"A study for cost-tolerance allocation model of by integrating process capability index Cpm into product life cycle cost"
you know editing is going to be hell when that's the title of the article.
Friday, January 28, 2005
Monday, January 24, 2005
nori's nash summary:
wednesday, 19 january: flight supposed to leave at 1945h. thomas calls at around 1730h to tell me that due to freezing rain, the highway from the edmonton airport to the city may be closed and that i should call him when i get in to let him know what's up. check the flight information website, which claims that the flight has been delayed to depart at 2022h. check ama website, which says that the highway is extremely dangerous. refresh. highway is closed. fuck. sweetie says that he can see if he can convince his parents to pick me up via the back roads with chains on the tires. i leave the house at about 1815h.
hop on the 98 b-line at around 1835h. sit on one of the bench seats. dude across from me is trying to read life of pi, but there is someone sitting next to him talking to him. i can't see him because my line of sight is blocked by a girl standing in the aisle.
"yeah, you know? i got a $300 a day habit. i'm tryin' to get healthy, man."
dude reading is visibly disturbed. "uh...good luck with that," he says.
girl in the aisle gets off the bus. that's when i see that the guy behind her is actually smoking a crack pipe -- on a bus -- and blowing out the window. he gets off at the next stop. dude reading understandably sketched out.
"can you fucking believe that!?" i hear from another dude at the back of the bus. "i've never seen that in my life!"
"what happened?" asked this rather imperceptive man sitting in the corner.
"if he hadn't been blowing out the window, i would have clocked him and thrown him off the bus myself!"
"what happened?" the man repeated.
"he was smoking crack! i work in the downtown eastside. i see that kind of shit all the time, but never on the bus! what does he think this is, the skytrain?"
yes.
i eventually get off the bus and catch the connection to the airport. get to the desk.
"i'm supposed to fly to edmonton."
"that flight's been cancelled. but you're confirmed for the 945h flight tomorrow morning."
"there's nothing earlier?"
"well, there is a 7am flight, but it's full. you can come at 6am and try for a standby seat."
pout.
"are you sure i can't get a seat on the 7am flight?"
checks. "oh. things must have changed. okay, you're confirmed for the 7am. be here at 6 at the latest."
head home. call thomas with the news that he'd have to postpone my talk. spend the rest of the evening trying to sleep but not succeeding, then just giving up and watching television.
***
thursday, 20 january (my sweetie's birthday): get up at 500h. look around at the ridiculous renovation mess in the apartment and contemplate whether i should eat something. i'm not hungry, but i know i'll be ill if i don't eat something. decide against it and just pack a bunch of arrowroot cookies and ginger candies. call a cab. head to the airport.
fly to edmonton and cab it to the hotel. am late for my own talk by 20 minutes.
try to check in. they don't have a reservation for me. find thomas. get my t-shirt and registration package to discover that my name had been misspelled on the name tag. try to check in under that name while bizzak promises me a new name tag. head into the room to find the personal effects of at least two others. wonder whom i'm rooming with.
see ET, whom i haven't seen in years. she looks fabulous. also run into other old friends.
see doug southam's documentary photo session. it is excellent. conclude that it is an unfortunate coincidence that the cancer lady's last name is tarbox.
see paula simons's session on opinion writing. she's extremely fun and articulate. miss opinion writing.
meet my roommates, AC and KH, who both seem pretty solid.
hear buzz that people were disappointed that i didn't give my session today. begin to worry that everyone's expectations are too high.
spend evening editing and trying to get some reading done for jmax's tech class, but too tired.
***
friday, 21 january: get up to have breakfast up in la ronde. lose my roommates but find basil sitting with someone i don't know. ask to join them, introduce myself to the dude with longish greasy-looking hair. midway through my meal, basil gets up and leaves. other dude is weird.
