As generally hinted at by other entries posted here, Jessica (samari76) made it here with absolutely no difficulty whatsoever. Well, once she found herself a bus that was actually leaving when it was supposed to. She managed to get herself aboard the bus leaving at 8:15, since her usual bus was cancelled thanks to the queen bitch that is mother nature. She didn’t end up getting in until about 9:00 on saturday, much thanks to one delay or another; be it trafic, scheduling, or people taking too damn long. She was tired as all get out, so we crashed relatively early (well, early for us on a saturday, anyway). We slept in extra late yesterday, then were significantly more lazy than is usual for us while she recovered a bit more from her trip. Spent the rest of that day just talking, and catching up on things. I gave her one of her birthday presents yesterday, the 9th season of Everybody Loves Raymond. There’s another one here for her, but being as she’s both in this very room righrt now and reading over her friends list, I won’t be saying what it is on here, but thanks for coming out. There are plans in the works for later on today, assuming I can get a hold of specific individuals. But first, I’ll need to nail someone to the wall regarding our apparent lack of heating in the place. See, this is what happens when you’re not actually sleeping in your own bed for a couple weeks at a timie; the major cold sets in, and you don’t notice it until you get to being here with, um, company. So that’s the basic plan for the day. And, though I’ve already said it in person, I’ll say it here anyway because, well, it’s me. Happy birthday, Jessica! Hopefully this year’s as good for you or better than the last one.
Random observation: honey garlic wings, while being supremely divine in their awesomeness, make my apartment smell really, really good.
Or maybe it’s just a this morning thing. I’d of posted about this yesterday when I first found out about it, but that would require reasonably functional internets. I went to do laundry yesterday morning, at like 4:00 or so (I have no idea why, other than the fact I’m back on my lack of work schedule, officially and for reals), and discovered that the usual $1.5 it costs me to actually clean my clothes wasn’t working for that particular trip. Justifiably irritated, I packed up my shit, went back upstairs, and made a note to call the landlord about it when someone was actually in the office to check the phone. In other words, today. So this morning, hoping against hope I wasn’t the only one who needed to do laundry yesterday and that someone else had called the emergency number about it (I could have lasted another day or two if need be), I went back to check. And sure enough, what’d probably been there yesterday but, you know, we can’t all see when someone’s trying to pull one over on us, was a signal the price had gone up. I found it completely by accident when I decided to try that one again. So now it’s $1.75 to actually get things sorted out that way. Which, roughly translated, means it now costs me a dollar more to do the usual amount of laundry I’ve had to do for the past year and a half or so. On top of the fact my rent’s gone up about $25 in that time. Can we say wtf, boys and girls?
It did prompt a little tiny bit of creativity during the bored that is my waiting for laundry to get done. So as of 5:30 this morning, note2landlord was created. I always figured the logic behind it can’t be too complicated. That, of course, being I’m surely not the only one who’s renting from the clueless. Join if you wanna, or don’t. I’m just tossing it out there. Because occasionally, I do that kinda thing.
From about mid-October or early November to mid to late March, the neighbourhood where I live is pretty much a dead zone. I mean, understandably; no one in their right mind would willingly risk prolonged exposure to -20 degree temperatures. But it’s just such a huge freaking difference between that and, for instance, what I walked past coming home today. I almost wished for maybe 3 seconds I could see well enough to take a picture or two. Which, would require that I first be able to see at all, but that’s only a minor technicality. I must have walked past at least 3 different baseball games on the way home. All pretty well on the same street, too. Kinda gave the city a little of the small town feel in a way. Which is kinda nice, considering that’s sort of the environment I spent most of my life in (millitary bases were pretty much just small towns with actual purpose for the most part). And that particular street’s usually quiet enough if you’re lucky, you could walk down it towards my place and maybe count on one hand the cars that pass by you. If it wasn’t for the fact I’m fucking starving and didn’t really feel much like standing around, I’d of just kinda hung around and listened for a few minutes. Because really, it’s the often not noticed crap like that that only confirms moving here when I did for the reasons I did turned out to be a damn good thing. Not that I need the confirmation, but it’s always nice just the same.
