Psychotomy

saturday I consulted for my old company to help the new guy figure out what madness I had been doing.  took ~3hrs, give or take a bit.  and it was almost all stuff he could have gotten if he’d looked hard enough and spent the time (except the database root passwords I’d forgotten to write down).  actually, a good deal of I’d documented before and no one had given a damn so the docs had kinda slipped by the wayside.

got an email yesterday from said company, unrelated.  we had won the people’s voice webby and my ‘boss’ had ordered copies of the award statues for everyone on the team.  first he asked, and like ZERO people were interested in paying for an ugly assed statue.  then apparently he went and ordered them all anyway and used project funds.  for an award no one cared about having.  they came in after i left, but they’re engraved so it’s personalized.  now they want me to come in to get it, or give them my address (hello?  you should be sending me my W-2′s!  try that address, yadig?) and they want my phone # “because we’ll probably have to send it UPS or something” … b/c, you know, UPS usually calls before dropping things off.  wtf?

worse, I don’t even WANT the damned thing.  I told them that before, but they’d already been ordered.  that’s how I found out they were engraved, b/c I tried to donate mine to the company to display in their awards case.  so now I have to give them more contact info (i’m good with you emailing me, thanks; I’m much better at saying “no, go away!” in email than in person/on the phone) or I have to go in and pick it up.  then I have to figure out how I want to dispose of it, b/c I [b]don’t want it[/b]  It’s a foot tall crappy looking spring-like thing made of aluminium or something.  but with a heavy base.  so it’s ugly, heavy, and useless.  also known as “clutter” which we’re trying to get rid of.  oi.

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monday they came and finished the tilework for the bathrooms, including regrouting the shower.  apparently the shop had INSISTED that the sanded grout would be fine for the shower and wouldn’t give them the non-sanded grout.  that you’re supposed to use for showers b/c otherwise it doesn’t hold properly.  shockingly, the sanded didn’t hold properly and sunday it was dripping all over the tub :o

so they redid the shower, put in the edging for the bathroom walls and left.  the wood hadn’t come in yet :o

tuesday they were back and put in the quarterround on the vanities in the bathrooms.  and they brought wood, so they finished up the living room floor, yay!  then they waited in their truck for an hour till I got home so I could write them the check for the remainder of the fee (ouch).  apparently the wood didn’t realyl come in, either, they’d had to go somewhere else and just buy it.  eeeesh.

but everything looks so nice now!  the living room looks huge, I don’t know if that’s the wood floor vs the old carpet making it feel larger, or just b/c everything’s still boxed up so it’s markedly uncluttered.  I’m hoping that when I put it back together I can keep the unclutteriness.  Spent the evening putting the computers and electronics back. now we have to start bringing everything ELSE back too *sigh*

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well, thursday my folks were here for the house again. they tiled the three bathroom floors (basement was left un touched so a toilet worked). there was a bit of a scare when my dad said the tiles were brown and i’m thinking mud/chocolate (the floor is sand, the walls are a somewhat darker color in green i’d guess; he was looking at the wall tiles, and i’m color blind, so meh)

that was thursday. my mom left a note about the grout color so kiir and i picked one.

friday morning, 9:15 or so, they came by to find out which grout color i picked so they could buy it. great. 10:30 or so they come back. the shop doesn’t have the “border tiles” for the shower (the ones that edge off rather than just end, to give it a rounded look). they’re on the truck, but not unloaded yet. great. wtf did you drive 45 minutes this direction to tell me you were going back? W T F?

they go back … about 1:30 or so they call me (yay for phones) and tell me the truck is supposed to be en route, and if it arrives in the next 30 or so they’ll come. otherwise saturday morning.

meanwhile, saturday morning they come and do the edge tiles and grout the three rooms, tile the basement bathroom and put in three toilets. yay!

the shop doesn’t have the wood, yet, so they’ll be back monday to finish that. assuming the shop gets the wood. isn’t this why you order shit in advance? *sigh* i hope they finish monday, or i have to extend K even more!!! :(

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but you can’t blame us!

took my shower at the gym this morning, they arrived ~10 (they told my dad last night 9-9:30, so i ended up more than a little late to my 9:15 appt; resched’d to 10:45) they did some in the living room until about lunch when they had to go to the store/warehouse.