"have you seen van helsing?"
and
"i could talk some more if you want."
he tells me he wanted to go to my talk, but since it's been rescheduled to 11, he can't see it.
pity.
i dick around in the tech room for an hour and print out some handouts for my talk. find myself with nothing else to do and just sit around getting progressively more nervous. head to my session room, wait for people to file in...
give my talk. it goes okay, i guess. there are roughly 50 people there -- not a bad turnout -- and i'm hoping they didn't all leave disappointed. a few people come and chat after my talk, which i take to be a good sign, although they're almost all weirdos. one chunky nerd asked me where he could find magazines to write for.
what?
i find out he's from the quill, and it all makes sense. i tell him to contact the mmpa and that seems to satisfy him, but he continues to talk to me about assinine things.
i go to RB's talk. that boy sure knows how to sell himself.
see one of ron johnson's many presentations. similar to what he had last year. don't learn much, but it's still good.
give my second talk. about a dozen people show up -- more than i expected. "since we're a smaller group, i want this to be more of a round-table. why don't you throw questions at me and let me know what you want to get out of this session?"
silence.
okay...
i talk about the lunatic society and robert maxwell and eventually, they start asking me questions, most of which i seem to be able to answer to their satisfaction.
evening: lewis lapham.
also, meet dmac's mom.
yes. lewis lapham. an engaging talk, as expected, but he doesn't say anything i don't expect him to say. get gag rule and 30 satires and have them signed. "is there outrage that we simply don't hear about up here?" i ask him.
"no. there's no outrage. i've tried hard to find it."
watch napoleon dynamite with dmac, HT and AL.
chat with bizzak.
go to bed.
***
saturday, 22 january: wake up to our fourth roommate, whom i haven't met, showering. she emerges, i introduce myself. she is a small unassuming asian girl.
head upstairs to breakfast, which, disappointingly, consists merely of fruit and pastries. eat a blueberry danish and a bowl of fruit salad. am joined by DL and LB.
go downstairs and run into SL. feel obligated to go see his talk. it's okay -- raises some issues that i hadn't thought about -- but his malappropisms and use of the word 'utilize' make my eyes roll.
see CB's talk on alt weeklies. see HA in the audience and chat with her for a bit. make fun of KO for having to introduce CB and encourage her to introduce him as her boyfriend. JC is also there. he is the shit.
see therese kehler talk about freelancing. she is, as roommate KH puts it, "abrasive and borderline rude." her advice is sort of inconsistent and not terribly helpful -- "i hated this pitch. and your pitch is the most important. it's your chance to make a good first impression...but we ran the story anyway"; "never write in the first person. but here are some cases where it worked"; "this was a terrible article. but i rewrote it and ran it anyway" -- leading me to think, ah...this is why ed is the way it is.
ken alexander's talk. glad i went, but his answers to the questions are somewhat disappointing. he doesn't seem to have much of an idea of the walrus's mandate, identity or audience. having a forum for canada's writers and readers is fine and good, but not having an easily articulated purpose just makes failure more likely. i won't be shocked if the magazine folds within five years.
meet the parents for dinner. they pick me up and we eat at pearl river. yum. there, a man comes and says hi to my dad, shakes his hand and mine, and asks my dad a few questions that he stumbles in answering. when the man leaves, my dad says "this is embarassing...i don't know who he is."
it takes the three of us a good ten minutes to figure it out, but we finally do -- it's old neighbours of ours who moved about three years ago. glad they don't understand cantonese...
head home after dinner, where i find my christmas present from my sweetie -- a the cheat sweatshirt -- which had taken until just the last week to arrive. i pack all of the crap we'd forgotten in edmonton after our visit over christmas and promptly fall asleep for two hours. alone in my old bed. sweet.
get dropped off at the hotel, where i pack up. things don't quite fit, but i cram as best as i can. head down to see dmac, find him in the tech room. we sit and talk for a long time...but we are interrupted. we will have to recapitulate later. anyway, we are interrupted by a group of his friends, who are up from banff and dropped by to say hi to him.
later on, we're joined by HT, and while the three of us are obviously engaged in conversation, AK comes along and sits down, attempting to join in on our rather personal discussion. we try subtle hints to get him to go away, while he gives us not-so-subtle hints to vote for him in the cup presidential election. we tell him none of us are voting, and he says "you can still read my position paper even if you're not voting."
go away, AK. you're not charismatic.
head toward the elevators, where i am flagged down by my roommates, who infom me that there is "action" happening in our hotel room thanks to the fourth girl. apparently, KH and AC walked in to find her and a dude partially clothed. they hadn't even chained the door or hung a 'do not disturb' sign on the door.
