For those who don't remember, today is Andrea's birthday.
I'm taking the day off from work so I can give HER the day off from work.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Monday, April 23, 2007
antics
OK, let me get some things straight out there. I have very little issue with insects in their proper context. Take proper context to mean: not in my home, not in large volumes, not in any way which I could perceive as threatening to myself or my family.
I can look at a giant mound of an anthill teaming with millions of ants without even flinching, so long as this is happening, say, in a desert or some other remote location. But when I see ants in my house in numbers greater than, oh, five, and for periods of longer than, oh, as long as it takes to smash them all, then yes, I tend to develop an "issue" with said insects. The same goes for any type on insect (except for roaches...there is no acceptable quantity or duration for roaches). One spider is no problem. Fifty spiders, yes, i think I'd have a problem with that. One ant, no problem. Fifty ants of all different sizes, especially in a localized area, yeah, I have a problem with that.
My weekend was all but ruined by the ant invasion which started early last week. Why was it not until the weekend that I got really out of sorts? Well, that's when I did a little research and found out that we most likely are being visited by carpenter ants who are most likely interested in living in the walls of our house, if they are not already doing so (which I think they are). So, I develop what my wife considers irrational obsessive behavior regarding our uninvited guests.
"Why don't you get this worked up about any of our several OTHER more pressing issues, like getting the car an oil change or finding a nanny, instead of worrying about some stupid ants?"
I tried to explain it, but I think I failed. She got that it had a lot to do with control and unknowns. Mainly i got super panicked because I did some research and found out that carpenter ants like to move right in and set up shop and that to really effectively deal with them, you should probably hire professionals.
Here's where the big fear comes in for me:
A - This will require money. Possibly MONEY. It's difficult to find anything on the web about how much it costs to really deal with this problem.
B - This is something that will only get worse over time if not dealt with correctly.
C - From what I observe, there is quite a lot of room for ambiguity (are they already living in the walls? How much damage have they caused? How bad could it possibly be at this rate? Is this going to be an ongoing battle against nature? Is this going to make it harder to sell the house? How big of a mistake was it to buy this house in the first place? Did we get a sub-prime mortgage? Do we need to disclose that we had the house treated for carpenter ants when we try to sell the place? Did we get screwed by the people who sold us this house? Is this ant problem just and indicator of a larger issue with the house, like leaky pipes pipes somewhere that will slowly cause more and more water damage until one day the kitchen ceiling caves in and leaves us with thousands of dollars of repair work to do before we can even think of selling? Does my homeowners insurance cover ANY of this? etc...) and not too many places to turn to get those ambiguities resolved.
So I called Orkin to get a "free inspection/estimate" but I was able to get their customer service person to fess up to their standard treatment plan, which is a 1 year deal that comes with visits costing $275(first treatment), $80(30 days), $80(60 days), $80(90 days), $80(180 days). Well, I don't like the sound of that, but at least its something tangible.
Then I came across the website for a local pest control place that said, "Don't panic! Carpenter ants are a pest and they can cause damage but most likely they will not compromise your home's structural integrity if dealt with. Do NOT feel pressured to sign up for an annual treatment plan that costs you hundreds of dollars. We can provide you with treatment options that are much more affordable for homeowners." Basically, this is what I needed to see. A website that stated, in so many words, "Don't worry, you're going to be OK. Here's why..."
So I called them up and spoke to a guy there and he was also very reassuring. He explained how the big name places will require monthly visits, which used to be necessary, but that current technology (for killing bugs, I assume) doesn't need that anymore. Now they use a material that the ants don't detect and so they walk through it and carry back to the nest. Then, as they groom each other they end up poisoning and killing the entire colony. Sounds great, right? Well, yes, they do recommend follow up visits, but basically just twice a year, one at the beginning of the season (spring) and one in late summer/early fall. the reason being that even though you kill the colony or the satellite colony (like the one they are trying to set up in my kitchen walls, I imagine) you still need to prevent ants from re-infesting, which they are want to do unless you are able to seal up all avenues of access AND replace any of the attractants that drew them in in the first place (previously water damaged wood). In our case i think that's sort of unrealistic since this is like a one thousand year old house. So, I was straight with the guy and told him I panicked and called Orkin first and then later found his website. He said, "No problem. Definitely get their inspection." I told him that unless they told me something drastically different after the inspection than what their customer service rep quoted me, I'd be calling him back to have his guys do the treatment. his quote was basically half the price of what Orkin said, and required far fewer visits. So, really when you consider Orkin was saying that it would be about...$600 for one year's worth of ant treatment and about $400 each additional year, and this guy was saying it would only cost $250 for the whole year and then only $200 for each year after that...well, seems like a no-brainer.
