carbonel

I have a home security system that I've been paying $60/month for quite a while. At this point it's old and creaky, and I need to decide whether to upgrade it (which means tying myself into a new five-year contract) or dropping it entirely. The alarm company wants to keep me as a customer, so it's offering me a new system with free installation at the price I'm currently paying, and sweetening it with a $10/month discount for the first year. The new system comes with a doorbell camera and alarm -- though I have a front and side door, so I'm not sure which is most appropriate.

Do people have general opinions on home security? I've mostly kept this system because it was part of the house when I bought it (plus inertia), but it is an ongoing expense. I live in a low-crime area, at least for now.

There is no chance assembly of people who cannot make lively conversation about drains.
--Dorothy Sayers, in Gaudy Night

About two weeks ago, I did a load of laundry. When I went downstairs to move it from the washer to the dryer, I discovered a large pool of water. Clean water, not sewer water, which was the only good thing. This was on a Thursday night. On Friday, I called Ron the Sewer Rat (this is a company originally founded by Ron, but now it's just the company name). I was told that Monday was the earliest someone could come out, unless I was willing to pay the $450 Saturday surcharge.

I waited things out, which involved no showers, dishwashing, or toilet flushing until Monday.

On Monday, Trent from Ron the Sewer Rat came over. Before he tackled the basement drain, he went to check the main sewer line to make sure there was not a blockage there that was causing the subsidiary drain to back up. Unfortunately, there was. He was able to get his equipment about 25 feet down, but no further. Trent charged around $250 for his work; it was informational if not successful. He said this would need serious excavation work of the sort his company didn't do. He sent me a few referrals to local companies that did the kind of sewer work that involved making holes in the ground.

The basement puddle had slowly gone away over a couple of hours, so he said that it was probably safe to flush the toilet as long as no paper or other solids went down it. Oh, joy.

The first company on the list was Minneapolis & Suburban Sewer and Water. Ron (not a Sewer Rat) said he could come over the next day to check things out and give me an estimate. He wasn't able to get his camera more than a few feet down, which meant more digging and expense than the blockage at 25 feet would suggest. I suggested that we call Trent from RtSR back, since he had the proper sewer excavation tools. Unfortunately, there was no response at that end. Ron came back with more equipment and was able to get his camera to the 25-foot place, thus reducing things to a previously unsolved problem.

He also told me that my sewer pipes were made of something called Orangeburg pipe, which was basically tar paper -- a workaround against postwar shortages -- and it was amazing that the pipes had lasted the sixty years they had.

Before I signed the contract, I did try to get quotes from a couple of other sewer companies, but all of them had a several-week backlog. Ron said that he could start work on Monday, which meant that his company got the job by default (but they were recommended to me more than once).

In the meantime, I was warned not to flush the toilet at all, but that it was safe to wash dishes or use the shower. This turned out not to be the case. I did a load of dishes, and ended up with another large puddle of water in the basement. This time it didn't drain away at all. I will spare you all the gross details, but life at Casa Carbonel was not particularly fun.

On Saturday, Ron called and asked about the drainage situation. I said that nothing had changed. He said that he and his brother would come over on Sunday and try to get things sufficiently opened that I could flush the toilet. After an hour or so of work, he said that flushing should be okay as long as there were no solids to block things up again. That was a major improvement in my quality of life, which was a pretty sad thing.

On Monday afternoon (it was supposed to be Monday, but the previous job ran long, you know how it goes), Ron and his brother came over with much heavy equipment and dug large holes in my lawn. They finished the job on Tuesday afternoon. That work cost $6,700, which included an optional $250 for a new outside sewer access point in addition to the existing basement one.

However, Ron warned me that none of the work they'd done affected the basement drain -- which I could easily tell, because that puddle was still there. So I called Ron the Sewer Rat again and explained that we were now back to where we started originally.

Today, Trent came over and tackled the basement drain. There wasn't any one thing plugging it up, just accumulated yuck. He cleaned it out and checked the brand-new sewer line (in good shape, which it damned well ought to be), and for good measure cleaned the downstairs shower where things had backed up. That was another $250.

And now, after two weeks of limited water use and expenses of over $7,000, it's finally done. I plan to celebrate by washing a load of dishes and a load of laundry, and cooking a proper dinner and using all the utensils and pots and pans I want.

Last year, I needed a new hot water heater and furnace. This year, it was the sewer line. I predict that the roof will be the next major expense, since I don't know how old it was when I bought this house in 2003, but that means it's at least twenty years old. But I'm sure the house can provide additional surprises for me.