"oh sorry...uh...we'll give you some time," says KH, meaning, of course, "we'll give you some time to get dressed and compose yourselves," not "we'll give you some time to finish having sex." but as soon as they walk out the door, they hear the door chain being latched.
the three of us are sexiled.
"how long should we give them?" AC asks. KH just wants to get to bed. we eventually go back up, knock on the door, and roughly ten minutes later, hear (from another room down the hall) someone leave our room. i ascertain that it's safe enough to retrieve my sweatshirt, do, and head back downstairs to chill with dmac and HT, who are on safety. we sit until about 0330h and get to bed.
***
sunday, 23 january: wake up, finish packing, and eat brunch, which is a bizarre hodgepodge of food -- ravioli, waffles, salmon and eggs benedict?
head to HT and ZBP's session about queer journalism. a freak from the gleaner keeps interjecting. otherwise, it is a fine session.
get driven to the airport by thomas. will miss him till i see him next.
wednesday, 19 january: flight supposed to leave at 1945h. thomas calls at around 1730h to tell me that due to freezing rain, the highway from the edmonton airport to the city may be closed and that i should call him when i get in to let him know what's up. check the flight information website, which claims that the flight has been delayed to depart at 2022h. check ama website, which says that the highway is extremely dangerous. refresh. highway is closed. fuck. sweetie says that he can see if he can convince his parents to pick me up via the back roads with chains on the tires. i leave the house at about 1815h.
hop on the 98 b-line at around 1835h. sit on one of the bench seats. dude across from me is trying to read life of pi, but there is someone sitting next to him talking to him. i can't see him because my line of sight is blocked by a girl standing in the aisle.
"yeah, you know? i got a $300 a day habit. i'm tryin' to get healthy, man."
dude reading is visibly disturbed. "uh...good luck with that," he says.
girl in the aisle gets off the bus. that's when i see that the guy behind her is actually smoking a crack pipe -- on a bus -- and blowing out the window. he gets off at the next stop. dude reading understandably sketched out.
"can you fucking believe that!?" i hear from another dude at the back of the bus. "i've never seen that in my life!"
"what happened?" asked this rather imperceptive man sitting in the corner.
"if he hadn't been blowing out the window, i would have clocked him and thrown him off the bus myself!"
"what happened?" the man repeated.
"he was smoking crack! i work in the downtown eastside. i see that kind of shit all the time, but never on the bus! what does he think this is, the skytrain?"
yes.
i eventually get off the bus and catch the connection to the airport. get to the desk.
"i'm supposed to fly to edmonton."
"that flight's been cancelled. but you're confirmed for the 945h flight tomorrow morning."
"there's nothing earlier?"
"well, there is a 7am flight, but it's full. you can come at 6am and try for a standby seat."
pout.
"are you sure i can't get a seat on the 7am flight?"
checks. "oh. things must have changed. okay, you're confirmed for the 7am. be here at 6 at the latest."
head home. call thomas with the news that he'd have to postpone my talk. spend the rest of the evening trying to sleep but not succeeding, then just giving up and watching television.
