Sometimes, they are just too smart for our own good...

Jonah was making faces the other day when Holly told him a story that her mother had told her.

"Jonah, Grandma told me a story when I was your age about a boy who kept making faces and his face stuck that way."

"Really?" Jonah looked at her sensing a setup...

"Yes, and his face was never the same again." Holly pulled it off pretty well, but unfortunately for this situation, Jonah is just too darned smart. He wouldn't fall for it. He deemed it impossible for ones face to freeze and challenge her by telling her to call Grandma.

When Holly called she was amazed that Jonah saw through the ruse at the age of 6. All of her 4 children had fallen for that story hook, line and sinker. Not Jonah.

Hats off to the boy who could not be hoodwinked. In commemoration of this, a little Calvin is in order...



Thankfully Jonah hasn't taken in this far...


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Jonah / Calvin at dinner

Generally Jonah is a very good eater. Sometimes he decides that he doesn't like something before even looking at it. I suppose this happens with all kids. I vaguely recall doing this myself but I'll never admit it... oops just did...

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Customer Service… Cable Companies.

I have another story about the move into our new home. This one deals with the fun part of every move changing and setting up the utilities and services to the house.

For the most part everything transferred over just fine. Except for one part… Cable service. Now one wouldn’t think this would be a complicated matter.

1) We already had an account with Cablevision
2) The former owners of the house also had Cablevision for cable service
3) We were moving from one end of the Village to the other

Seems pretty simple and probably happens many times per week.

Well it turned into a huge complicated mess… go figure...

When we moved to New York we signed up for cable television and cable internet access. Everything was great, we had very few problems. When we were set to move into our new house, they told me it was going to be a breeze. They checked to make sure there was already a hook up there. The girl was friendly and mentioned that the previous owner had recently shut her account off so transferring us over was no problem, someone would be over the following Friday to set everything up… Oh boy…

The same day that I called they shut off the account at our apartment. Not a big deal since we would be moving the next day anyway. After we moved I decided to check out to see if the cable worked. It did… Sort of... The basic cable worked but our digital boxes were useless. The Internet would also not work yet.

I called them on the day they were to come out to work on the cable and they said that it was the following Friday they would be coming out… Great.. I had to get the Internet up and running for Holly to be able to do her work!

So I call customer service. Talked in circles for a while with a person who was clueless and finally got the supervisor who was nearly as clueless at the rep I was speaking with… Grand…

She insisted that I could not get to the internet without having the tech’s come out to set up the equipment. I told her that I have been a computer tech for eight years had am very capable of setting up this end, nothing needs to be adjusted here, it’s on the cable company side that a line of information needs to be changed to make it see our modem.

She insisted that she knew better. So I entered this line of questioning:

Matt: So what you are telling me is that I don’t have any cable access right now, that is why I can’t get to the Internet.
Supervisor: Yes.
Matt: So I also can’t see anything on cable until they come out here?
Supervisor: That’s right (sounding smug)
Matt: So explain to me why I’m watching CNN over basic cable, in my house that has no cable connection.
Supervisor: (long pause) I’m not sure.
Matt: So I can receive information from the cable company, this tells me that I’m connected. The modem that I have has the Mac Address: (whatever the hell it was) and should be able to have YOUR team connect it to this account.
Supervisor: (sheepishly) I’ll have to do some checking and call you back.

Needless to say I never got a call back, but I had the Internet running an hour after I was off the phone.

I HATE INCOMPETANCE!!!

This seems to be the running theme with our cablevision company. For three months we were fighting with them over the billing. It seems that they created a new account for us and never cancelled the old one. Then tired to charge us for the cable boxes that were never returned…

WE WERE STILL USING THEM!!!

I swear it was like pulling teeth with these people. After four months of fighting we finally have everything figured out but it was a royal pain.

I dealt with the technical issues at the start but Holly dealt with the billing issues. It was a team effort and we finally prevailed. It seems like the old saying of: “the customer is always right.” Has been changed to “the customer is always wrong and we will screw them over whenever possible.” Sad that it feels this way, but it seems more often than not that this is the case.

Please feel free to comment. I’m curious about how others are experiencing their customer service with other companies.

Jonah, Once again in the funny papers

I swear that Calvin is the All-American-Kid. I can find so many things that connect to me when I was young and now reliving my childhood through my son Jonah.

This fits so well!


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Visitors in the day...

Guess who came to visit while Brielle was napping.

No, it wasn't the Sandman, early Easter Bunny, late Cupid. It was none other than everyone's favorite religious visitor... The Jehova's Witness...

Let me start off by saying I have NOTHING against other religions in general. I respect that other people may have a different religion from my own. I even have a smidgion of curiosity about the differences between religions (not enough to sit and chat about it, the internet is enough for me...).

That being said. I can understand to a certain extent why people feel the need to sell the Lord door to door. I suppose for some that have no belief in a higher power it is a welcome distraction from their daily lives that may be overwhelming at times. (I'm practicing being optimistic.) In our case, they couldn't help but see my Angel wind chime as they climbed the stairs. It's quite pretty... I'm not an atheist or Satan Worshiper. (We have no cats hanging from trees and all of the Halloween decorations went away right after that holiday.)

I'm secure in my faith and happy to be blissfully ignorant of other religions around me. So when they come a knocking, I don't feel like answering. In this case, Holly didn't feel like answering. This is for several reasons.

1. Brielle is sick and was finally taking her nap
2. The Dogs bark ALOT when people are at the door. When we order Pizza or are expecting company, the dogs get sequestered outside or in a locked bedroom.
3. Holly is also trying to work during this time. She can only get her work done while Brielle sleeps.

So the first, and popular, inclination is to ignore them. Not easy to do when they know you are home because they hear you yelling at the dogs to SHUT UP!!! Because they know you are home they continue to knock. Of course they don't have any idea of reasons 1 - 3 above, they just want to assimilate us into their collective.

Holly handled the whole situation very well. She cracked the door open, apologize for not being able to talk as her daughter just went down for her nap and the dogs are making too much noise for that to continue much longer. She asked for their literature and they went on their way.

Jonah in the funny papers...

I can't tell you how many times Jonah has tried something like this... Thought it would give you all a little chuckle.


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Continuation on Customer Service

This just happened yesterday. Pretty convenient...