1. I have an appointment for my first COVID-19 vaccination! I'd been trying for over a week, ever since Minnesota opened things up to group 1b, tier 3, where I fell (over 45 with at least one qualifying condition). Lots of places were still only giving appointments to tier 2, and the ones open to tier 3 didn't have availability. I'm thankful to mizzlaurajean, who suggested signing up with Fairview. When I did, they were only giving appointments to tier 2, but that changed yesterday, and I now have an appointment for next Thursday, at a clinic a few miles away.

2. I made an appointment for my second and very overdue colonoscopy. The first one was mostly notable for being timed in such a way that I got no sleep the night before. This time, I hope, will go better in that regard.

3. Yesterday, I had the prep work done on a new dental crown. I spent the time listening to the audiobook of an Elizabeth Moon novel, and that was much more distracting than my usual attempt to follow an episode of a cooking or home improvement TV show. A+, will do again.

4. Still trying (obviously, not hard enough) to sell my 2001 Honda Accord.

5. A month or so ago, I went to IKEA for something entirely different, and came home with a set of Kallax shelves and cloth baskets, intending to use them to organize my spinning supplies. I even figured out a place for the unit in my living room. Unfortunately, I couldn't lift it myself -- I was barely able to drag it out of the car -- so I guess it's going to live in my garage until After Times.

6. All of my pandemic-related good intentions about destashing my house contents and organizing things have have mostly come to naught. If I had to pass an adulting test, there are sections where I would not get a passing grade. I am frustrated and depressed about this, none of which is actually inspiring me to action.

First of all, I should say that I'm a fan of the Great Indoors. I don't garden, other than a couple of minor attempts at the previous house over 15 years ago. I tend to ignore what's outside the house as long as I can. But that finally became impossible this year.

I bit the bullet and decided that I needed to find someone who would do a complete makeover on the flora on the outside of my house.

The backyard was truly scary, having mostly been overgrown with thistles and weeds. In front and back, were a bunch of bushes and arbor vitae that were shaggy and overgrown. And, most annoying, a few years ago the next-door neighbors put in a fence, and there wasn't enough room for a lawn mower to get to the strip of grass left between the fence and the driveway. It kept getting overgrown with weeds and volunteer trees.

A few years ago, I hired a local landscaper on the recommendation of a friend. It wasn't a success. Instead of giving the place the makeover I expected, she just did general lawn work and minor cosmetic stuff until the money I allocated was exhausted. It looked good while she was working on it, but it was all top-level stuff. This time, I wanted something more, and I'm going to commit to keeping it up.

First, I tried getting an estimate from a guy who did “organic yard work” that another friend recommended. He wanted $150 to give an estimate (payable as work credit after $2K), and I agreed, though I really hoped it wouldn't get that high. Alas, I knew we weren't a good fit about the third time he said "this really isn't the sort of work I do" and was giving open-ended estimates of tens of hours at $65/hour. I was thinking I'd have to pay the $150 just to have him go away, but he got annoyed at me first, said we weren't a good match, and walked off. Best for both of us, really. He's just doing mowing for the friend, so a different order of job and money.

So I went searching on Craig’s List, and found someone with a small ad, but the magic words “overgrown yards no problem,” and he’s been great. He gave me an quote, and stuck to it. When he wanted to do work above the original estimate, he checked with me first (and I agreed). It'll probably be around $2K by the time he’s done, but I’m very happy with what I’m getting for it.

The shrubbery got trimmed back pretty severely, and looks much better. The backyard and driveway got all the weeds dug up. The driveway area is now covered it with ground cloth (allegedly good for 25 years) and three inches of river rock. It looks so nice now, and it should be a reasonably permanent solution. Yesterday was the first rain after the rocks got laid down, and they look lovely now that all the dust has been washed off.

The backyard has been leveled and had broadleaf weed killer added, and will get seeded this weekend. I bought a sprinkler, which I hadn't owned, and will have to be assiduous about watering it.

Now I need to find someone to do mowing and ongoing yard maintenance. I’m out of the yard guy’s regular zone, and I suspect he prefers large projects to maintenance in any case. I recommended him to Pat WINOLJ, and she’s going to give him more work.

Maybe I’ll try Craig’s List again. But if anyone knows of someone who's local and affordable, I'm happy to take contact info.