***
thursday, 20 january (my sweetie's birthday): get up at 500h. look around at the ridiculous renovation mess in the apartment and contemplate whether i should eat something. i'm not hungry, but i know i'll be ill if i don't eat something. decide against it and just pack a bunch of arrowroot cookies and ginger candies. call a cab. head to the airport.
fly to edmonton and cab it to the hotel. am late for my own talk by 20 minutes.
try to check in. they don't have a reservation for me. find thomas. get my t-shirt and registration package to discover that my name had been misspelled on the name tag. try to check in under that name while bizzak promises me a new name tag. head into the room to find the personal effects of at least two others. wonder whom i'm rooming with.
see ET, whom i haven't seen in years. she looks fabulous. also run into other old friends.
see doug southam's documentary photo session. it is excellent. conclude that it is an unfortunate coincidence that the cancer lady's last name is tarbox.
see paula simons's session on opinion writing. she's extremely fun and articulate. miss opinion writing.
meet my roommates, AC and KH, who both seem pretty solid.
hear buzz that people were disappointed that i didn't give my session today. begin to worry that everyone's expectations are too high.
spend evening editing and trying to get some reading done for jmax's tech class, but too tired.
***
friday, 21 january: get up to have breakfast up in la ronde. lose my roommates but find basil sitting with someone i don't know. ask to join them, introduce myself to the dude with longish greasy-looking hair. midway through my meal, basil gets up and leaves. other dude is weird.
"have you seen van helsing?"
and
"i could talk some more if you want."
he tells me he wanted to go to my talk, but since it's been rescheduled to 11, he can't see it.
pity.
i dick around in the tech room for an hour and print out some handouts for my talk. find myself with nothing else to do and just sit around getting progressively more nervous. head to my session room, wait for people to file in...
give my talk. it goes okay, i guess. there are roughly 50 people there -- not a bad turnout -- and i'm hoping they didn't all leave disappointed. a few people come and chat after my talk, which i take to be a good sign, although they're almost all weirdos. one chunky nerd asked me where he could find magazines to write for.
what?
i find out he's from the quill, and it all makes sense. i tell him to contact the mmpa and that seems to satisfy him, but he continues to talk to me about assinine things.
i go to RB's talk. that boy sure knows how to sell himself.
see one of ron johnson's many presentations. similar to what he had last year. don't learn much, but it's still good.
give my second talk. about a dozen people show up -- more than i expected. "since we're a smaller group, i want this to be more of a round-table. why don't you throw questions at me and let me know what you want to get out of this session?"
silence.
okay...
i talk about the lunatic society and robert maxwell and eventually, they start asking me questions, most of which i seem to be able to answer to their satisfaction.
evening: lewis lapham.
also, meet dmac's mom.
yes. lewis lapham. an engaging talk, as expected, but he doesn't say anything i don't expect him to say. get gag rule and 30 satires and have them signed. "is there outrage that we simply don't hear about up here?" i ask him.
"no. there's no outrage. i've tried hard to find it."
watch napoleon dynamite with dmac, HT and AL.
chat with bizzak.
go to bed.
***
saturday, 22 january: wake up to our fourth roommate, whom i haven't met, showering. she emerges, i introduce myself. she is a small unassuming asian girl.
head upstairs to breakfast, which, disappointingly, consists merely of fruit and pastries. eat a blueberry danish and a bowl of fruit salad. am joined by DL and LB.
go downstairs and run into SL. feel obligated to go see his talk. it's okay -- raises some issues that i hadn't thought about -- but his malappropisms and use of the word 'utilize' make my eyes roll.
see CB's talk on alt weeklies. see HA in the audience and chat with her for a bit. make fun of KO for having to introduce CB and encourage her to introduce him as her boyfriend. JC is also there. he is the shit.
see therese kehler talk about freelancing. she is, as roommate KH puts it, "abrasive and borderline rude." her advice is sort of inconsistent and not terribly helpful -- "i hated this pitch. and your pitch is the most important. it's your chance to make a good first impression...but we ran the story anyway"; "never write in the first person. but here are some cases where it worked"; "this was a terrible article. but i rewrote it and ran it anyway" -- leading me to think, ah...this is why ed is the way it is.