Brielle has always been a very healthy girl. She currently has a pretty nasty cough and fever, so Holly took her to the doctor to see about some medication. Holly, Brielle and Jonah made the trek to the doctor. Everything went fine they were both on their best behavior; even though Brie was feeling pretty cruddy.

They received the customary prescription for Amoxicillin, which seems to be the cure-all for child infections, then headed for the pharmacy.

Here’s where everything falls apart. First off, the Rite-aid where we get our prescriptions filled has their pharmacy as far back as possible in the store to promote sales of other items. I understand the marketing aspects of this but if you think about what service they are providing, it for people that aren’t really feeling all that well. They then have to walk through the store infecting others that may be shopping for other things. This is probably a topic for another time, it’s not the main focus of this discussion but it certainly wasn’t a helpful factor either.

When Brielle doesn’t feel well she wants to be held constantly. So Holly was forced to haul the kids through the store to the back counter.

They were more than happy to fill the prescription but wanted to see the insurance card. Brielle was not on record yet for any prescriptions. Unfortunately Holly did not have her card with her, but she and Jonah have had numerous prescriptions filled which keeps the insurance information right on the computer. Ah, the Information Age…

This is where crabby pharmacy girl takes her leap of ignorance. She was insisting upon having the actual card, which Holly didn’t have with her. Of course the children at this point were not going to be helpful to the situation; with Brie, not feeling well and whiny and Jonah deciding to test his boundaries to see how far away he could wander before Mom yelled at him… Holly, keeping her cool, stated that she and Jonah have both had prescriptions filed before here and everything should be on the computer.

The girl agreed, but said that the information on the computer is confidential and that she couldn’t just look it up. She then said it would be faster if she had the card.

So Holly, trying to be helpful without sounding patronizing said it wouldn’t be faster considering she would have to go home with a sick child and drag them all back to the store again. Then Holly suggested that the girl pull up Holly’s current prenatal prescription and copy the insurance information down.

The girl, now red faced, agreed and set up the prescription. Apparently it takes two hours to mix up amoxicillin. So Holly went home and asked me to pick up the prescription on the way home.

I went in to pick it up only to wait for them to mix it and put it in the bottle… What took two hours? I thought the medication was a powder which is then mixed with something, probably water to make the magic liquid. I didn’t ask, I just wanted to get home to my family.

Just another breakdown of customer service. What happened to the days of trying to do whatever it takes to make the customer happy? Dead and gone they may be.

A quick FYI... There's a new Rant on my other page. Feel free to check it out HERE.

Customer Service…

I’ve noticed over the past several years that customer service has been going downhill among many different industries at about the same rate. At first I thought it was because I moved out to New York and by stereotype people are less friendly out here… Speaking from experience, this is partly true. I have met numerous friendly people, but when it comes to customer service with businesses, it stinks…

I started out my working life in a restaurant. My eight years of working there was always involved in the customer service realm. I started out greeting the guests when they came in, and then moved on to serving their meals. In order to make pretty good money, you had to be pretty good at Customer Service. It just makes sense… If the people like you, most would feel guilty NOT leaving you a good tip. This wasn’t a sure thing, but it all averages out at the end of the night.

Recently we have been having a string of bad luck at numerous restaurants with poor service. Servers not being attentive, chatting in the back and bringing out cold food… The list goes on. What ever happened to customer service?

Feel free to share your experiences as well. I'm curious about the break-down in customer service.

Rants, Raves and Intriguing Topics…

This will be my first parallel posting. I've had a number of ideas for topics to put out on the blog and thought that I'd prefer to leave the Long Island Engel Home to more family topics and events. I’ve created a new blog called Rants, Raves and Intriguing Topics where I’ll discuss events in the news that move me, new technologies or just something that I need to just rant and rave about. Hopefully it will be entertaining and thought provoking. I welcome all comments as I discuss anything and everything.

My first topic will be about BioDiesel and an article / news video clip from CBS News.
I've been doing some research lately on BioDiesel. I mentioned in a previous message about some of the research and my method of getting the information. Since then I've been getting a lot of information on the BioDiesel industry and how it appears to be growing more and more.
To give you a practical view of what BioDiesel is and what it does here’s a good link.

A quick definition of BioDiesel: BioDiesel is derived from nothing less than vegetable oils. It can be pretty much any kind of oil. Extraction from soybeans is the most common, but there are others that tend to have a higher yield per acre that may be making a better option in the near future.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am not much of an activist. I’ve never been into the tree hugging thing. Although I like trees in general, I’ve never met one that seemed to need a hug. Every now and then I hear something on the news or on NPR that piques my interest. BioDiesel is one of them. Although I don’t own a Diesel powered vehicle, the concept of BioDiesel makes me consider getting one.

The process of making BioDiesel is fairly simple. So simple in fact that you can make your own in your own garage. Yes, I said your own garage. If you don't have a garage you could make it in a shed if you like it takes up about as much room as a furnace and a hot water heater. Here's a link on how to make your own.

Holly and I were watching 60 Minutes the other night and saw a clip about global warming. This reminded Holly of a clip she had recently seen about a group of high school students who built a BioDiesel vehicle after school in their shop class. You can read and watch it here. There are many companies racing to become the leaders in BioDiesel production. I've found one that I think could be a viable company to invest in. I may discuss this at a later time. What I find enlightening in this news article and video, is that a group of troubled high school students that everyone else had given up on were responsible for building a vehicle that can run completely on fuel derived from vegetable oil. The following excerpt from the article sums it up pretty well:

"We made this work," says Hauger. "We're not geniuses. So why aren't they (the Automotive Industry) doing it?"

Kosi thinks he knows why. The answer, he says, is the big oil companies.

"They're making billions upon billions of dollars," he says. "And when this car sells, that'll go down — to low billions upon billions."

Recently General Motors (GM) has been putting out advertisements that say their vehicles will work with BioDiesel. What’s not so well known is that any Diesel vehicle made after 1992 can run on B100 (100% BioDiesel).

A number of states are requiring that all diesel fuel sold be a mixture of BioDiesel; At least 3%. Many are keeping the amount low where others are making it a B20 20% Biodiesel 80% petrol diesel. Some municipalities are requiring all road crew vehicles, bus lines and school buses to use the “green fuel”, as they like to call it.