Which is why I have regained my sanity, for the most part.
So that begs the question A asked me earlier. Why is this ant thing totally bugging me out when there are other pressing issues like the possibility of the car breaking down or us needing a baby sitter or some other such "unknown"?
Well, see, those are already sort of known unknowns.
I *know* that when it comes right down to it, i can take time off to watch Felix if absolutely necessary.
I also know that, if the car does break down in some way, I'm not necessarily at the mercy of the "professionals" or their ridiculous pricing schemes. I've owned cars for like, ten years. In this past year I have done what I consider to be a relatively major repair on my own at greatly reduced cost. And if the car is our of commission for a few days, a week, well, I know we can get around that too.
But when it comes to the house...I know very little about home-owning so whenever something comes up that is of direct or indirect impact to the house, our ability to live in it or at least extract out of it what we put in, I get VERY VERY nervous. I don't know if ants are a nuisance or a major major deal, if they will cost me $100 or $1000 or $10,000 (when we try to sell). And more to the point, I don't feel comfortable trying to do it myself when its not necessarily something that can be done effectively by the individual home owner.
So, pretty much anything that happens involving the house gets top billing in the anxiety show unless it is one of the few things that I already know about, like restarting the boiler, installing a new dryer, etc...
Lets just hope that the seam in the kitchen ceiling is due to the house expanding and contracting from the changes in season. Hope against hope.
I can look at a giant mound of an anthill teaming with millions of ants without even flinching, so long as this is happening, say, in a desert or some other remote location. But when I see ants in my house in numbers greater than, oh, five, and for periods of longer than, oh, as long as it takes to smash them all, then yes, I tend to develop an "issue" with said insects. The same goes for any type on insect (except for roaches...there is no acceptable quantity or duration for roaches). One spider is no problem. Fifty spiders, yes, i think I'd have a problem with that. One ant, no problem. Fifty ants of all different sizes, especially in a localized area, yeah, I have a problem with that.
My weekend was all but ruined by the ant invasion which started early last week. Why was it not until the weekend that I got really out of sorts? Well, that's when I did a little research and found out that we most likely are being visited by carpenter ants who are most likely interested in living in the walls of our house, if they are not already doing so (which I think they are). So, I develop what my wife considers irrational obsessive behavior regarding our uninvited guests.
"Why don't you get this worked up about any of our several OTHER more pressing issues, like getting the car an oil change or finding a nanny, instead of worrying about some stupid ants?"
I tried to explain it, but I think I failed. She got that it had a lot to do with control and unknowns. Mainly i got super panicked because I did some research and found out that carpenter ants like to move right in and set up shop and that to really effectively deal with them, you should probably hire professionals.
Here's where the big fear comes in for me:
A - This will require money. Possibly MONEY. It's difficult to find anything on the web about how much it costs to really deal with this problem.
B - This is something that will only get worse over time if not dealt with correctly.
C - From what I observe, there is quite a lot of room for ambiguity (are they already living in the walls? How much damage have they caused? How bad could it possibly be at this rate? Is this going to be an ongoing battle against nature? Is this going to make it harder to sell the house? How big of a mistake was it to buy this house in the first place? Did we get a sub-prime mortgage? Do we need to disclose that we had the house treated for carpenter ants when we try to sell the place? Did we get screwed by the people who sold us this house? Is this ant problem just and indicator of a larger issue with the house, like leaky pipes pipes somewhere that will slowly cause more and more water damage until one day the kitchen ceiling caves in and leaves us with thousands of dollars of repair work to do before we can even think of selling? Does my homeowners insurance cover ANY of this? etc...) and not too many places to turn to get those ambiguities resolved.
So I called Orkin to get a "free inspection/estimate" but I was able to get their customer service person to fess up to their standard treatment plan, which is a 1 year deal that comes with visits costing $275(first treatment), $80(30 days), $80(60 days), $80(90 days), $80(180 days). Well, I don't like the sound of that, but at least its something tangible.