ken alexander's talk. glad i went, but his answers to the questions are somewhat disappointing. he doesn't seem to have much of an idea of the walrus's mandate, identity or audience. having a forum for canada's writers and readers is fine and good, but not having an easily articulated purpose just makes failure more likely. i won't be shocked if the magazine folds within five years.
meet the parents for dinner. they pick me up and we eat at pearl river. yum. there, a man comes and says hi to my dad, shakes his hand and mine, and asks my dad a few questions that he stumbles in answering. when the man leaves, my dad says "this is embarassing...i don't know who he is."
it takes the three of us a good ten minutes to figure it out, but we finally do -- it's old neighbours of ours who moved about three years ago. glad they don't understand cantonese...
head home after dinner, where i find my christmas present from my sweetie -- a the cheat sweatshirt -- which had taken until just the last week to arrive. i pack all of the crap we'd forgotten in edmonton after our visit over christmas and promptly fall asleep for two hours. alone in my old bed. sweet.
get dropped off at the hotel, where i pack up. things don't quite fit, but i cram as best as i can. head down to see dmac, find him in the tech room. we sit and talk for a long time...but we are interrupted. we will have to recapitulate later. anyway, we are interrupted by a group of his friends, who are up from banff and dropped by to say hi to him.
later on, we're joined by HT, and while the three of us are obviously engaged in conversation, AK comes along and sits down, attempting to join in on our rather personal discussion. we try subtle hints to get him to go away, while he gives us not-so-subtle hints to vote for him in the cup presidential election. we tell him none of us are voting, and he says "you can still read my position paper even if you're not voting."
go away, AK. you're not charismatic.
head toward the elevators, where i am flagged down by my roommates, who infom me that there is "action" happening in our hotel room thanks to the fourth girl. apparently, KH and AC walked in to find her and a dude partially clothed. they hadn't even chained the door or hung a 'do not disturb' sign on the door.
"oh sorry...uh...we'll give you some time," says KH, meaning, of course, "we'll give you some time to get dressed and compose yourselves," not "we'll give you some time to finish having sex." but as soon as they walk out the door, they hear the door chain being latched.
the three of us are sexiled.
"how long should we give them?" AC asks. KH just wants to get to bed. we eventually go back up, knock on the door, and roughly ten minutes later, hear (from another room down the hall) someone leave our room. i ascertain that it's safe enough to retrieve my sweatshirt, do, and head back downstairs to chill with dmac and HT, who are on safety. we sit until about 0330h and get to bed.
***
sunday, 23 january: wake up, finish packing, and eat brunch, which is a bizarre hodgepodge of food -- ravioli, waffles, salmon and eggs benedict?
head to HT and ZBP's session about queer journalism. a freak from the gleaner keeps interjecting. otherwise, it is a fine session.
get driven to the airport by thomas. will miss him till i see him next.
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
two members of my magazine group missed class today because they were both too busy pumping water out of their respective homes.
people keep saying "i've never seen it rain like this," but they must have. it's vancouver. it did the same thing last year. probably has done the same thing for years prior, too.
just checked the environment canada website. it's -11 in edmonton right now, and will only get down to a low of -21 during the conference. big improvement from the -44 they were getting last week, and certainly better than the unceasing sheet of water here.
i liked vancouver better when it was covered in snow. for a reason i may have identified but am not entirely sure i have, i feel much more vulnerable when i'm walking out in the rain. it's not just the wetness and the grey skies -- i think the fact that my rain gear cuts off a large portion of my peripheral vision puts me on edge. i can't see what's around me, and i don't know what's coming.
now it's beginning to look like i may need an entirely separate wardrobe just to make it to the airport tomorrow. my rain coat, rubber boots and jupo will serve me no function in edmonton.
i'm excited but nervous. i have no idea how many people are going to come to my talks. "who the fuck is this person, and why the fuck should i listen to her?" is probably what most delegates will think when they read the conference schedule.
my sweetie just warned me not to pee in the ice machine at the hotel. i shall keep that in mind.