Many people are saying that this is a great concept, but (there always has to be a but in there somewhere), there is a belief that there could never be a total switch from petrol diesel to BioDiesel because the production could never meet the need. There just isn’t enough space to grow enough crops.

Even so, reducing our dependence on foreign oil is an attractive reason along with pumping money into our own economy.

I’m continuing to research more about this. If you are curious I can post more information at a later date. Feel free to comment and let me know your thoughts on this. I welcome the opportunity to chat about it.

Topics like this one will be posted on the new blog (Rants, Raves and Intriguing Topics) Feel free to check it out!

The News You Have all Been Waiting For....

We, meaning Holly, had an ultrasound performed yesterday to determine the sex of the baby and figure out all of the other development stage things they check for.

The new baby was breach. For those without kids or any knowledge whatsoever about the birth process, this is when the baby is feet downward instead of head down. This made it a little more challenging to view the important region for determining the sex of the baby.

The technician was very good at maneuvering the phaser like implement to view the baby. She caught a few glimpses and was able to give us a 99% on the baby being a BOY!

Holly has another appointment next week to check again to confirm. We'll see if this stays the same. I'll keep you all posted.

The due date is somewhere in the first week of July. More than likely we'll have him at the end of June.

Lessons Learned...

The family and I went shopping a few weeks ago to our local shoppers warehouse. Out here on Long Island, there are a number of choices for such shopping. Both Costco and Sams have taken root out here, but there's one nearer to us called BJ's. Apparently they are all over too. I had just never been anywhere near one before moving to New York.

After we purchased our first home we decided that we finally had some room to store items that we could purchase in bulk. We headed to the local BJ's, took some unflattering images that barely resemble ourselves and set off to shop. Armed with our membership cards we pushed the cart with one bad wheel, up and down huge aisle after aisle picking up items and making mental calculations on how much we saved by buying in bulk.In order for us to make the shopping go as quickly as possible with two kids I generally run ahead and grab other things and drag either Jonah or Brielle with me.

We had a few items written down that we wanted to get for meals we would be making throughout the coming week. Two of these recipes included ground beef. We needed in total, 3 pounds of the ground up cow to make our favorite dishes. While I ran off getting hotdog buns and sandwich bread, Holly picked out the packages of meat.

When I returned she was concerned about the fact that she had to get two packages and would have an extra pound of meat left over. I figured we could find something to make with it. Hamburger Helper was down the very next aisle!!! In a 3 pack!

We finished up our shopping and headed for home. It was getting late, so Holly took Brielle up for a bath while Jonah and I unloaded the car and put the groceries away.

Something didn't feel right as I was putting the packages of hamburger away. I took a closer look at the packaging and spoke with Holly from the stairs.

"Babe, how many pounds did we need of hamburger?"

The splashing and giggling of Brielle in the tub over shadowed by Jonah's video game made it difficult to hear Holly's response.

"What was that?"

"Three pounds!" punctuated by an extra loud splash and a fusillade of laughter.

I couldn't suppress my laughter any more. "So what are we going to do with the extra nine pounds?"

I saw her head pop out from the bathroom door. "What?"

"We bought twelve pounds of hamburger..."

"Shut up..." she thought I was joking.

"As I laughed louder she began to realize that I wasn't kidding and that infect she had been looking at the cost per pound instead of the weight."

Well we both had a good laugh about it. None of the meat was put to waste. Jonah was extra excited, because we made a double batch of his favorite meatball recipe for his spaghetti.

Lessons learned...

The good news is that ground up cow has many uses and I found every single one of them...

The Blog’s of Other’s

I have to give credit where credit is due. I didn't get into this whole blogging thing until my good friend Clifford had been writing for a while and brought me into the fold. In this section I want to give out a few of the blogs that I read up on throughout the day.

Of course my first one to hit is my buddy Clifford out in California. His Changing Directions Blog is enlightening and entertaining. It also proves that with perseverance you can eliminate thestrangle-holdd of credit card debt and student loans and start living the RDPD life. For those unfamiliar, RDPD is the quick form of speaking about the Rich Dad, Poor Dad series of books that give a pretty good financial education in simplified concepts.

The next one that I visit is that of Scott Adams. This is the cartoonist that brought us the adventures of Dilbert as he works through his daily office antics. This blog is a fun read. If you were or are a fan of Dilbert, his writing is just as entertaining as his comics.

My third, and final, blog that I visit is that of Mr. David Bouchier. He is a writer/broadcaster who lives not too far from me here on Long Island. I first heard his essays on NPR on my daily commute to work. The first one that I heard was Ghost of Christmas Past. Since then I have been pouring through his pastessayss and visited his Blog (Writing Life) as well. I've been enjoying his writing style and hope to learn much from him as I develop my own.

Here are the links one last time.

• Changing Directions
• Scott Adams - Dilbert
• David Bouchier - Essays Home Blog: Writing Life

I hope you enjoy these blogs as much as I do.

Have a great weekend!

Google, Google, Google...

I’ve found a new service, at least it’s somewhat new to me, that is pretty cool for anyone that does the same kind of search on the Internet often. It's called Google Alerts from Google News. (I had to mention it, just in case the picture didn't give it away...)

I happened to be on google a few months ago researching something that I had heard on NPR while driving to work. (Yes, I said NPR… I used to think it was just of old people… Now I know that I’m getting old for sure…)

A news blurb was talking about Biodiesel and how it’s an easy to produce renewable fuel source. This peaked my interest, even though I do not have a Diesel power vehicle. I did a search on Google and received a notice that I could have this type of news search e-mail to me on a regular basis. Curious, I set up the mail information and proptly forgot about it.

The next day, in my inbox was a message labeled (Google Alert - "biodiesel") I opened the message and found a link to an article that mentioned biodiesel with a brief description.I thought this was a pretty cool service so I tried out a search in it on people. Being a Billy Joel fan for more than half my life I set it up to e-mail me with Billy Joel hits. I now receive messages a couple times throughout the week on what Billy’s been up to. Concert dates, interviews, whatever they felt like writing about.

The easiest way to use it is to perform the search you wish to receive a Google Alert for and scroll to the bottom of the listing. You will find a link for:

(New! Get the latest news on (your search here) with Google Alerts)

Anyway, I thought I’d share this all with you. Hopefully it hasn’t ‘bored you to tears. I think it’s a great service for topics that you find interesting or what I really like to use it for is to keep tabs on companies that I’m interested in from an investment standpoint.

