Rants

For The Want Of An Aerator

Because we are selling our house, it needed to be inspected by the buyer. The biggest thing on their “Fix This Stuff” list was a new water heater. I get that, it was listed on our inspection when we bought here 4 years ago. The dried up rusty looking drip coming from the front panel makes it look like it’ll go at any time. So we opted to go ahead and give the new owners some peace of mind.

We had our realtor rustle up a plumber for the job, because they can always get someone on short notice to do home repairs. The only day he could do the work was last Wednesday, but we were going to be out of town and not getting back until Thursday night. Our realtor arranged to let him in to do the job.

We heard nothing at all on Wednesday, or Thursday, so what we had was a Schrodinger’s water heater problem. Had it been changed or not, we wouldn’t know until we got home…

I had helpfully pulled out the washer before we left, so he would have easy access to the water heater and when we looked in the laundry area Thursday evening we knew that we had a new water heater. Our nice plumber had even put the washing machine back. Cool. When Donna tried the kitchen and hall bathroom faucets the flow out of them was pitiful. The shower in that bath was restricted some too. Everywhere else worked just fine. When I called the plumber he agreed to come over on Monday (he doesn’t work Fridays.)

Around 5 on Monday with no word from our wayward plumber I texted him and asked if he was coming over, he replied with bad day, can I come tomorrow? He said he’d be there around 11:00. By noon on Tuesday and still no plumber, so I texted, “Coming?” He replied, “Running late, be there in an hour.

When he arrived he explained because of our galvanized, 60-year old, pipes when the water gets turned off and then back on all the flakes in the pipes make a beeline to the first faucets turned on. He set about cleaning the troublesome lines. The kitchen was improved slightly, but the hall bathroom was kicking his butt. He took the whole faucet out and and did get a bunch of junk out. When he put the faucet back on the sink, it still wasn’t flowing great. He tried to get the aerator off and couldn’t get it unscrewed, but in the trying mangled the aerator screen. Now the water was coming out too hard and splashing everywhere.

He headed over to a local plumbing supply store and bought an off the shelf aerator. It wouldn’t screw into the faucet nozzle. By now it was late in the day and he said he’d be back tomorrow, Wednesday, with a different aerator. He was a no show. So around 11:00 on Thursday with no word, I texted, “Will we see you today?” “About an hour,” was his reply. This time the aerator fit and all was right again, so I wrote the check for the job and he left.

Later that evening, with the bathroom faucet dispensing nicely aerated water, Donna heard a dripping sound from under the sink. Sure enough when you turned on the water fully, from either tap, a small stream of water came out underneath, from the center of the faucet assembly! Crap, so I texted him. Below is the text conversation that followed:

Me: Well, nice try and fortunately the bucket under the sink was in the right place to catch the water. That aerator was creating so much back pressure that it over powered the O-rings that lead to the faucet output nozzle causing it to leak and the water comes out underneath.

Me: I broke the aerator out and the faucet works as advertised with no leak underneath, but it now still needs an aerator. Home Depot has one of the exact faucets in stock for $119 or there is a Phister Ladera in brushed nickel for $69 that would be an acceptable substitute. Go buy one and come over tomorrow to put it in.

Me: Option C s to buy the aerator from Delta online. RP101505 for $6.64 + $15.99 for 1 to 2 day shipping.

Plumber: I can do that but probably not tomorrow and you do realize it’s not my fault, all I did was replace the water heater. Your water lines are old and deteriorating

Plumber: But I would be happy to buy you another one and install it

Me: Don’t worry about it. I’ll buy the $69 one and put it in myself. Maybe next time you change out a water heater in a home that has galvanized pipes you’ll remember to flush the water lines through a hose into the tub or something, so the poor not so wise home owner won’t turn it on and clog their faucets.

Plumber: Noted. I want to buy it for you guys. I don’t like leaving my jobs on bad terms. I will call you tomorrow.