people keep saying "i've never seen it rain like this," but they must have. it's vancouver. it did the same thing last year. probably has done the same thing for years prior, too.
just checked the environment canada website. it's -11 in edmonton right now, and will only get down to a low of -21 during the conference. big improvement from the -44 they were getting last week, and certainly better than the unceasing sheet of water here.
i liked vancouver better when it was covered in snow. for a reason i may have identified but am not entirely sure i have, i feel much more vulnerable when i'm walking out in the rain. it's not just the wetness and the grey skies -- i think the fact that my rain gear cuts off a large portion of my peripheral vision puts me on edge. i can't see what's around me, and i don't know what's coming.
now it's beginning to look like i may need an entirely separate wardrobe just to make it to the airport tomorrow. my rain coat, rubber boots and jupo will serve me no function in edmonton.
i'm excited but nervous. i have no idea how many people are going to come to my talks. "who the fuck is this person, and why the fuck should i listen to her?" is probably what most delegates will think when they read the conference schedule.
my sweetie just warned me not to pee in the ice machine at the hotel. i shall keep that in mind.
Sunday, January 16, 2005
there is a big hole in my kitchen ceiling. but the installation is almost done. i have a functioning stove and dishwasher again, although there's so much debris and garbage in front of both appliances that i can't do much with either.
***
SM put it best on thursday: "do the rest of you feel like you've entered a state of perpetual panic that doesn't look like it'll abate until the end of term?"
it's true. i'm experiencing this continued jaw-clenching stress that is a bit too overwhelming to know what to do about -- one of those situations where you freeze and you can't accomplish anything, even though you know that'll just exacerbate everything in the end.
monday was fine; "i can handle this," i thought, as we went through the syllabi for the management and technology courses. when the outline for the magazine project was handed out on tuesday, the "how the fuck am i going to get this all done" set in, and when we had our first history class on thursday, i completely slipped into a deer-in-headlights mode.
i'm going back to edmonton for nash on wednesday. i can't help but panic that if i fall behind, i just won't ever get adequately caught up. i put together one of my presentations yesterday. the other, i'm being a little too flippant about, i think. i've convinced myself nobody's going to show up...
the courses all look like they'll be interesting; but they will be a lot of reading, a lot of writing, and a whole hell of a lot of baptism by fire.
our magazine project i'm apprehensive about. our groups have evidently been mixed since last term, and i'm afraid that i might not be able to get along with everyone quite as well as last term. i'm also concerned that we're all generally stressed out, and that the tension's pervading our meetings, putting us on edge much more than is reasonable. ultimately, i'm worried that the magazine we'll end up having to work on won't be something i'm passionate about and i'll just end up doing a mediocre job on it.
finally, i'm worried about my internship. only one place has gotten back to me, and we've been playing telephone tag for the past week.
*sigh* (frustration...)
~sigh~ (calming...)
one day at a time...one day at a time...
***
SM put it best on thursday: "do the rest of you feel like you've entered a state of perpetual panic that doesn't look like it'll abate until the end of term?"
it's true. i'm experiencing this continued jaw-clenching stress that is a bit too overwhelming to know what to do about -- one of those situations where you freeze and you can't accomplish anything, even though you know that'll just exacerbate everything in the end.
monday was fine; "i can handle this," i thought, as we went through the syllabi for the management and technology courses. when the outline for the magazine project was handed out on tuesday, the "how the fuck am i going to get this all done" set in, and when we had our first history class on thursday, i completely slipped into a deer-in-headlights mode.
i'm going back to edmonton for nash on wednesday. i can't help but panic that if i fall behind, i just won't ever get adequately caught up. i put together one of my presentations yesterday. the other, i'm being a little too flippant about, i think. i've convinced myself nobody's going to show up...
the courses all look like they'll be interesting; but they will be a lot of reading, a lot of writing, and a whole hell of a lot of baptism by fire.
our magazine project i'm apprehensive about. our groups have evidently been mixed since last term, and i'm afraid that i might not be able to get along with everyone quite as well as last term. i'm also concerned that we're all generally stressed out, and that the tension's pervading our meetings, putting us on edge much more than is reasonable. ultimately, i'm worried that the magazine we'll end up having to work on won't be something i'm passionate about and i'll just end up doing a mediocre job on it.
finally, i'm worried about my internship. only one place has gotten back to me, and we've been playing telephone tag for the past week.