Morning Visitor

After the encounter with the raccoons, we decided to feed the cats on the front porch and bring it in every evening. This being my responsibility, I forget to do this more often than I remember. One morning I was going to set the trash out on the front porch to take out to the garbage can when I found a pink nosed visitor eating from the cat dish that I had forgotten to bring in from the night before. It blinked up at me and wiggled it’s pink little nose and went right back to eating. No, it wasn’t Ty, Rumor or Scandle. The bare pink tail was the giveaway. A young opossum decided to come up for a snack.

I stood there at the door watching for a little while until he became a little more self conscious and wandered away. It was then that I noticed Rumor lying on the railing about three feet above the young food thief.

“What good are you?” I asked him expecting no answer and getting only a yawn in return. I closed the door and went back inside being somewhat thankful that the cats aren’t trying to fight with the wildlife.

Visitors in the Night

One night while watching some television in the family room, Holly and I heard crash come for the garage below us. The cats had now been outside for about a month but were generally not destructive when hanging out in the garage at night. We would keep the garage door open about 6 inches so they could crawl in and out. The garage is also home to our gas furnace and hot water heater. So the temperature in the garage is fairly comfortable, especially for those covered in fur.

They have it quite comfortable out there. There are several empty boxes for them to perch on or crawl into and their food and water were always filled to keep their bellies full.

On this night, I had a feeling that I wasn’t going to be dealing with our cats. It seemed that over the past week the dog and cat food bags had gone much lower than I could have imagined three cats eating. Mysteriously the bags were being ripped open which the cats generally don’t do.

I grabbed my trust flashlight and headed for the basement where we have an entry into the garage. The lights witch is located on the inside of the garage near the door. I turned on the flashlight and opened the door slowly. A pair of glowing eyes inside a black mask peered in at me. I fumbled with the flashlight as I stepped behind the door never taking my eyes from the intruder.

The Fat Raccoon turned its back on me and scuttled under the garage door. Jesus I swore under my breath reaching in and turning on the lights to the garage.

A banging noise erupted from the back of the garage. I turned my head and the flashlight toward the sound. We have a corner of the garage where we have been storing spare boards as we have been fixing up the house. The boards had seemed to take on a life of their own and slid against one another in a xylophonic melody.

“Another one.” I said under my breath to no ones else but myself. I seem to talk to myself without answering. I suppose this is pretty normal.

I closed the door to the basement and found a six foot bamboo pole that had been left by the former owners. As good a weapon as any I suppose.

I made my way to the back of the garage through the maze of unpacked boxes. I shielded myself from the pile of lumber with Holly’s tack box from her equestrian days. I used the flashlight to light up the floor near the boards and found a striped tail attached to a rather big raccoon butt.

I’m guessing Raccoons, much like children, think if they can’t see you, you can’t see them…

I gave my new found friend a friendly poke in the butt with the end of the bamboo stick. A slight growl and bumping of lumber on lumber came again and the little guy slid out of the lumber and stopped near some boxes. We stared at one another for what was probably like three seconds but felt like a minute. I decided to reason with him. “I’m not going to hurt you, I just want you to leave.” I can’t believe I was talking to a raccoon. The raccoon looked at his escape way and back up at me. “Go on,” I pointed to the now open garage door.

The raccoon took my suggestion and scurried from the garage. I followed him outside and watched as he scuttled into the woods beside our house. It was then that I found where the huge ass raccoon had stopped. On the edge of our property where the wooded area begins stand a very large oak tree. I couldn’t possible wrap my arms around this tree, nor would I want to with all of the thick vines climbing up the trunk. The bigger of the two raccoons must have exhausted himself from hauling his big fat butt out of the garage. He had stopped climbing up the trunk and was hanging there starting at me from about eight feet up. I had the flashlight on his and he just stayed there staring at me. He certainly had little fear of me, which is hardly the case for me of him. I gave him the look, you know the one, “And Stay Out!”

We have since placed the cat and dog food into the basement. The cats have their food on the front porch during the day and we try to bring it in every night. We still see the raccoons every now and then. They are usually running up or down the hill along the road late at night. I guess they are working off all that food that they devoured during their late-night raiding.

Weird Winter

I started writing this message last Friday. I suppose this could have been a contributing factor to our recent weather situation. Here’s what I started with. And a before picture...

This is our third winter on Long Island. We are now in February and it has only snowed twice with any accumulation. The first time was two weeks before Christmas. Jonah was very excited and wore his pajamas inside out to bed in hopes that this would make for a snow-day. I’m guessing this is an east coast thing. It must have worked to a certain extent because they had a two hour delay the next morning. (Jonah continued to where his pajamas inside out for the next week in hopes of a full day off. No such luck.)

The second session of snow gave us two to three inches. Finally!!! Winter is here! Jonah and Brielle were elated. The slope in our front yard was perfect for sledding for the kids. They had a blast playing in the snow and had to make a few snow angels as well.

Two days later it rained. All the snow went away. We still have no snow.

The kids are kind of disappointed that they haven’t been able to play out in the snow. Jonah, more than Brielle. She doesn’t really get it yet.

The other day we received in the mail some gardening and landscaping catalogs from my Mom in Michigan. She put some notes on different plants we could use in our landscape-challenged yard. This gave us the urge for spring. Nice green plants, new flowers, birds singing… We’ve had our heads in the catalogs for the past week, ear marking pages for further analysis and dreaming of the warmer days to come. (The temperatures have been in the upper 40’s and has reached 60 a number of times.)

Since receiving the catalogs the temperatures have been in the 20’s and 30’s. “It’s beginning to feel a lot like Winter….”

Of course now it wants to be more like winter when I’m craving for it to be spring to make the yard look much nicer…

As I wrote the previous text I hit the weather.com site to see what was coming out way. They were predicting 12 – 18 inches of snow. Well, they said this before and we received 2 inches and it melted the next day…

This time the weather men were right. We received around 14 inches of snow throughout the night and most of the day yesterday. Jonah was excited for all the snow and had the foresight before bed to turn his clothes inside out. This helped to get another 2 hour delay. I was also hoping for a snow day. The lab ended up being closed until 12:00. At least a half day could be spent with the family where I’d otherwise be trapped in a cramped office…

It was nice getting to see the yard blanketed in the pretty white snow. Not so nice trying to move the drifted snow off the driveway. I’m still a little sore but at least my back didn’t get screwed up again.

