Challenges
It's been a trying few weeks.
Lots of irksome things have come up in a short period of time, and I just feel like I don't have the time or energy to deal with them all.
I'd hoped to actually have enough free time to go pay a visit to Malcolm down in Punta Gorda once or twice, but it was not to be, between a week when I was being jerked around to a particularly large degree.
I'm still battling the bugs (or as I jokingly refer to them, "the insect civilization", in a bit of Lexx-referencing gallows humor). Pest control has been at least three times now, and they still keep coming. They spray, they bait, and still the little fuckers keep coming back. If they don't bomb the place, I'm just going to have to give up and get used to sharing the place with them. I just don't know what else there is that I can do.
The biggest inconvenience by far was when I came home from work to see an inch of water in my utility closet, and the carpets for several feet in front of it going squish. Of course, the maintenance guy didn't actually FIX anything, so even after the carpet cleaning people had been an gone, it was still leaking. I woke the morning after to another inch of water, and it'd gone further, into the closet and bedroom, not to mention the bathroom. Turns out that the hot water heater in the unit upstairs had failed hard. So I had to harass the maintenance people to actually fix the root cause, and the carpet cleaners had to come again. Not to mention the hassle of having to drag everything from the closet and nearly everything from the bedroom into the living room (and kitchen, once that filled up). It was a real clusterfuck. To add injury to insult, the bookcase I had to move fell apart on me, so I had to fill multiple containers (two boxes and a hamper) with books in order to rescue them from the damp carpet. I ended up having to buy a replacement.
The lack of truly effective pest control (which led to me taking ALL my dishes/glassware/pots and pans out of the kitchen and piling them in the living room waiting to be cleaned) and unexpected creation of an indoor pool weren't the only problems. The dishwasher "caught fire" on me. It was pouring smoke, but fortunately the damage was confined to the burnt-out heating element. Of course, by now it's been well over two weeks and it still hasn't been replaced. And until it is, I'm using dishes out of a giant pile in the living room and having to wash them all by hand.
There have been other things occupying my time, too. The car still needs attention. In fact, the climate control has been a pain in my ass to a large degree lately. It stopped working a while ago (I would push the buttons and nothing would happen) but when I took it to the mechanic, it worked just fine for them. Today I tried to take it out and disassemble it in order to resolder the connections, but the plastic was so old and brittle that it was just breaking to pieces in the process. So I ended up ordering a replacement. Cheaper than an hour's labor at the shop, so I figure it's a reasonable next step.
I did at least get some useful info from the mechanic about the cruise control when I was there. There's no way I'm going to be able to do what I want and hook up a factory W123 cruise assembly. The wiring harness doesn't have any place to hook it in, and there's some sort of hookup to the speedometer I'd need and don't have. Stupid euro model. Why do they hate cruise and tachometers so much over there, anyway? The manual locks and windows aren't worth this annoyance.
In addition to refurbishing the car while I drive it (and the many and sundry sub-projects involved in that) I have a lot of smaller things I seem to be having trouble finding time for. I need to replace the keyboard in the laptop (this one is driving me crazy), the iPod needs a new battery, the one in it currently is only holding a 5% charge at best, I have to try to fix that TV I found, and I need to test that air tank to see if it holds pressure. I just can't seem to force myself to sit down and do these things when I actually have the time.
Lots of irksome things have come up in a short period of time, and I just feel like I don't have the time or energy to deal with them all.
I'd hoped to actually have enough free time to go pay a visit to Malcolm down in Punta Gorda once or twice, but it was not to be, between a week when I was being jerked around to a particularly large degree.
I'm still battling the bugs (or as I jokingly refer to them, "the insect civilization", in a bit of Lexx-referencing gallows humor). Pest control has been at least three times now, and they still keep coming. They spray, they bait, and still the little fuckers keep coming back. If they don't bomb the place, I'm just going to have to give up and get used to sharing the place with them. I just don't know what else there is that I can do.
The biggest inconvenience by far was when I came home from work to see an inch of water in my utility closet, and the carpets for several feet in front of it going squish. Of course, the maintenance guy didn't actually FIX anything, so even after the carpet cleaning people had been an gone, it was still leaking. I woke the morning after to another inch of water, and it'd gone further, into the closet and bedroom, not to mention the bathroom. Turns out that the hot water heater in the unit upstairs had failed hard. So I had to harass the maintenance people to actually fix the root cause, and the carpet cleaners had to come again. Not to mention the hassle of having to drag everything from the closet and nearly everything from the bedroom into the living room (and kitchen, once that filled up). It was a real clusterfuck. To add injury to insult, the bookcase I had to move fell apart on me, so I had to fill multiple containers (two boxes and a hamper) with books in order to rescue them from the damp carpet. I ended up having to buy a replacement.
The lack of truly effective pest control (which led to me taking ALL my dishes/glassware/pots and pans out of the kitchen and piling them in the living room waiting to be cleaned) and unexpected creation of an indoor pool weren't the only problems. The dishwasher "caught fire" on me. It was pouring smoke, but fortunately the damage was confined to the burnt-out heating element. Of course, by now it's been well over two weeks and it still hasn't been replaced. And until it is, I'm using dishes out of a giant pile in the living room and having to wash them all by hand.
There have been other things occupying my time, too. The car still needs attention. In fact, the climate control has been a pain in my ass to a large degree lately. It stopped working a while ago (I would push the buttons and nothing would happen) but when I took it to the mechanic, it worked just fine for them. Today I tried to take it out and disassemble it in order to resolder the connections, but the plastic was so old and brittle that it was just breaking to pieces in the process. So I ended up ordering a replacement. Cheaper than an hour's labor at the shop, so I figure it's a reasonable next step.
I did at least get some useful info from the mechanic about the cruise control when I was there. There's no way I'm going to be able to do what I want and hook up a factory W123 cruise assembly. The wiring harness doesn't have any place to hook it in, and there's some sort of hookup to the speedometer I'd need and don't have. Stupid euro model. Why do they hate cruise and tachometers so much over there, anyway? The manual locks and windows aren't worth this annoyance.
In addition to refurbishing the car while I drive it (and the many and sundry sub-projects involved in that) I have a lot of smaller things I seem to be having trouble finding time for. I need to replace the keyboard in the laptop (this one is driving me crazy), the iPod needs a new battery, the one in it currently is only holding a 5% charge at best, I have to try to fix that TV I found, and I need to test that air tank to see if it holds pressure. I just can't seem to force myself to sit down and do these things when I actually have the time.