Me: OK

Plumber: Thanks

 
Today is Friday, his tomorrow, and all we got from our friend the plumber was radio silence. So our tomorrow, Saturday, we are headed over to Home Depot to get that $69 faucet and I’ll put in myself…

Fatal Descaling

We had a fairly new Keurig K-Supreme coffee maker.

The first time the descale light illuminated I tried using white vinegar to do the job. It must have done some good, but it didn’t last as long as expected. So this time when the light came on I ordered the 3-Month Maintenance Kit from Amazon. Yesterday I did the descaling.

(Side note, the directions listed on the box on how to do this say to follow the instructions on the bottle, but there are no instructions on the bottle.)

After following the instructions I found on keurig.com I successfully ran the descaling procedure. Only trouble was that the brewer failed to restart afterwards. A search online said that I might have over heated the thermostat and I should wait a couple of hours and try again. After 3 hours the brewer would still not turn.

I then found a YouTube video on how reset it. After spending twenty minutes opening up my relatively new brewer I found the thermostat and no amount poking with a bent paperclip would reset it. I ohmed it out and it read as infinite, so I had no choice but to go out and spend $150 on a newer brewer.

Rest assured that next time the Descale light illuminates I going back to white vinegar. It may not last as long, but at least it won’t fry the thermostat.

I hope…

40 Posts to the End?

I joined Instagram in early 2018 as a way to kind of recreate a photo of the day blog I had back in the very early 2000’s. I wasn’t really thinking of it as a social media thing. So much so that that first post didn’t have a caption of any kind and nary a hashtag. Slowly I started to add captions, descriptions and hash tags, but I still really wasn’t using it as a “social Media” platform. I started following some accounts and started gaining followers, but I was not doing a lot of commenting. I was only liking photos that I actually liked, not just automatically liking something because because the follower was liking everything I posted.

Slowly over time Instagram has added more and more ads and has tried to become more of a video site instead of a photo one. Now every third post in my feed is a photo from some influencer I don’t follow or video of some sort or an ad for something. Bleh. I’m thinking that I’m going just quit the ‘Gram.

From that first Instagram post in February 2018 until yesterday, or 1,990 days, I have posted 1,960 pictures (pretty close to one a day.) The number 2,000 seems like a nice round number for my last IG post. I could do it ten days from today, but then the post count will be 1,9xx, so I’ll wait until I get an even 2,000 posts and then quit.

I’ll still leave my account there though in case someone I’m actually friends with wants to DM me. Also, because Donna uses it to look at a couple of accounts that she’s interested in too. Maybe I’ll create a second account with no posts at all just so I can click on explore and waste some idle time.

Home Depot Customer Service

A week ago I wrote about our washing machine healing itself for the second time and almost buying a new one. This link will take you the long winded story, but to sum up, on a Monday I ordered a washing machine from Homedepot.com and on Wednesday I called to cancel the order. The CSR assured me the order would be cancelled and my money refunded in 7 to 10 business days.

So of course on Thursday morning they hit the charge card for $598. Of that, $50 of this was for them to haul off the old machine. So I called the customer service number, but the wait time was going to be pretty long, so I chose the option of the text chat. Below is an excerpt:

  • CSR: Excellent! Thank you so much for your order number Brian! I do see that since the order is in transit the cancellation is pending however as soon it arrives to the warehouse the cancellation will be processed for you Brian! I do apologize for the delay this is causing you today!
  • Me: So you can guarantee that I won’t have delivery service show up at my door tomorrow with a washing machine?
  • CSR: Absolutely! I checked out delivery team page just to be sure and your delivery is cancelled Brian! I also post a note on the delivery team page to make sure that it is not delivered for you!

Not longer than an hour after my text chat I got a phone message from Temco Logistics, the delivery agent for Home Depot, informing me that I would get a 4 hour window for delivery and a 30 minutes heads up before the truck arrives. There was a phone number to call if I had any questions. I called it and of course got an answering machine. I left a message, “Please do not deliver this item tomorrow as I have cancelled the order.”