Then I came across the website for a local pest control place that said, "Don't panic! Carpenter ants are a pest and they can cause damage but most likely they will not compromise your home's structural integrity if dealt with. Do NOT feel pressured to sign up for an annual treatment plan that costs you hundreds of dollars. We can provide you with treatment options that are much more affordable for homeowners." Basically, this is what I needed to see. A website that stated, in so many words, "Don't worry, you're going to be OK. Here's why..."
So I called them up and spoke to a guy there and he was also very reassuring. He explained how the big name places will require monthly visits, which used to be necessary, but that current technology (for killing bugs, I assume) doesn't need that anymore. Now they use a material that the ants don't detect and so they walk through it and carry back to the nest. Then, as they groom each other they end up poisoning and killing the entire colony. Sounds great, right? Well, yes, they do recommend follow up visits, but basically just twice a year, one at the beginning of the season (spring) and one in late summer/early fall. the reason being that even though you kill the colony or the satellite colony (like the one they are trying to set up in my kitchen walls, I imagine) you still need to prevent ants from re-infesting, which they are want to do unless you are able to seal up all avenues of access AND replace any of the attractants that drew them in in the first place (previously water damaged wood). In our case i think that's sort of unrealistic since this is like a one thousand year old house. So, I was straight with the guy and told him I panicked and called Orkin first and then later found his website. He said, "No problem. Definitely get their inspection." I told him that unless they told me something drastically different after the inspection than what their customer service rep quoted me, I'd be calling him back to have his guys do the treatment. his quote was basically half the price of what Orkin said, and required far fewer visits. So, really when you consider Orkin was saying that it would be about...$600 for one year's worth of ant treatment and about $400 each additional year, and this guy was saying it would only cost $250 for the whole year and then only $200 for each year after that...well, seems like a no-brainer.
Which is why I have regained my sanity, for the most part.
So that begs the question A asked me earlier. Why is this ant thing totally bugging me out when there are other pressing issues like the possibility of the car breaking down or us needing a baby sitter or some other such "unknown"?
Well, see, those are already sort of known unknowns.
I *know* that when it comes right down to it, i can take time off to watch Felix if absolutely necessary.
I also know that, if the car does break down in some way, I'm not necessarily at the mercy of the "professionals" or their ridiculous pricing schemes. I've owned cars for like, ten years. In this past year I have done what I consider to be a relatively major repair on my own at greatly reduced cost. And if the car is our of commission for a few days, a week, well, I know we can get around that too.
But when it comes to the house...I know very little about home-owning so whenever something comes up that is of direct or indirect impact to the house, our ability to live in it or at least extract out of it what we put in, I get VERY VERY nervous. I don't know if ants are a nuisance or a major major deal, if they will cost me $100 or $1000 or $10,000 (when we try to sell). And more to the point, I don't feel comfortable trying to do it myself when its not necessarily something that can be done effectively by the individual home owner.
So, pretty much anything that happens involving the house gets top billing in the anxiety show unless it is one of the few things that I already know about, like restarting the boiler, installing a new dryer, etc...
Lets just hope that the seam in the kitchen ceiling is due to the house expanding and contracting from the changes in season. Hope against hope.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Friday, April 20, 2007
frigration
Today was a bonafide success at work. Everything was essentially all lined up and falling down right in a row by 10:30am so the rest of the day seemed like a formailty. Like a real Friday. We were migrating a major development group to our new source control tool using the process I had worked out two months ago. Yesterday the DBA didn't seem to know it was going on which was bad since they had to do most of the actual work (follow my documentation). Why was this migration a big deal? Because they had their source control environment set up in a very specific way in the old tool and I was able to move their existing settings, database (of metadata), and actual data to the new tool without them losing anything. Most of the other teams are not nearly as mature or complex as this team, so they were just taking a snapshot of their current state and uploading it into the new tool. Not this team. They basically pulled out of the old tool on Wednesday and when they log on the new tool on Monday it will be like nothing has changed (except increased stability and some improved functionality). This is a major win for my team because these guys are the last ones to go to the new tool (as far as we're keeping score...after we are "finished" the stragglers will be coming out of the woodwork...the old source tool goes down about 10 times a day, for real) and we delivered exactly what they wanted, when they wanted, and with as little impact as possible to their development. (we think). We'll know more Monday, but today felt like summer Friday afternoon.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
damn!
I just got hit with an idea that is soooooo freaking awesome that I'm afraid to even talk about it...but I alkso am in no position to make any single part of it happen, so whats the use of keeping quiet?
sigh...ever wonder if you accidentally got hit with someone else's inspiration?
sigh...ever wonder if you accidentally got hit with someone else's inspiration?