Arachnid Wars

The previous owner of the house was a naturalist. She liked to keep the landscaping somewhat natural. Most of the bushes were over grown with a pair of pine trees flanking the front porch that were in their last stages of life.
We found that the house had a good amount of spiders taking up residence both inside and outside of the house. We made quick order of evicting the eight legged intruders from within the house. Most of these were standard house spiders but some were huge nasty looking ones. (yes, I’m a little arachnophobic..)
After a little research on the web, we found that these are not the brown recluse that we had originally thought. They are commonly mistaken for them but they are actually a grass spider. These are the ones that make the conical shaped webs you find in shrubs that are about the size of a silver dollar.
YUCK!
Yet again, Home Depot bound…
We picked up three bottles of bug killer. It had spiders listed as well and it said to soak the area along the foundation. I not only soaked the foundation, but any and all spider weds I came across in the process. As I traversed the yard I can honestly say that I killed at least 100 spiders around the outside of the house. Many of the over-grown bushes had four or more webs in them.
As the mists of the battle dissipated, I found no more of the creepy critters crawling anywhere. There have been very few found in the house since, but I am ever vigilant and have my trusty spray bottle ready. As I’ve proven, I’m not afraid to use it. AH! Get it OFF ME!!!!

Flooring

When we moved into our new house, the carpet was pretty bad. I say this as nicely as possible… It appeared to be original to the house. Twenty-year-old carpet wasn’t doing so well.

To make things worse, the previous owner had had cats. I have nothing against cats, we have three of our own. Apparently these cats liked to mark their territory, which made our cats want to mark it as well. This was no going to fly for us. We thought that changing the flooring would probably help. But even then the peeing continued. At the time we felt bad about it, but we had to make our cats become outdoor cats. We could not find any way for them to NOT pee in the house. So we made it very comfortable for the cats to sleep in the garage at night and rule the yard by day.

Remarkably the cats Love it outside. Rumor, my 6 year old Himalayan, has come alive since being outdoors. He used to be lethargic and grumpy toward the other cats. Now he is guardian of the yard. He and Ty chase off other cats from our yard on a daily basis. But they don’t want anything to do with the Opossum or Raccoons… More on them later.

We had finally decided on a nice kind of pergo style flooring. We found the best deals at Ikea in Hicksville. We carefully measured out how much we needed for both the family and living room and picked up the correct amount of flooring.

We started out by installing the flooring in the front family room where the kids play and watch TV. Pulling all of the staples from the sub-flooring was a royal pain, but a good pair of pliers helped out considerably.

On the day we started the flooring, we were able to finish about a third of the room before I had to leave for work. When I returned at about 9:30 Holly had finished all but the last row of boards. Go Holly! She would have had it all finished if not for the hot water base board radiators. This proved to be a challenge to install the flooring around.

The Living room proved to be a bit more challenging. The first step was to figure out the angled cuts I needed to make in the flooring to fit the bay window. Considering my geometry days are long in the past, it took a bit of head scratching, tape measures and angles to get it just right. The next hurdle was much more difficult to overcome. It seems that the floor closer to fireplace is a touch higher than the rest of the floor. So while we were installing the flooring, which is a reminder of legos from when I was a kid, the uneven section proved to be very challenging. I can’t begin to describe the methods we created to make it work. But in the end the floor turned out great.

Vent Fan

Yet another trip to Home Depot yielded a vent fan for the full bath in the upstairs. This was a very nice and much needed Christmas gift from Holly's mom Sandy and Merlin. How the house never had a fan installed before is beyond me. The walls, window and mirror fogged up within moments of starting the shower. Initially we showered with the window open to vent some of the humidity. This doesn't work so well as the weather gets cooler. So another trip with Merlin to Home Depot and the early Christmas gift was set to be installed in the bathroom.

We quickly set to work figuring the best location in the ceiling while I crawled around in the attic. Thankfully the majority of the spiders that I've been finding around the house haven't been venturing into the attic. More on the Arachnid Wars later...

The installation was fairly easy. With most of the work coordinated by Merlin we were able to get the job done in quick order. We pre-wired the fan before mounting it in the ceiling, which saved us a ton of time. We also installed a timer switch in the wall to give us better flexibility.
One step that we didn't have to worry about was creating an outside vent hole in the roof to vent the humid air. The bathroom was strategically located at the end of the house were I was able to mount the vent tube right to the attic vent at the end of the house. It couldn't have worked out better if we had planned it that way. Actually, that was the deciding factor on getting the fan in the first place. The toughest part of installing one of these is cutting the hole in the roof. As we do not have a ladder tall enough to reach the roof yet this would have been difficult to say the least.

The next job of this caliber will be installing ceiling fans and wiring in each of the bed rooms. This house was built in the early 80's. Apparently it was popular to not install ceiling lights in the bedrooms. Of course there are light switches in each room but they control power outlets instead. Not my ideal setup, so this spring we'll tackle this project.

The Wall

The first thing that Merlin and I tackled in the house was the railing at the top of the stairs. There was an industrial style pipe railing bolted to the floor at the top of the stairs. This was rather unsafe considering Brielle is walking and running around now. We wanted to have a gate at the top to keep her safe. Of course one of the first things Jonah had to try out was crawling through the pipes to go down the stairs. This was exactly what we wanted to keep from happening.

Merlin came up with an idea that would be less expensive than removing and replacing the existing railing. We built around the pipe railing using it as the bones for a wall. It turned out great. We put in 2x4 framing put 1x6’s on the front and top and enclosed the central part in drywall. The project took a good share of the day but turned out great.

The House (improvements)

We like our new house very much. Structurally the house is just fine the way it is. There are a few things we changed within the first week. Holly’s Mom and Merlin came out right after we moved in to see the new house and help out with little things here and there.

Apparently there were more little things than I realized right away. I went to work one day and came home to find a new sink in the first floor bathroom and a new faucet in the upstairs bath. Then a new faucet appeared in the kitchen along with new lights in both bathrooms. I thought the home improvement fairy was stopping by bearing gifts until I realized we were paying for these things.