The guy from Standard Heating came to look at my air conditioner today. As I'd suspected, the HomeSmart guy was wrong: it wasn't the condenser. I based this guess on the fact that the system was making noise, but the house was cool. No condenser, no coolth.

Turns out it's the fan that needs replacing, and it needed to be ordered. It might arrive Monday. If not, Wednesday, since Tuesday is a holiday.

In the meantime, the guy turned off the offending fan, so I have no AC. I usually keep the house at 75F in the summer. It's a pleasant but warm day, and the thermostat says the temperature in the house is now up to 78 degrees fondly Fahrenheit. It's only supposed to get to 80F tomorrow, so it shouldn't be too bad.

Today I discovered that some water heaters are heated by gas instead of electricity, and in fact the one in my house is one of those. I discovered that the hard way this morning, when I went to wash a butter dish, and the water kept not getting hot. I finally managed to get it clean in cold water by using lots and lots of dish soap. (My morning ablutions should have been the first clue, but I was done quickly enough that I thought it was just taking a long time to warm up.)

Inspired by a wild surmise, I tried to turn on the gas burner on the stove. Lots of clicks, but no gas.

I went to the front door, and sure enough, there was a notice from the gas company saying that they'd had to turn off the gas because of the construction work on our block, and I would need to be home to have it reconnected. (I was out of town from Wednesday to Sunday.) I called, and was told someone would be there today to take care of it. That was about 12 hours ago. I called around 6:30 pm to see what the story was, and was told that the repair person could be there as late as 10:00 pm. So I stayed home and ordered pizza instead of going out for dinner as planned. There's still 80 minutes before they've defaulted. ("Waiting for the Gas Man or Someone Like Him" just doesn't have the same ring to it...)

ETA: He arrived at 10:20, and departed at 10:40 with everything hooked up again.

From 1966 to 1973, most years I went to YWCA Camp Newaygo (in Newaygo, MI; thus the name) during the month of August. It was an all-girls camp, not at all fancy, but I learned camping and swimming and a bit of horseback riding there. It also had its own traditions and songs, and I loved going there. For complicated reasons, I never worked there as a counselor, which is something I regret.

The camp went through some difficult years in the 1990s, and the YWCA almost sold the site to a land developer. The story goes that the bulldozers were in place as the reprieve occurred, but I don't know if a story improvement loan was invoked for that. In any case, a consortium bought the camp, and it's now part of a nonprofit called True North. There was recently another major land purchase, and the camp now owns a mile of waterfront, and is thriving.

There's an alumnae reunion every five years, which unfortunately always seems to conflict with Fourth Street. I was at the reunion in 2006, but missed the last one. This one I decided to attend, though I was sorry to miss Fourth Street.

I flew into the Muskegon airport, which I'd never known existed before this, but turned out to be more convenient than the Grand Rapids one, and got a ride to camp with one of the camp staff. I appreciated that, since otherwise I would have had to rent a car.

When I was there in 2006, there was the start of a major capital campaign to renovate and add on to the lodge. I wasn't there in 2009 for the grand opening of said lodge, so this was the first time I'd seen it. It used to just be a big assembly room and dining room, with some basement areas for storage and miscellaneous use. (I remember learning table tennis in that basement.) Now the basement is a ground floor -- the hill it was on was dug out -- and there are several dorms, plus bathroom and shower facilities.

The weekend was jam-packed with activities, starting of with a canoe/kayak/tubing trip on the Muskegon River (I canoed), lots of singing, zipping on the three new ziplines, a wetlands trail walk (built over a sphagnum bog; there's a portion where you can see the 50-foot pole emerging unoxidized from the muck), water sports, and a trip to see the new properties.

It was great to see some old friends the years I attended, and see that some old traditions remain and some new ones have been established. I noticed that some of the camp songs had been visited by the folk tradition. Some had new words, and a lot of them had actions to go with them that had never existed in my time.

And then, sadly, things ended after lunch on Sunday, and I got a ride back to the airport from someone driving in that direction. My plane didn't leave until 6:20, so there were several hours sitting around at the airport. There was one other person there, and I later saw him stretched out sleeping on the floor. I was tempted, but didn't follow suit. Muskegon to ORD was a short hop, then I had another hour and a half to wait at ORD. That flight was full, and I took a bump to the 10:30 flight in exchange for a travel voucher.

I finally got home shortly before 1 am. Morwen immediately showed up demanding food. I'd left food for her on Friday, but it was probably long gone by the time I got home. So I fed her, and brought the suitcase toward the bedroom to extract whatever was necessary so I could go to bed.