Sunday, April 15, 2007
teething
It seems that Felix is teething...for real. He's been waking up a lot more frequently at night, has his drool on 24x7, and he gets super cranky pretty quickly, especially at night.
Poor kiddo.
Poor kiddo.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
sprung?
As in, has it become spring? have we become sprung? Yesterday turned into a nice day, weather wise, and its just supposed to get better over the weekend and into monday. Which is why A turned down the thermostat yesterday (the babysitter was sweating, it was so hot in the house) and then turned it back up before we went to bed. Well, Felix woke up lots last night, most likely because he was a little cold. I couldn;t tell because when you are only in your skivvies and it's o'dark-thirty in the morning/night you don't really notice the difference between 60 degrees and 70 degrees, you just know that under blankets is toasty and out of blankets is not. So anyway, finally around 5 thirty and Felix's umpteenth wake-up, which we'd been asssuming was for feeding since his diaper was not wet, I felt his icy little hands. OK, the kid is a lot like me, so it isn;t unusual for him to seem perfectly happy even though his hands and/or feet are icy cold. His hands are covered in drool half the time, which makes them extra icy. Anyway, as I hovered about at 5:30 in the AM and noticed that it seemed a bit cooler than I expected, and Andrea's complaints of "It is sooooooooo cooooooooooold!" finally started to get some traction. I went down and looked at the readout on the thermostat. 60 degrees. While this was the type of temps we've been dying for outside, its not exactly what we were hoping for inside (or some of us, anyway). WTF? I punch the temp setting and its sitting up at 74. Hrm. That's not good. I go down to the basement and check the furnace. Not running, not a peep, and the boiler is cold. It had been hot the day before, I remember because i had dried one of Felix's diaper wraps on a radiator. Hrm. I whip out the manual and start the process of restarting the boiler. Nada. I do it again. Nada. Crap.
I check out the thermostat, do the little reset thingy on it, put it back on the wall. Nothing. Crap.
So then turn it all off...no point risking gassing or blowing us up. I go up and try the stove and oven. They both work fine, so we still have gas. I even went down to check the meter while the oven was on and heard the reassuring (or frightening, depending on what month it is and how big that gas bill is) tchink tchink tchink or the little dials on the meter spinning.
I go back up to the bedroom where Felix and A are now sleeping (or at least A is trying to sleep while Felix is out like a drunken sailor) and pull out the space heater and turn it on. At least I can heat up the bedroom and finish out the night and tackle the boiler issues at a more reasonable hour.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm getting out the heater. The boiler isn't lighting."
"Well, call someone. It is f-f-freezing in here."
"It's Saturday morning, I doubt anyone is around..."
"Well you better call someone, now."
Sigh...
So I go into the closet and get the business card of the guy who installed the boiler just under a year ago and call him. It's about 6am now. I get his machine so I leave a message. 2 minutes later I get a call back. I think I woke this guy up. I think the boiler company he is the president of, he is also the everything else of. So, with him on the phone and Felix in hand (he decided that he needed to wake up and not go back to sleep...) we went to the basement to troubleshoot the boiler. After about 15 minutes of "Does it have one of these?" "Yes." "Push the button on it." "What button?" "There should be a button." "Oh, there it is. It's a switch." "Yeah, whatever, push it. Did you hear the relay throw?" "No." "Hrm. Ok...look for the..." we did this a couple times and finally I went back up to the thermostat and to calm Felix down (I had parked him in the dining room in the pack-n-play while i was fiddling with the boiler's electrical bits) and switched the thermostat's switch to cool then back to heat. Suddenly I heard a loud familiar "Cli-THUNK" of the boiler kicking on. I called the guy back (the call got dropped probably 3 times during this whole process) and said, "Hey, its working now. Thanks." And now we have heat, again. Which hopefully we'll get to turn off again...but anyway...the sky is clear, it's hovering around 30-40 degrees outside, maybe warmer. Supposed to get into the 50s today and 60s tomorrow. Felix and I walked to the coffee shop on the other side of the park and got coffee and breakfast burrito to share with the babymama (just me, not Felix). And all is relatively right with the world. Well, with that specific part of it at least.
I check out the thermostat, do the little reset thingy on it, put it back on the wall. Nothing. Crap.