Okay, so it wasn’t really doing all that much before it uncerimoniously decided to kick the bucket. Oh well. Murlynns_view, her husband, and I spent a couple hours when we got back from Pembroke last week setting it up. We had it running for a bit on Tuesday, after we finished getting it in place and discovered that the lid to the internal water tank needed to be positioned just so (and, for the record, exactly not the way the instructions say to position it) for the AC to even turn on. If positioned *properly*, it slides in uber extremely easily. And out the same way. Except the AC behaves like it’s not there. So we fought with it for a bit on tuesday, we got it to run supervised (I had to practically babysit it for the evening so it didn’t turn my kitchen floor into a small lake) that night by positioning the lid in a way that it had no choice but to actually keep the AC unit turned on. Of course, this meant that supposed beneficial feature of the AC unit being able to turn off automaticly to prevent flooding was pretty much negated. It also meant that the tank was a uberbitch to get in, and out again to empty it (fortunately it wasn’t full when I turned it off that night). And of course, putting it in the exact same way afterwards did absolutely nothing to get the thing to come back on. Royal pain in my ass, that is. So we again fought with it for an hour or so yesterday, and between the 3 of us decided the thing was designed to be a piece of crap. So when next I meet up with someone with a set of wheels, the thing’s going back to the nearest Canadian Tire, and I’m force feeding the first person to tell me there’s nothing wrong with it my extended warranty. So Now I’m back in pre-AC mode. Which means those stupid little restrictor things my oh so caring landlord put in the windows so they don’t open more than maybe 5-6 inches are coming out, and those things are open as wide as they go. As for my landlord? He can either put an AC in these apartments or stand in one spot for a couple minutes while I take those restrictor plates and break them over his head. Since he probably won’t be too inclined to do that, I look forward to getting a letter saying he’ll put AC in these apartments. Though he may not be quite so inclined to do that, either. Cheap bastard.
Seeing as, you know, I’ve got time now that I’m installing windows for someone. Woot and such. So for the first time in all of… hmm, maybe a week, I actually didn’t drag my ass out of bed before 7:00 this morning. By choice, even. I likes me my sleep… sue me. Ended up throwing things together for lunch, finding something to call clothing and still got here in plenty of time to not be late to work. And it’s been pretty well non-stop since then. With the exception of this morning’s break, which I caught up on paperwork and threw together something resembling a post on this here thing, I haven’t really been off the phone since I got here. Not complaining, it’s just… unusual. Yesterday and monday were pretty well, um, written off. So I was kinda hoping today’d be more of that. Not so much.
The weather forecast does look like we’re gonna catch another pouring at some point today, so at least I won’t stick to myself when I get my lazy ass the hell home tonight. I love that apartment, but 3-4 days of 30+ degree temperatures plus top floor apartment? Yeah, not pretty. Note to Wall Mart: I am *so* not paying $300+ for a $80 AC unit, thankyamuch and die in a goddamn fire. Okay I’m over it now. And going back to actually doing my job. Hmm, I thought I said there’d be substance.
- My intercom decided not to work last night. In fact, the intercom apparently building-wide crapped out. I did not find out about this until delivery came with bad for me food. someone did not want me to order out, apparently. I, as usual, elected not to listen.
- I’m getting off the bus about halfway to work (I have to switch buses, le sigh), and this random girl comes up to me. “Are you Jeff?” I’m thinking, um, buh? But all I actually say is, “Nope, I’m James.”. She promptly walks off. Again, buh?
I could be persuaded. All this thing needs is AC and I give my 60 days’ notice next week. I think I’ve just discovered what part of my time off this summer will consist of. Sweet Jesus I have too much time on my hands.
So I finally get around to opening the letter someone stuck in my door last night, uh, this morning. And it turns out ye ol’ landlord has decided to up my rent by $25/month. I’m already taking it on the chin a little bit as it is considering this here apartment doesn’t come with AC and I’m still paying for my electricity on top of that. Ah well, once the employment situation’s been kinda widdled down to something resembling a secure job (I know, it’s a myth, but let me have my goddamn dream.), I’ll tackle the apartment situation. For now though, the place isn’t exactly half bad. One bedroom, easy to clean when I’m motivated enough to do so, and built in such a way that on the nicer days I can open up the windows and pretty much have a breeze wherever I happen to be. Still though, I’m not getting a whole lot out of this rent hike. Which means I’ll be apartment hunting by summer provided job hunting pans out by then. They say bad news comes in 3′s. Well, I’ve got 2.
It’s a small apartment building, so if someone downstairs starts into the cooking, it gets up here in a real hurry. I never bothered taking any kind of time to learn to cook–it’s just me, I’d be cooking for 1 on most if not all occasions, so what the hell for? But in this particular instance I almost, almost wish I had. So instead I’m ordering pizza. And they tell me my logic’s gone screwy.