turns out the warehouse ordered the wrong quantity of the wood (christ!) so, uh, they stopped working on that for today. it’s supposed to have come in this evening, or tomorrow morning latest. yeah, uhhuh. then they went to work on the bathrooms. one of the toilet cutoff valve handles wouldn’t turn, so they took it off and asked me to get a new one so they could turn off the water properly. they put in the backing for the tile into three of the bathrooms, there was much hammering. and i had the headache to go with it, JEEEEESH PEOPLE!!! they also scraped and patched part of the shower …

see, part of the shower walls, where the faucets and handles are? yeah, apparently someone (previous owner, builder, someone) wasn’t that hot at it. so they’d kinda cut out a random ass chunk of wall (or broke, whichever) and then patched it by putting the broken bits glued to a couple paint stirring sticks like you get free at home depot or sherwin williams or whoever, and then kidna propped it in the wall. apparently when they took the tile out, it fell out :o so the guy cut out bits of wall to make a patch fit reasonably (squared out the edges, but left the kindof T-shape instead of making a huge hole) and put in a piece of waterproofed drywall/sheetrock stuff so it’s much more properly done now :o

today’s tally: about 6′x8′ of hardwood (maybe 8×10, at the outside) done into the dining room almost done. they took out the living room toilet and put it in the hall in front of the pantry (on cardboard on the unfinished section, so as not to futz up the good floor now), took out the hall toilet and put it in the tub, backing boarded the floors in the master, hall, and living room baths.

i started with 4 toilets, 1-3 showers (3 showers, but one was busted and one had stuff in it from the sink changing i did, but could have been usable). i now have 1 toilet and 0-1 showers (i could TECHNICALLY put some towels on the floor in the basement and use that shower now, but i’m not sure if it’s really OK or not, so i’m not :o)

i don’t think they can finish by friday at this point.

i don’t think they could have finished by friday even if they had started monday. unless, like, they’d started on the bathrooms like they said they were and were fucking supposed to, then they MIGHT have pulled it out. but they can’t even START tiling the basement bathroom until friday, earliest, since i’m supposed to have 1+ bathrooms (toilets) at all times … and so they tile tomorrow in the master or living room (probably both actually), but have to wait until friday to start the basement b/c you can’t walk on the new tile for 24 hours. actually, i don’t know if that’s after the laying, the grouting, or both … i think it’s both ….

which means, uh, they can’t even start the basement by friday … anyone else noticing a problem with the master plan?

but i’m sure it’s my fault for not having the LIVING ROOM done in time even though they didn’t have the RIGHT QUANTITY of wood to LAY in the living room …

shoulda started on the fucking bathrooms like you told me, folks. b/c i ain’t paying any more here :p

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tuesday was day 2=1. i had scheduled to go to work tth this week, figuring i wanted to be home monday (when they started; oops), friday (when they finished …. uh) and wednesday (well, actually, i had a dr’s appt, had to be home anyway)

so my mom came in the morning to let them in. since it was the first day, after monday’s fiasco, i was hoping they wouldn’t need much from her, but i kept calling during the day to check in. was shocked when she told me they had the first floor stripepd of carpet and linoleum already!

got home, dad tells me they’ve stripped 3 bathrooms, but notthe upstairs hall (why strip 3 and not all four?) then he told me it was tiled (uh? they FINISHED that fast? christ, why didn’t they do this monday???) then i found the living room hadn’t been touched, and my dad says “oh this one’s tiled too” … uh, no, it’s linoleum/vinyl/whatever. we’re putting in real tile. ceramic. oh!

they stripped the master bath’s floor, and pulled the toilet (it’s sitting in the shower). they stripped the basement bath floor (but the toilet and shower are both “functional”, except i’m not sure i should take a shower with the floor stripped; or if i’d want to walk on the floor then, either). they stripped the hall showertub (it needed retiling, which was where this all started …). they stripped the living room carpet and the kitchen linoleum. and they put in hardwood for most of hte living room, up to the dining room-half of the living room. i was impressed.

I was also without a shower. i went to the gym this morning to take a shower :o

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sunday, after dropping K at camp and kiir at the airport, I came home and cleaned out the bathrooms and decided to patch the two drywall holes.  since they were doing the bathrooms.

wow, cutting drywall makes a lotta dust!  and apparently I’m not real clear on how to make straight cuts with my dremel in drywall.  but i managed to get things reasonably cut for the holes.  put in some 1×3 cuts that I screwed into the drywall that was there (when they’ve done professional, they’ve always screwed the cuts to the studs, but i’m not that skilled to put a screw in at an angle through wood to more wood while holding everything up)  then apparently the “drywall joint tape” isn’t so much tape.  i thought it was the cloth mesh tape stuff that they put over the edges of drywall cuts so that the mud (compound) can cover the hole nicely … no, apparently not.  it’s basically paper.