And here's where the icon for this post comes into play. Normally I use the kitten-with-mouse icon for life's minor annoyances. This time, I'm literalizing the metaphor. As I walked into my bedroom, I saw something on the floor. At a second look, it was a nice, plump mouse. I shrieked. I didn't mean to; it was totally involuntary. At a third look, it was also very dead. No marks, no blood, but also no movement. I went into the kitchen to get some paper towels, and told Morwen (who was still chomping away) that she was a mighty hunter, though of course I have only inferential evidence that she was responsible for the corpse. I gathered it up in the paper towels and took it outside to the garbage can.

In the 14 years I've been living in this house, I'd never seen a mouse until now. I guess a dead mouse is better than a live one, but I hope one dead mouse doesn't mean a colony of live ones I don't know about.

Yesterday night, I decided I wanted some ice cream. I had no clean bowls (I only have three of the size bowl I put ice cream and yogurt in), so I washed the bowls and the few other dishes that had accumulated in the sink. When I was done, I stepped over to dry my hands -- and stepped into a small puddle.

I looked under the sink, and sure enough, everything in there was wet. When I ran the water, I could see water dripping from around the garbage disposal. I mopped things up as best I could, left everything out to dry, and had my ice cream.

This morning, I sent Greg Cotton an e-mail, explaining my plight. It wasn't an emergency, because nothing was leaking unless I ran the water, but I thought the chance of getting a plumber on the Friday of Independence Day weekend was zero. And besides, his boat is in my garage, and dealing with this sort of thing occasionally is the usual payment. He called me not long after, and said he'd be over in a couple of hours to take a look at it, but it was probably a gasket, which was an easy fix.

"A couple of hours later" would be around 11 am, but this was Greg, so when he hadn't shown up at 1 pm, I called him. Sure enough, he'd gotten buried in other tasks, but would be over as soon as he'd taken a shower. I checked to make sure he didn't need to build the shower first (old joke), which he didn't, and he arrived about an hour later.

After a brief poke around the underbelly of my sink, he determined that it wasn't the gasket; rather, my garbage disposal that had corroded enough to be leaking, and it needed replacing. He offered to go with me to Home Depot to get a new one. I shamefacedly said that I had a work project that I had to get done today, and asked if he could get it for me if I gave him money. Luckily, for once I had the cash available, so no need to fiddle with credit cards with the wrong name. He said that it was a two-part installation, and he could do the easy part that would get me able to use the sink again, but he didn't have time to set it in properly right now. I was fine with that.

He came back a while later with the new unit, and disappeared under the sink again. I went back to work on my project. I finished around 5 pm, and he finished shortly thereafter. He told me that he ended up doing the whole job, putty and all, so no need for a follow-up.

Apparently I was very lucky on the timing, because he's home for a couple of days, then off to spend three days in flight refresher school. I'm just grateful I didn't have the spend the weekend without a functioning sink.

Where are the trick-or-treaters? None yet. Last year by this time I'd had enough to start worrying that I'd run out of candy.

ETA: Summoning spell was successful. As soon as I clicked "Save," the doorbell rang. Count is now 3.

Kind of, anyway.

Back in June, I posted that I was thinking of changing providers, because Visi (aka OneNeck) is restricted to copper, and maxes out at 3 Mbps, and my service was actually closer to half that.

I ended up going for the simplest solution: at the Minnesota State Fair, I stopped at the CenturyLink booth and signed up to have my Internet come directly through CenturyLink instead of via Visi. What with all the discounts and promotions, my phone bill will drop about $30/month for the next six months, then for 18 months thereafter will go back to what I had been paying before the switchover. This is still a savings, because I won't need to pay the $20/month I've been paying Visi all this time.

For the moment, at least, I'll be keeping my e-mail at Visi, which they provide for $5/month. I have the moebiusfibers.com domain, but my plan has been to keep that as a business address. If I can come up with a good and available domain name, I'll go for it.

The switchover was fairly painless -- yesterday, my router stopped connecting to the Internet. I opened the box with the new router, and hooked it up. I had to call CenturyLink tech support to finish the setup, but once that was taken care of, all went well. I was mildly surprised that my wireless devices (iPhone and iPad) didn't require me to log in again, even though I used the same network name and password.

My download speed is now 8 to 10 times faster than it was before. It doesn't make much of a difference for web browsing, because the antivirus seems to be the main bottleneck, but it's huge for download, and presumably will also be for Netflix-type streaming.