Monday

Tomorrow, the heat pump guys are supposed to come back and fix the drain they didn't do correctly the first time. It should be minimally invasive surgery. They originally said they would come last Tuesday and then changed their minds. Maybe they will change their minds again. But, that's tomorrow.

Today is free from everything at least so far.

The building manager got a carpet cleaner recommendation from his bosses. I sent them an email inquiry.

Two weeks ago, SteveTheLawyer promised us we'd see a schedule and spreadsheet 'quickly'. And, of course, since then, nothing. So he got his WTF email this morning. No one should be forced to do business with retired people who have nothing to do all day but harass them.

I turned off the humidifier in my bedroom because the temperature is so low that the cool kicks on and that seems counter productive. Except this morning I have a bloody nose. Not a terrible one but enough of one to make me rethink the humidifier situation.

I need a heat pump master to come advise me how to use this thing. You'd think the company that sold it to me might hop in here but nope. Apparently not. The sales guy has done his thing. He's gotten all the cash he's going to get out of me. The installer guys don't really know how to operate it. So I've got the manual which is, amazingly, not helpful at all. Sigh.

I do have to decide which of my three remaining meals to have today. Fun! At some point this week, I'm going to need to make a market trip but not today.

I am going to need to make a treadmill visit, tho. Guess I'll go get that done now.

Just Answer

Years ago I found this thing called JustAnswer.com - a gazillion professionals who answer questions on the cheap-ish. $33 a month. All the questions you want. I never used the service but was intrigued by the concept. Today, it turned up again when I was looking for HVAC answers. So I paid $33 and got, exactly what I wanted.

Andre chatted with me. He told me exactly what settings to use to get the temperature I want in each room. He also said the running the humidifier at night won't be a problem at all. He also said that my plan of buying a spare set of filters was ok but not at all necessary - that the filters themselves have like a 15 year lifespan.

Now I have 30 days of more questions. So I've set everything like he said and have thermometers to monitor and see if it works like he predicted it will. If not I know where to find his chat window.

I also heard from the carpet cleaning guy. I suspect he's not going to be the one and that we will go a couple of rounds with others before I get what I want. But, ok.

Just read about a less than cheery little incident at the gym where my pool is. Apparently two idiots who aren't members came in and when they were not allowed past the front counter they pulled out a gun. Cops got 'em in the garage where I park my car (which is on the floor below and dark and creepy on a good day). I haven't been to the gym in a while and this surely does not scream 'come on back!!!'

Remember that giant condo bill we got last year? It was to pay for the re-sealing of all the terraces on the 5th floor (which previously leaked down into here) and for tuckpointing. Tuckpointing is really just knocking out the old brick mortar and replacing it. It's the usual maintenance on a brick building and this one is more than 100 years old.

They did the west side of the building (not my side) and now they are doing my side. They are working in sections and my section is the last one. They started working on the section next door last week and it turns out to be loud work. I'm delighted that I can keep my door closed. I think it's taking them a couple of weeks to do each section so I'll be bitching about this for a while.

good answer?

I thought about it all this morning and realized what Andre, the answer guy, explained to me wasn't going to work in my situation. Because I left out a key piece of info. So I went back to the website and asked another way.

My units have hot/cool/auto BUT the book says not to use auto if your two units are different models which mine are. But, auto is what I need to keep the bedroom cool enough and the living room comfortable. And once I explained it all properly, Andre agreed but added:

Andre: But us techs don’t like auto because it makes the compressor work more and more chances to break in the long run

Me: ahhhh ok - i'm 73, not too worried about the long run :)

hahahaha I'm so glad I used that site. The being able to go back and clarify is great. Totally worth the bucks. And now I've got everyone running on auto and we're all happy!

Find My...

I have an app on my watch called Find My Phone. When I click on it, my phone rings. I use this constantly. About half the time, it turns out to be within reach.

I check the cams to see where Biggie and Julio are. There's Biggie, under the bed. Chilling. But, where's Julio? He's not on my brother's bed. He's not in the closet or under the bed or in the hall... hmmm where did he go.

The cam app has an 'event' function so I can quickly see where he latest appeared on the cams.

That's when I realized he was in the cat bed on the couch just across from where I am sitting. This exact scenario has played out more often than is funny.

I seem to be lacking a keen sense of the obvious.