I don’t know what i was REALLY supposed to do with it, but i put a bit of mud on the wall, then slapped the “tape” on it and pressed it down to smooth … figured the compound would hold it in place ;)  then i slapped more on top to cover it up

there’s a few places where the screws didn’t go quite flush (well, like, most of them), and the mud didn’t ge smooth.  but they always do a lot of sanding and multiple coats.  i might sand later.  but i doubt it, i’m a lazy jerk ;)

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yesterday was the first day of the contractors working on the floors & bathrooms.  i spent sunday night moving stuff and making sure all the bathrooms were cleared out (i also did some drywall patching, since i figured i might as well hit that step BEFORE they put in fancy brand new floors ;)

so yesterday morning (10:30) they arrive, and tell me they want to start on the hardwood floor for hte living room.  uh.  crap, i didn’t finish clearing that out yet!  ok ok , they need to go get the wood anyway, so i’ll have it cleared when you get back 30-60 minutes.  sure, not a problem, sorry i thought you were starting with the tiling (since as i understand it, it takes a minimum of two days for a bathroom due to having to let things set overnight an’ stuff)

work hard, running up and down the stairs with computers, boxes, the new tv, etc (god my legs hurt!!!) and i’m 90% done when the phone rings.  OK, he’s calling to see if it’s clear so they can start when they get here with the wood, fine, no problem.  it is mostly.  but NO!  it’s the contractors office calling to tell me htat, since it wasn’t cleared yet, they’ll be back the next day so I have time to clear it … but, it’s already done, are they not coming back ?  no?  *sigh*

so yesterday was a complete wash :o  but i got a lot of exercise, and the living room did get cleared, at least, even if i moved the tv back down then back up in the evening ;)

what I don’t get?  why didn’t they just start with the effing bathroom yesterday, since the living room wasn’t clear?

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so, how do i do the part on the front, then “click here to read the rest” bit with wp?

b/c i was going to do it, then i realized i didn’t know how …

yeah, that’s kindofa nuisance. must read docs :o

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the last couple days i never got around to posting. thursday i got home and i was depressed, bored, tired. bad combo :/ was gonna blog. but decided that took too much effort. in the end, i ended up playing eq2 for a couple hours (got some real progress too, wow!)

yesterday i was still bored and a little down, and i was thinking. and those three things just do NOT combine well. that’s how i ended up shaving my legs in college. i was bored. the cuts and burns on my arm, bored and depressed.

so, yesterday, i was bored, depressed, and thikning. i’ve got (oh god!) a plan! then i looked up information b/c i was curious and neglected to post. so …

death! yeah, this is why depressed is bad.
by a thousand cuts! … bored bad too
over the course of three years! now? now i’m thinking, see …

so, the brilliant theory was a cut a day on my arm (just enough to bleed (if it doesn’t bleed it’s a scratch, not a cut … yeah, thinkng again)) or something, over the course of three years. thousand cuts == dead. but ,since it’s over 3 years, my body isn’t being subjected to all that at once, see, so i’m perfectly fine (healthy anyway), but i died! sweet eh?

yeah, so, i’m not ACTUALLY going to do it. if i felt i was even vaguely likely to, i’d hand over my pocket knife again (i’ve done it half a dozen times before, not like it’s new to me :o). but, see, thinking depressed bored bad.

OTOH, i learned that “death by a thousand cuts” involved like 30 cuts or something (fingers, toes (or hands and feet), arms, legs, head ; sensationalized to add cutting off of ears, noes, eyes, tongue, joints instead of whole fingers/hands .. romanticized (wow, such a BAD word there eh?) to “thousand cuts” b/c it sounded cooler than “slow slicing” …) … actually, drawn, hanged, (disemboweled, ) quatered looks like it might have been worse :o and apparently the whole “tied to four horses run in different directions” thing? utter crap :o

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someone stole my trashcan!

it’s the same one that’s been there for the last 5 years since we moved in! it’s just like 75% of the OTHER trashcans on the street! what is there worth stealing???

the ONLY distinguishing feature(s) about my can, at this time, are: it has random papers kinda permanently encrusted to the bottom (and actually, i think they came out last big storm when it got filled with like a foot of water), and the fact that it’s the only bin on the street that DOESN’T have a house number painted on it!

now, i’d say “well, maybe they took mine by mistake” but, yo! that means that they had to NOT NOTICE that it DIDN’T have their house number! what, they figured the spray paint just magically washed off? maybe the trash people put a layer of “old grungy dark plastic” paint on it to play a joke? wtf people!

(ok, so, technically this is the third or fourth time it’s gone AWOL … and i’m not really 100% sure that the one someone just swiped was really mine or not, since there USED to be more than one unlabelled one; but it fit my lid and looked like mine, and was unlabelled … close enough right?)

actually, it’s probably the mexicans. they stole my neighbors at one point (hers are labelled … oh, and she watched as they took it from her carport and started trying to take it around to their backyard … uhhhh). they have like 5 already, so whats one more. and it’s not like their trash ever FITS in their bins. trash day: wednesday. by friday evening, they’re usually spilling over and making a crap mess … i’m fairly sure thats where the half-eaten roast chicken came from last week (k kept wanting to ‘investigate’ that … but he wasn’t keen on getting too close to their trash bins … the dog is scared of your trash, this tell you anything, yo?)

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