Then I got a lawnmower… It had been a long time since I had mowed a lawn. As a kid I hated mowing the lawn. The only positive thing that I could ever get out of mowing the lawn, other than it looking good, was that I could get a pretty good tan in the process. This, of course, was before all the concerns with skin cancers and the worries of other abnormalities.

We ended up with a great deal on a lawnmower from Home Depot.

Merlin and I arrived at Home Depot before the ladies and the kids. There was a line-up of slightly used lawn mowers. One's that had been used once or twice and then returned. They called them "refurbished".

We saw a Honda that looked pretty good. The Original price was $268. He said he'd take $68 off and make it an even $200. I called the Boss (Holly), who said go for it. I told him “ok”, he filled out the little work order told me to take it to checkout and bring the receipt back to pick up the mower. We met up with Holly and the rest of the clan in the store and picked up everything else that we needed.

As we went through the checkout I was off looking at hot tubs or something while they finished checking out. As they came up to me they had these wide eyed expressions that I couldn't at first read. They handed me the receipt and told me to run to get the mower before they changed their minds.

Apparently when Joe Home Depot wrote up my slip he wrote down the original price at $268 and the discount of $200 for the end price of $68.

When I got over to the mowers again there was this woman who spoke maybe three words of English who looked at the receipt, then the mower, then the receipt again… then once again the mower. Handed me the receipt and said "have good day". (those were the three words…)
I sped off with the mower like a bandit and threw it into the Blazer.

After we got home I found out from Holly and her Mom that they had tried to tell the cashier several times that this wasn't the correct price. But he said he had to ring it up the way it was written… This made me feel a little less guilty…

The mower runs great so far, we haven't had any problems with it.

House Hunting / Moving Again

We spent quite a while cleaning up credit and getting fit to buying our first house. In the early spring of 2005 we found a listing that seemed to be a great price. The house was quite small but the large lot made up for the size of the house. We inquired on the property but by then we were too late. Apparently within hours of the listing the house was flooded with inquiries and an offer had been accepted the same day. It was this that put us into the officially looking for a house mode. The realtor that contacted us on this property started showing us houses… What’s interesting is that the second house he showed us is the house we eventually bought. Our first impression was nice house, nice lot very private but a bit too pricy for us. It took a lot more looking for us to realize that the house fit our needs very well and with a ready-made apartment in the basement the prospects for income grew as well.

I won’t bore you with the details of mortgages and rates, of course there were all kinds of trials and tribulations to detail there. Instead, I will stick to the theme so far with moving. Ah, once again packing all the memories and accumulated trinkets up for another move. Although this one was at least just across town. Not too bad at all, not likely to have a head gasket blow enroute.

We opted for Ryder this time instead of U-Haul which we have since been boycotting with a vengeance. It seems the only time their vehicles get maintained is when they break down. Not exactly a model business plan to follow, in my opinion.

The closing was set for August 31st the day our lease was set to expire. We figured that we could pack everything up and move it all night long and have the keys ready to be left by morning.

I picked up the Ryder truck while Holly went through the closing process. I had Jonah and Brielle with me which made the pickup a little more interesting but not enough to write it all out for you now…

We started packing everything into the truck which was taking much longer than we were expecting. Much to our surprise a few of the guys from the mortgage company came over to help us move. Since we still hadn’t made any close friends that we could ask to help us move, they found it in the kindness of their hearts to come over and help us load up and move our house over.

It took us longer than we expected. We had to stop for a few hours and start again early in the morning when the help came back to assist us again. From 9:00 pm till 2:30 am I moved items to the house.

We were complete with the move by early afternoon and had completed the clean-up of the townhouse. I handed the keys to Rocko, who as usual was very kind. I bade him farewell and headed back to the new house.

The only snafu with the whole house purchasing process was our view from the back yard. Our house is situated on the side of a hill and all the times we had toured the property a large amount of trees filled the backyard. Our property is fenced in the back by chain link fence. The very back fence is taller with barbed wire. This is for the security of a portion of the sewer system and the power plant. When we toured the property this was all covered in trees.
The next morning after we started moving in I looked out the back windows to find no trees. Bare sand with construction equipment everywhere. Trees were still being ripped out as I watched in dismay.

We found out a little later in the day when the neighbors stopped by to greet us. They said that there was a three year construction plan to rebuild a state of the art sewer treatment station to replace the one currently there. This has been the only drawback to our whole process of the move. On one hand the trees that used to block our view of the Port Jefferson Harbor no long block this view. We now have a pretty good view of the water if you can focus past the dome of the plant behind us. We are trying to figure out several options for screening this view. It appears that Bamboo is a possible solution to our view. Within a short period of time we should be able to have the area hidden behind a forest of bamboo. We’ll keep you posted on this.

The Move (in closing)

The story of our move from Michigan to New York has been told numerous times. I once wrote it all out and e-mailed it to some friends soon after we were settled. It has long since been lost in the ether since that time but has left an indelible memory on me that I won’t soon forget. The story of our move to our first house is not as fraught with issues but it is mildly entertaining as well.

The Move (the morning after)

When I finally regained consciousness the enxt morning, I was being awakened by Jonah who thought that since the sun was up that it was time to wake up. I looked at the clock and tried to figure out why the sun was out at 5:30 in the morning. Then I realized that even though we were still in the same time zone the sun rises here first. I made a mental note to paint Jonah’s window black and tried to go back to sleep.

The Move (the rest of the way...)

One good thing that came out of having the truck die in Pennsylvania is that we didn’t have to travel at 45 mph any longer. The tow truck could match speed with us and make it all the way through. Unfortunately there was a traffic jam getting onto the George Washington Bridge. This is normal so we weren’t too upset by this. The unfortunate part was that we were separated from the truck. We felt confident that the driver would find his way with Holly’s expert directions which she copied from our mapping software directions that we were using.

29 hours after we left Michigan, we made it to Port Jefferson at 8:00 pm on July 2nd. Having driven straight through with my Blazer a number of times, I had clocked the mileage at 777 miles, which I was able to drive in exactly 12 hours. This was with minimal stops for the necessities, bathroom, food and gas. We had finally reached our destination. However, we were too late to get into the townhouse. So we stayed at one of the local hotels. In this, the gods smiled down on me and was able to get me a discounted rate. I don’t know if it was the “I’ve been through hell for the past 29 hours please take pitty on me” look that I gave the desk clerk, but no matter we had a nice room.