Once again, no surprise, at 1:30 Friday afternoon I got a call from an unfamiliar number that I didn’t answer. The driver of the truck delivering my cancelled washing machine left a message that they were 30 minutes away. I called the number right back and predictably it went to the answering machine. When the truck pulled up I greeted them with the bad news and said, “Sorry you had to make the trip for nothing.” The driver replied, “No worries, it happens more often than you think.”

Wednesday two days ago, which by my count was the tenth business day, I checked the charge card to see if the money was credited back and it was, but only the $50 haul away fee. The $548 wasn’t there, so it was back to the Home Depot Customer Service phone lines. The CSR informed me that I was only on day 9 and I should probably call again on Friday (today) if I don’t see the refund.

The money was still not there. I’ve called this number so many times at this point that I knew witch numbers to hit after the robot picks up to get me to the right section. And this time I got a CSR who did some research instead of just reading something off the menu. Turns out that the cancellation never got to the right people the first time. Even though the HD website didn’t say the washing machine was shipped it was in transit from a distribution warehouse to the delivery agent. Now, the reason the money hasn’t been refunded yet is that the washing machine has yet to be returned to the distribution warehouse. So this CSR says that it should be getting there today and then there will be a 5 working day gap until I get the rest of my money. So we’ll see what happens next Friday.

Bye-Bye Miss Apple Pie

Just a week ago I marveled at my free trial of Apple TV+ and how Ted Lasso was my new favorite show. Well, not only is the honeymoon over, but the divorce was just finalized. I cancelled the last six weeks of available streaming today.

The overweight Bedouin seated on the camel’s back was that I ran out of shows or movies I was interested in. I tried out over a dozen series or movies on the service and watched only two things in their totality, Shrinking and Slow Horses.

If they do a second season of Shrinking I won’t miss seeing it, but Slow Horses was a different story because I’m a sucker for British TV. There were two series of the show and I liked the first better than the second, but that was pretty excellent too. They have renewed it for 2 more seasons and when those are produced I might just create a new Apple ID to get another free trial.

But the straw that actually broke the camel’s back was last Wednesday’s episode of Ted Lasso, it was an utter turd. The folks at IMDB who rate the show gave it a 6.5 out of 10. Of the 29 episodes up until last Wednesday, 3 were in the nines, 20 of them were in the 8 range, with a smattering of them in the sevens. There was one episode that was rated 6.8 in season two and it was pretty bad too, but the one before it was a 9.0 and the next two were in the middle eights. If I remember, I’ll look at the next episode’s rating on IMDB.

James Vs His Future Self

As I’ve mentioned here several times before, “I’m a sucker for any time travel related media, books, TV and movies.” So, when I saw this title on Amazon Prime and watched the trailer, I just knew I had to watch it.

First let’s talk about the title, why is versus in the title on Prime Video abbreviated Vs instead of vs. or just vs like in the movie poster? It’s weird.

Great casting with Daniel Stern the the future self, his manic schtick is just right, but… It is lousy casting in that he looks too dissimilar to the present James. He is several inches taller than his current self, but the kicker for me was the pronounced hook on Mr. Stern’s nose was nothing like Jonas Chernick’s smaller and straighter probiscis.

The actors don’t have to look exactly alike, but they could have tried a little harder. I just rewatched Moneyball starring Brad Pitt. There are flashbacks to the younger Billy Beane and the actor who plays the younger version, Reed Thompson, has a very similar facial structure. So if they really wanted Daniel Stern why not find an actor with a bit more of a likeness? The young James is played by Jonas Chernick who co-wrote the movie, so why not get someone with more of a resemblance to him?

Somewhere around the 20 minute mark they even tried to explain the different sizes of the two Jameses. Present James tells future James he doesn’t believe who he is because he is bigger. Future James tells him time travel physically stretches him. Height and just the bridge of the nose? At this point I stepped off the time travel bus.

Inspired By…

…those insipid Verizon commercials that I see while watching the NFL games on Sunday. Which, while bad, are not nearly as annoying as the multitude of Spectrum (wireless, business and whatever Spectrum One is) ads that they stick in practically every commercial break all dang day long.

Times Miata Driven since 10/28/22: 6