*sigh* (frustration...)
~sigh~ (calming...)
one day at a time...one day at a time...
Monday, January 10, 2005
my kitchen, and the room that's supposed to (eventually) be the laundry room are in utter disarray at the moment.
have i told this story before? here's the synopsis: when we bought the place, the owners claimed there was a rough-in for a washer-dryer set in the little room by the kitchen they were using as a storage closet. that didn't at all influence whether or not we would have bought the place, but i didn't really give it much thought, since, after having bought a house, it was rather unlikely that we would have any money left over to buy a washer-dryer set, particularly since my tuition this year is outrageous.
however, my in-laws came to visit, and while they were here, they bought us a washer and a dryer. ridiculously generous of them, to say the least. the machines were scheduled to be delivered several weeks later, and when they were, we cleared out the storage closet and my sweetie attempted to install the set, only to discover:
1) the "pipe" that's supposed to feed water into the washer is about 0.25" in diameter, meaning that it would take approximately 50 years to fill the washer.
2) there was no standing pipe in which the water was supposed to drain from the washer. there was just this corrugated hose that runs a convoluted path through the kitchen cabinets and just ends right under the kitchen sink. meaning, of course, that if we were to have hooked up a washer to it, after it had taken 50 years to fill with water, it would drain into our kitchen cabinet, onto the kitchen floor, and quite possibly the apartment below us.
3) the dryer electrical was piggybacked off of the stove.
4) the washer electrical was piggybacked off of the microwave.
when this was further investigated, it was found that, rather than run a cable behind the drywall and through holes in the studs, the installer had simply gauged this curved trench in the drywall and embedded the cable into it.
first class.
my sweetie's intial plan was to smash through the concrete kitchen floor with a sledgehammer and run proper piping under the floor. he called our realtor to ask where exactly our property ends and where the property of the dude below us begins.
turns out his property ends at his ceiling...but ours ends at our floor. the gap belongs to the strata council, with whom my sweetie had already had a previous run-in. suffice it to say that we decided not to put ourselves in a position to have to deal with them again. anyway, when the realtor found out what a shoddy job had been done with the installation, he kind of went crazy and said that he wanted to take the previous owner to court, how the whole thing is "mickey mouse" and how all fire fighters were useless (the previous owner was a firefighter, to put that last comment in some context, but i guess it would have been marginally funnier if i'd left it unexplained.) my sweetie did his best to discourage any kind of legal action, but the realtor was insistent that we keep all of our receipts and get reimbursed for out-of-pocket expenses. turns out it wasn't the previous owner's shit-installation job, after all, but because they signed some sort of disclosure form about alterations to the property, they're still paying for the cost of materials.
strangely enough, the previous owners' realtor called us, saying that the previous owner's father had died and he'd made the coat rack by our door. they then offered to pay "any amount" for it. we said just to pay for our washer dryer installation and not worry about it.
wow. this isn't a synopsis at all.
point is, we had to run the pipe behind the stove and dishwasher. both appliances were pulled out and this morning, my sweetie flooded the bottom kitchen cabinet after discovering that he couldn't shut off the cold water supply to the sink. he's going to try freezing the part of the pipe with dry ice, cutting it, the capping it.
what should have been a straightforward plug-and-play installation is turning into quite the gargantuan mess. i'm looking forward to being able to use my stove again. i don't even care about the washer and dryer anymore, excpet that they're currently taking up space in our living room.
have i told this story before? here's the synopsis: when we bought the place, the owners claimed there was a rough-in for a washer-dryer set in the little room by the kitchen they were using as a storage closet. that didn't at all influence whether or not we would have bought the place, but i didn't really give it much thought, since, after having bought a house, it was rather unlikely that we would have any money left over to buy a washer-dryer set, particularly since my tuition this year is outrageous.
however, my in-laws came to visit, and while they were here, they bought us a washer and a dryer. ridiculously generous of them, to say the least. the machines were scheduled to be delivered several weeks later, and when they were, we cleared out the storage closet and my sweetie attempted to install the set, only to discover:
1) the "pipe" that's supposed to feed water into the washer is about 0.25" in diameter, meaning that it would take approximately 50 years to fill the washer.