So then turn it all off...no point risking gassing or blowing us up. I go up and try the stove and oven. They both work fine, so we still have gas. I even went down to check the meter while the oven was on and heard the reassuring (or frightening, depending on what month it is and how big that gas bill is) tchink tchink tchink or the little dials on the meter spinning.
I go back up to the bedroom where Felix and A are now sleeping (or at least A is trying to sleep while Felix is out like a drunken sailor) and pull out the space heater and turn it on. At least I can heat up the bedroom and finish out the night and tackle the boiler issues at a more reasonable hour.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm getting out the heater. The boiler isn't lighting."
"Well, call someone. It is f-f-freezing in here."
"It's Saturday morning, I doubt anyone is around..."
"Well you better call someone, now."
Sigh...
So I go into the closet and get the business card of the guy who installed the boiler just under a year ago and call him. It's about 6am now. I get his machine so I leave a message. 2 minutes later I get a call back. I think I woke this guy up. I think the boiler company he is the president of, he is also the everything else of. So, with him on the phone and Felix in hand (he decided that he needed to wake up and not go back to sleep...) we went to the basement to troubleshoot the boiler. After about 15 minutes of "Does it have one of these?" "Yes." "Push the button on it." "What button?" "There should be a button." "Oh, there it is. It's a switch." "Yeah, whatever, push it. Did you hear the relay throw?" "No." "Hrm. Ok...look for the..." we did this a couple times and finally I went back up to the thermostat and to calm Felix down (I had parked him in the dining room in the pack-n-play while i was fiddling with the boiler's electrical bits) and switched the thermostat's switch to cool then back to heat. Suddenly I heard a loud familiar "Cli-THUNK" of the boiler kicking on. I called the guy back (the call got dropped probably 3 times during this whole process) and said, "Hey, its working now. Thanks." And now we have heat, again. Which hopefully we'll get to turn off again...but anyway...the sky is clear, it's hovering around 30-40 degrees outside, maybe warmer. Supposed to get into the 50s today and 60s tomorrow. Felix and I walked to the coffee shop on the other side of the park and got coffee and breakfast burrito to share with the babymama (just me, not Felix). And all is relatively right with the world. Well, with that specific part of it at least.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
whiteout
Welcome to spring, this wonderful snowy morning seems to say to me.
We finished version 1 of A's portfolio website and let me tell you, I seriously hate Internet Explorer and this process has just reaffirmed that sentiment. Needless to say, her website whic his chock full of javascripty ajaxy XHTMLy goodness does NOT look as it should on IE (any version). Hell, I don't even think it will show up on anything older than IEv6.x.
And I'm sorry, I know its supposed to be a usability best practice to bend over backwards to accommodate every ancient browser under the sun, but you know what? Do you REALLY want to get a job working for someone who uses that kind of crap? No. In Graphic Design you judge and are judged not only by your work but also by your ability to stay current. You do not do tomorrow's design for yesterday's browser, or client, or anything.
But mostly, I just don't want to have to remake the same site like 5 times just so some schmoe who can't keep up with what's current can look at a website.
Of course, next step it to add Flash to bridge the gaps if possible.
My dad, who used to work in interface design/usability gave the website a failing grade because it lacked user feedback. Of course...he only viewed it in IE. HA. But whatever. Mozilla provides plenty of feedback. Apparently IE doesn't even treat CSS the same as everyone else.
We finished version 1 of A's portfolio website and let me tell you, I seriously hate Internet Explorer and this process has just reaffirmed that sentiment. Needless to say, her website whic his chock full of javascripty ajaxy XHTMLy goodness does NOT look as it should on IE (any version). Hell, I don't even think it will show up on anything older than IEv6.x.
And I'm sorry, I know its supposed to be a usability best practice to bend over backwards to accommodate every ancient browser under the sun, but you know what? Do you REALLY want to get a job working for someone who uses that kind of crap? No. In Graphic Design you judge and are judged not only by your work but also by your ability to stay current. You do not do tomorrow's design for yesterday's browser, or client, or anything.
But mostly, I just don't want to have to remake the same site like 5 times just so some schmoe who can't keep up with what's current can look at a website.
Of course, next step it to add Flash to bridge the gaps if possible.
My dad, who used to work in interface design/usability gave the website a failing grade because it lacked user feedback. Of course...he only viewed it in IE. HA. But whatever. Mozilla provides plenty of feedback. Apparently IE doesn't even treat CSS the same as everyone else.
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