Month: June 2002

The “computer” room in the house is right off our bedroom and because it also adjoins the garage, always seems warmer than the other rooms in the house. We thought maybe we would go get a wall thermometer and put in there just to see. Started at Lowes as we had to go there for something else anyway. No dice. Could buy an electronic thermostat for $25 that would do it, but nothing else in the store. Next stop, Kmart. Up and down all the aisles in the whole store (excluding clothing) and nothing. Asked an employee, who called somebody and then asked somebody and they only had outdoor ones. Tried Dollar General, nothing. Drove to another strip shopping center where we tried an Eckerd Drug store and they only had human thermometers. Next door to Eckerds was a Staples. They probably have them, lots of people have them on their desks or in their cubicles so they can complain about their co-workers wanting the temperature 2 degrees warmer or cooler than they want it. But they closed at 8:00.

Got our Target card in the mail today. When we went out last week to replace some of the lightning damaged electronics we went shopping at Target. While checking out with our TV, VCR and DVD player the cashier asked if we wanted to take 10% off our purchases, all we had to do was fill out an application for a Target Charge Card. What the heck, I’ll use it this once pay off the total when the bill comes and never use it again. Well I thought it was a charge card for use in Target stores, nope, it is a regular Visa card with pretty targets all over it. Don’t need another Visa card. That is OK, the plan is still in place, never use it again. Tomorrow the card goes to work and takes a trip through the industrial powered shredder to be reduced to confetti.

Spent last night at the Holiday Inn Express right around the corner because of the insecticide spraying to kill fleas. We normally don’t watch much TV on a Friday night, but we figured, Woohoo! HBO!” Big disappointment, “Young Guns” was the Friday night movie at 8. Channel surfed for a while, read some, showered and went to bed early, around 10. The alarm jangled us awake at 5:15 AM. We of course had never set the alarm, the chuckleheads who spent the night before had and either accidentally or on purpose set it to go off the next night. We rolled over and went back to sleep. Woke again, on our own, a 7:30. Seeing as we went to bed early enough we got up and headed down to the lobby for our “free” continental breakfast. After eating we went back to the room, packed our stuff and walked the mile to home leaving Donna’s mom to take her time and enjoy the breakfast. We got home and the clock read 8:15! When we left the motel, the clock in the room read 9:00. So, not only had they set an early alarm, but had turned the clock back an hour to make it even earlier. I am sure there are a few possible innocent explanations for the clock SNAFU, but having been a smart ass when I was younger, I doubt it.

Missed a couple of evenings posting, so let’s catch up. When we last saw our hero he was hoping for a good night’s sleep,,,
Thursday
We have a programmable thermostat to regulate the house temp and for the last couple of days the central A/C has kicked on fine, but had to be manually shut off in the morning. A minor inconvenience and it has happened a few times before and always self corrected. Tonight was the Miata Club meeting in Augusta and when we got home we realized we hadn’t flipped the thermostat back to on, it was 78 in the house (for the record we are shameless energy wasters, we like it set to 75 during the day and 70 at night.) Turned the switch to cool and WTF, nothing. I checked the thermostat and noticed it wasn’t on the right day nor was it showing the correct program number. After some furious button pushing it still didn’t work. A trip to Wally World was in order as it was after 10:00 PM and nothing else was open. $40 for a new programmable thermostat and some flea killer. Went home and in 20 minutes had the new thermostat installed, but the A/C still wouldn’t come on. It was a hot and restless night. The old thermostat was bad though, you could smell that tell-tale fried electronic order as soon as I opened the cover to take out the screws (add another receipt to the insurance company pile….
Friday
The first heating contractor I called couldn’t promise that they could make it that today. I said please try and hung up. Imagining spending my weekend in a motel, I tried another. They said they could make it that morning, praise be. It cost $148 but man the cool is worth it. The repair guy said it was my start-up capacitor. I asked could that have been caused by lightning, he said no. Dang. I bet it could have been caused by a faulty thermostat constantly sending signals to turn the unit on, but forgot to ask that question. Last night we had bought some flea killer. It is not for a pet, as we don’t have any, but the pesky little buggers were getting into the bathrooms some how and making Donna’s life miserable (they go for her and leave me alone.) Tonight they were back with a vengeance, even after last nights spraying. When she went onto our screen porch on the back of the house there were 12 of them on her socks before she could take the 3rd step. Back to the yellow pages. The third place she called said the could come out tonight, but it would be an hour or so. We ate dinner and packed an overnight bag. You are told to stay out of the house for at least 2 hours, but there was no way we were spending the night at home (others have said 4 hours, but Donna is sensitive to chemical smells, so…) In the morning I was worried about spending the weekend in a motel, didn’t happen, but I did end up in a motel room for one night for a completely different reason.

Yesterday afternoon my BP spiked up a bit – 146/92 – which I guess psyched me in to mentally raising more or something, because I didn’t sleep too well last night. Nurse took the BP this AM at work and it was 142/94. Called the doctor’s office and they said I could get in to see the PA at 11:15. Off I went, with intentions of going home and crashing in the afternoon. When the PA took my pressure it was 150/90. She gave me some samples of the Micardis HCT, same as before, but this has a diuretic included in the multiple warhead pill, supposed to knock the pressure down more. Felt marginally better afterwards so I went back to work, which means I am running out steam as I write this, gonna sleep good tonight.