After checking in we picked up 0Holly’s brother Michael who had originally intended to help us move in earlier in the day. We took a quick trip to the Townhouse and found the tow truck driver unloading the truck from the big rig. He left the truck spanning several parking spaces near our apartment and headed back for Pennsylvania. We tried to peak in the windows of our new place but all was covered and dark. We decided a late dinner of pizza was in order and a local restaurant in our new Home Town fit that need. What made the evening all the better was that the restaurant was playing the live show of Billy Joel from Madison Square Garden over the background speakers. All was good.

The next day started out early once again. This time it was all my fault. I neglected to read the fine print on our lease that stated I was supposed to send the security deposit to the rental office prior to getting a key. Of course a personal check would not do. So we scrambled about and were able to get money orders from the local post office, our NEW post office.

I met up with… let’s call him Rocko, being in New York is affecting me already. He was a stereotypical New Yorker in appearance but very polite and pretty cool which isn’t necessarily commonplace in New York. He gave me a quick tour of our new townhouse, bade us good luck and went on his way.

It felt pretty good being in our new place. It was very open and clean, then the realization sunk in that it was up to Holly and I to move all of the stuff out of the 26 foot truck into our new place. Thankfully we were on the ground floor, yet this didn’t ease my mind.

First things first. Pull the truck into the front of the townhouse. I tried to start the truck. dead battery. Great, luck wasn’t starting out so great… I pulled the Blazer in front of the truck to give it a jump… hmmm I don’t remember this hood release being so difficult. I pulled and pulled. It wouldn’t give. I felt around the hood, of course my fingers wouldn’t’ fit in the cracks… I pulled some more… SNAP! Broken hood release cable, hood still not open. For the love of GOD! After doing a pretty good impersonation of Bill Bixby turning into the Lou Ferrigno, sans the rippling muscles, I decided to use the Avalon to charge the battery of the truck. I let it set for quite a while to charge, but nothing was going to charge that battery.

Holly called U-Haul once again to have someone pull the truck in front of our townhouse. While waiting for that to happen I figured that I would try to move a few things into the new place to get things started. I unlocked the back of the truck and attempted to pull the sliding door up. It wouldn’t budge. Feeling my blood begin to boil along with the 89 degree temperature and 75% humidity I stepped up on the bumper and pulled again. It gave about 2 inches. I was able to peak in under the door to see that everything that was in the truck had shifted backward toward the door. I suppose this made sense considering the truck was hauled a couple hundred miles in a 35 degree angle.

Frustrated, tired and (pardon the expression) pissed off, I had finally had it. I don’t know if my eyes turned white or if any part of me turned green, but I put every ounce of anger, frustration and exerted every muscle to capacity.

The door lurched upward several feet making me envision prying open the open maw of an ancient beast. I felt a little better after this although it wouldn’t be until later when all my leg muscles and back would start reminding me how stupid I was. For now I felt some kind of satisfaction and I moved those items I could from the door to open it the rest of the way.
I was able to move a number of things from the truck before the next tow truck came to drag the carcass of the truck to the front door of the townhouse. For the rest of the day and way into the night Holl and I dragged out box after box, crate after crate bed frame after bed frame from the belly of the beast. We ended around 2:00 am.

The Move (on the road)

As we traveled south on I-75 through Detroit, I found that the 26 foot U-Haul truck would go no faster than 45 mph. No matter how hard I pressed the pedal to the floor the truck would not pass 45!. I must have calculated in my weary mind for over three miles before I figured out that at this pace we would add an extra six hours to our calculated drive time. Wonderful…

The sun was setting over Detroit as we chugged away at 45 mph. I called my lovely wife Holly on her cellular phone and notified her of the speed problem. She and Jonah were singing kid songs from CD’s with the dogs sprawling over any extra space available to them.

Holly wasn’t at all pleased thus far with our experience with U-Haul but we made the best of it and stopped halfway through Ohio for the night.

We woke early the next morning and left before sunrise to get an early start. I wasn’t afraid of getting ticketed for breaking any speed limits so I kept the truck floored the entire way to Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is fairly flat as you travel east but eventually you start hitting some hills. Then you come upon some bigger hills. I think they call these mountains. Being from Michigan I had not come across these all that often. Entering the mountains did not fair well with the POS truck I was driving. By the time I reached the top of most of the steeper mountainous roads I was traveling 30 mph. I also discovered this pretty little red light that would turn on as I got to the top. I read the small lettering beneath it. “over heating” I then could hear a funny buzzing sound that I could barely differentiated from the rattling, creaking and banging of the truck.

As I reached the summit the light turned off and the buzzing ceased. Smiling at my good fortune, I coaxed the truck as fast as it would go to catch up to Holly once again. She didn’t realize that the truck didn’t sustain the 45 mph going uphill so she was a good distance ahead. The mountains and valleys grew more and more numerous and the familiar light and buzzing came and went with the crest of each. I had a plan, that if it stayed red too long going uphill I would pull over and let the engine cool down for a while. A good plan in theory, but I was to find out a bit more difficult to implement.

Yet another mountain, but this time with some twists, turns and construction zones. I found myself surrounded by large semi trucks that passed me with ease even in the mountains of Pennsylvania. One such truck was unable to pass me even while towing the body of an army tank. Yes, I said tank and I meant tank. The only thing missing was the turret.

Of course the construction zones in the mountains were on the roadsides which meant, you guessed it, no shoulder to pull off on. As I started up the hill the lovely buzzing and red dashboard light lit up and stayed on. The winding road continued uphill on and on with twists and turns and a constant grade that never let the engine slow it’s laboring. The orange cones and pylons lined the road making an emergency stop an impossibility. I tried to contact Holly via cell phone but to no avail. No service registered on my phone and stayed that way until I reached the top.

At long last the summit had been reached. At this point I was traveling roughly 30 mph and had managed to upset every trucker possible on that stretch of highway. I decided the engine should take a rest after this last uphill marathon run . Luckily Holly had pulled over to the side and waited for me at the top. I was quickly able to hail her on the phone and pulled to the side of the road as well.

