007. Because of various factors, it’s unlikely we’d be in a position to afford the property in that timeframe, and so the property agent who is managing the lease is seeing if she can work with the owners to have the house sold to a property investor who could then continue to lease the house. As it stands right now however, this is all up in the air, so we are facing a possible prospect that we may have to move out some time in the next 2 years.
I’ll be happier once I know what’s happening one way or the other. Even if it’s to know that we should start thinking about moving elsewhere by a certain time. The problem right now is that it’s all up in the air and no-one knows what the final outcome will be, and that is the part I’m not confortable with.
If we do have to move, I’d look to stay in the same area if at all possible. We like it here, and my girls seem to be settling in well at school and making new friends, so it’d be a shame to have to uproot them to another area. I also dread the thought of moving everything we have to another yet house. There’s something to be said for living a ‘minimalist’ life.
Just popping back to the workmen for a bit, they also managed to get permanent marker on a 3-seater sofa that we’d only had in the house for about 3 weeks, so that needs replacing. Fortunetely it’s something they’ve taken full responsibility for and they’re doing it without arguement, but it’s something else we’d rather not have had happen.
<SIGH>
After the flood…..
Posted by on August 26, 2005
It’s been almost a week to the hour since the ‘flooding incident’ at the house (see earlier blog entry titled ‘It never rains….’). After 5 days, all of the dehumidifiers and fans are gone and we can hear ourselves think again. The place has been ripped apart and in the area of the flooding, carpet, ceiling, walls, and flooring have been removed and everything has been sanitized. It’s all dried out, and ready for reconstruction work to start.
The construction company called this morning to set up a time to start the next phase of the work, and that will hopefully be happening soon (I deferred the call to my wife as she’s home a lot more than me – hopefully she was OK with that [I’ll find out later]). Once the construction is over there’s the redecorating and the flooring (wood and carpet) all needs sorting out.
There’s also the matter of getting the power checked and certified as safe to be turned back on in the impacted area.
I imagine that we’re looking at another 2 weeks of work at least.
Amazing how much work a simple household accident can cause. 😦
At times I hate being a Libran….
Posted by on August 25, 2005
One of the character traits of a Libran is that they like balance and will tend to try and see fair play for all. Well that typically fits me to a tee, and at times it gets me into trouble.
Take today for example. Without going into too many specifics, my wife said something (tongue in cheek) to one of my daughters that was taken the wrong way. My daughter, as she usually does when something like that happens started stropping around, and my wife started telling her off for it. Now with these two there is a clash of personality, and things started to quickly get out of hand, and as a result I voiced an opinion that I though my wife was getting heavy handed, and that unfortunately led to the first big arguement that we have had since we got here.
Now I don’t know how much of it was just reaction to me voicing that opinion (note that I didn’t think that my daughter shouldn’t have been told off), or how much of it might have been compounded by the fact that she feels she’s been uprooted from everything she loved in England and brought to a strange place (the same might be said for my daughter), or whether the fact that she’s had to leave some stuff behind thyat she wanted to bring, or whether recent events in the house have contributed, but a lot of stuff was brought up at me and all I could really do was bite my tongue and listen, knowing that if I said anything of significance back it’d make things 10 times worse. I know this because I’ve made that mistake before, and the few comments I did make back would have been better left unsaid.
So I’m stuck in a hard place. I know the way my daughter was acting wasn’t right (and I’ve subsequently had quieter words with her about that, and we’ll see what happens there). I also feel that the way my wife reacted was a little excessive (but I understand why she did), but trying to do what I thought was the right thing has made matters worse for all concerned.
Now I know that my wife needs to let off steam occasionally, and if interrupted she is a lot worse than if she’s allowed to just vent her frustrations, but each time we have one of these ‘one way arguements’, I end up bottling a lot of stuff up that I’m sure one day will spill over into a very unhealthy mess, and because I have no way to let off steam, I’m left feeling like everything is stacked against me. I daren’t comment back for fear of making things worse, but not being able to comment back builds a feeling of resentment inside that I hate feeling but have no safe release for.
So to my wife I say sorry for saying what I did and sparking that arguement, and for giving the impression that I’m sticking up for the wrong things that our daughter does because that’s not the case.
To my daughter I say please remember to show respect for others, your posessions, and your surroundings, and if you can do this consistently others will react better towards you. If you can’t treat others the way you would like to be treated, you can’t expect them to treat you the way you would like.
To myself I say keep your mouth shut when your instincts tell you to do so.
Now please lets put this behind us and move forward as a family.
Now if I could just get my PC back up and running and vent some of my frustrations with a few well placed rockets in a nice violent game of multi-player Halo I’d be a much happier person! 🙂
Do people not check their own records?
Posted by on August 24, 2005
Random rant number 6: What’s the point in keeping records if you don’t check them?
Twice recently I ran into issues applying for things where had the companies involved simply checked their own records they would have taken a totally different course of action than was chosen as a result of going through an external agency.
Let me elaborate a bit. Problem number 1) I requested a credit limit increase on a credit card I’ve had since December of last year. Having not long had the account set up (8 months), I expected a possible kick-back here, but the account had been run smoothly, the balance paid in full every month, and it was opened as a result of years of good history with the UK branch of the same organisation. The reasons that came back were "proportion of revolving balances to revolving credit limits is too high" and "too many accounts with balances". Now up until last month I only had 1 form of credit in the US, and it was the card I have with this company, and the balance had been paid in full each month. This month we added a store card which has a balance but only because we haven’t had the first request to pay the balance yet, and we only took this to qualify for a 10% discount from the store! A quick phone call to the card company sorted the confusion out, but had they simply looked at their own records for my account they could potentially saved them and me some time!
Problem number 2 was with my bank. It was for an application for a credit card with them. They rejected the application quoting the following reasons; "unable to verify employment" and "unable to verify income". Well given the bank verified my employment when they let me open my checking and savings accounts with them, and given that my salary is paid every 2 weeks into the checking account I have with them, these reasons came as somewhat of a shock, so I rang them about it. It seems they don’t check their own records when processing credit card applications, and the external agency they used goofed up. Needless to say the situation was sorted as soon as they checked their own data, but again this was one where the process led to an irate call from a customer and wasted time at both ends.
Funnily enough, the same bank also refused to add my wife to my bank account because a process they use got her ID information confused. Again all sorted now, but it all builds a perception that they’re not as good as the say they are. Were it not for some good customer service representatives stepping in things would be in a bad state.
Rant over for a bit….. 😉
Images by John 'K' 