As soon as I reach 25 mph I saw the white cloud pouring from the engine compartment. I stopped and shut down the truck as quickly as possible but the damage had already been done. I sat in the cab watching the steam pour from the hood. Great… what next I thought as I climbed from the cab and pulled open the hood of the derelict before me.

I’ll let you in on a little secret. I know NOTHING about cars, trucks or any other kind of vehicle that runs on any kind of motor. I can check the oil, change an air filter and put gas in a car. That pretty much sums up my knowledge of the interior of a vehicle.

Of course, this truck was a gas guzzling truck, it drank diesel. So when I opened up the compartment and saw this tiny little thing in the center of this vast interior, my intial thought was. “Jesus, I lost most of the engine.” Then I realized that this is what a diesel engine is supposed to look like, of course it shouldn’t’ have all this steam pouring out of the radiator.

I jogged back to Holly’s car and gave her an idea of what was going on. We formulated a plan that seemed feasible at the time. Since the roadtrip had been going on for quite some time, we had a surplus of empty gator aid bottles all over the vehicle plus a cool with melting ice in it. Luckily the spigot that empties the chest was right beside the door.

As I played bar tender filling each of the containers with the icy liquid, Jonah passed more containers to me until the last of the melted ice had dripped from the chest.

I headed back to the truck and prepared to quench the thirst of the beast. I was able to scrounge up some spare paper to allow me to open the radiator over flow without cooking the flesh from my hands. Soon I was pouring and pouring and still pouring until I ran out of ice cold water.

I replaced the cap, put down the hood and climbed back into the cab. With a prayer under my breath I attempted to start the beast. It turned over and over but would not run. I tried and tried again, but still nothing.

While I cursed at U-Haul, construction and the smell of the unidentifiable rotting carcass in the highway ditch, Holly was calling U-Haul to get things taken care of. Nearly an hour and a half later a tow truck pulled up with a scrawny man at the helm. He pulled several gallons of water and antifreeze from the back and began filling the reservoir to capacity. He tried to start the truck as well to no effect. Except of course for the sieve that was now the engine. Apparently the final stretch of road blew the head gasket of the truck. We were finally able to get the truck started, but with a trail of fluid leaving a path for all to follow. The very next exit had a facility to tow the truck, which U-Haul graciously offered to do for us.

I removed the restraints from my Blazer and drove it off the trailer. The convoy was now growing to three vehicles. The tow truck driver was given directions on how to get to the town house just in case we were separated. The 26 foot truck was fastened to a large semi tractor with towing capabilities and we were off to New York once again.

The Move (communications) sidebar

Traveling across country with a cellular phone is not only helpful but essential when traveling with several other vehicles. Traveling in a convoy can be a lot of fun, but unless you are a trucker and have a CB antennae four times the height of your car it’s not all that easy to communicate without cellular phones. The antennae also makes your car look like an over-sized remote control car. This is not exactly the look you are going for to attract the opposite sex...

Unless the other vehicle is in sight, it’s rather hard to tell if you are in front or behind your friends. If you speed up, you could leave your convoy far behind. If you slow down, you could be left behind. It’s a paradox easily rectified by owning a simple piece of hardware and hopefully a car charger for the extended life battery that lasts an extra five minutes than the original stock battery (a rant for another time).

This reminds me of my early days of taking two or three cars down from Michigan to Sandusky Ohio where there nearest theme park could be found, Cedar Point. They advertised the largest and fastest rollercoaster’s and never ceased to scare the life, more often lunch, out of it’s passengers.

We would often leave before sunrise to be among the first to arrive at the park. The drive was three hours and nearly 200 miles. Leaving early was necessary to beat the rush-hour traffic heading toward Detroit.

Our means of communication? Walkie Talkies. Not like the nice new ones that have 22 different channels and can go from five to twenty miles from one another, but the ones I grew up with in the 1980’s. The distance was limited to line of sight more often than not you could read the other personas lips better than you could hear them over the static.

Cellular communications have become the mainstay in communicating while traveling. Of course you must use the phones in a hands-free state when driving within most states. (public service announcement.)

I apologize for the digression and nostalgic segway as we continue our trip from Michigan to New York. I now return us to our original topic.

The Move (packing)

Changing your residence from one city to another can be a daunting task. Relocating to another state all together adds even more troublesome factors. These factors are magnified even more when you do not enlist the assistance of a moving company.

Generally when you relocate from one city to another you have some friends and family that can come along for the road-trip and assist in the moving process. When you make a move between states, this can test the bonds of friendship in relation to moving assistance.

In my lifetime, I have changed residence four times. I moved to an apartment in Lansing, Michigan a townhouse in Auburn Hills, Michigan, another townhouse in Port Jefferson, New York and a house in Port Jefferson at the age of 34. Hopefully there will be no more moves in our near future.

With each of these moves, it seemed there were more and more items to pack up and move. I suppose somewhere along the line I acquired the “pack-rat” gene. This is more of a visceral urge to attribute memories to physical objects, than any true traceable gene sequence. No matter the monetary value of the object I always found a reason to keep them around.

The largest and most complicated move of all was that from Michigan to Long Island, New York in the first week of July. Yes, it was hot. As we packed we sifted through all the “stuff” and kept the treasures and dumped those deemed unworthy. Due to financial constraints we found that the only realistic method of moving was to do it ourselves. This was probably the biggest mistake of the whole process. For with this one decision came a downhill ride into the move from Hell.

A prime catalyst to this big mistake arrived with the choice of using U-Haul as our moving truck. We picked the biggest thing they had plus added a car trailer to tow my Chevy Blazer.
I suppose it was a sign when on the morning of the move I tried to start the truck to move it to our door and found the battery dead. This was mildly frustrating but definitely fixable. I used my aging Chevy Blazer to jumpstart the 26 foot diesel goliath and was able to get it started. I let it run for a while to charge up the batter, then moved it to the door.

Many family members and friends came to our aide and helped us load the truck to its full capacity. It seems my wife has the same genetic dysfunction as I when it comes to throwing anything away.

The loading went off without a hitch. My brother proved to be invaluable at finding ways to pack everything right to the ceiling of the huge trailer.

We spent the night in sleeping bags in the now nearly empty townhouse. We woke early to finish cleaning from top to bottom and pack the last few items into any available open spaces we could find.

We were finally on the road in the late afternoon headed for New York!