2) there was no standing pipe in which the water was supposed to drain from the washer. there was just this corrugated hose that runs a convoluted path through the kitchen cabinets and just ends right under the kitchen sink. meaning, of course, that if we were to have hooked up a washer to it, after it had taken 50 years to fill with water, it would drain into our kitchen cabinet, onto the kitchen floor, and quite possibly the apartment below us.
3) the dryer electrical was piggybacked off of the stove.
4) the washer electrical was piggybacked off of the microwave.
when this was further investigated, it was found that, rather than run a cable behind the drywall and through holes in the studs, the installer had simply gauged this curved trench in the drywall and embedded the cable into it.
first class.
my sweetie's intial plan was to smash through the concrete kitchen floor with a sledgehammer and run proper piping under the floor. he called our realtor to ask where exactly our property ends and where the property of the dude below us begins.
turns out his property ends at his ceiling...but ours ends at our floor. the gap belongs to the strata council, with whom my sweetie had already had a previous run-in. suffice it to say that we decided not to put ourselves in a position to have to deal with them again. anyway, when the realtor found out what a shoddy job had been done with the installation, he kind of went crazy and said that he wanted to take the previous owner to court, how the whole thing is "mickey mouse" and how all fire fighters were useless (the previous owner was a firefighter, to put that last comment in some context, but i guess it would have been marginally funnier if i'd left it unexplained.) my sweetie did his best to discourage any kind of legal action, but the realtor was insistent that we keep all of our receipts and get reimbursed for out-of-pocket expenses. turns out it wasn't the previous owner's shit-installation job, after all, but because they signed some sort of disclosure form about alterations to the property, they're still paying for the cost of materials.
strangely enough, the previous owners' realtor called us, saying that the previous owner's father had died and he'd made the coat rack by our door. they then offered to pay "any amount" for it. we said just to pay for our washer dryer installation and not worry about it.
wow. this isn't a synopsis at all.
point is, we had to run the pipe behind the stove and dishwasher. both appliances were pulled out and this morning, my sweetie flooded the bottom kitchen cabinet after discovering that he couldn't shut off the cold water supply to the sink. he's going to try freezing the part of the pipe with dry ice, cutting it, the capping it.
what should have been a straightforward plug-and-play installation is turning into quite the gargantuan mess. i'm looking forward to being able to use my stove again. i don't even care about the washer and dryer anymore, excpet that they're currently taking up space in our living room.
Friday, January 07, 2005
if DV were here, he'd say that my week was a testament to the church of the shaft and the flow...
monday: picked up S&A's wedding gift (part of it, anyway). that night, we dropped it off at their place and watched them forcefeed their cat. see, cats are kind of retardedly designed. housecats will get fat, then if something upsets them, they can stop eating. like other animals, they'll begin to metabolize their own body fat if they don't have food. problem is, their livers can't handle that. it gets all fatty and useless, and, if untreated, the cat just dies. apparently, then, the solution is to forcefeed the cat. i watched as A held the cat's head while S squirted pasty liquid catfood into the cat's mouth as the animal protested. rawr-rawr-rawr-rawr...
tuesday: finally got my letters and CV all ready for the internship application. went to school and printed everything out. then went and bought myself a long overdue pair of cons. they've got quite the racket going; there must be, like $2 worth of material in them and they're selling for $60. brings me one step closer to being joey ramone next halloween, though. also, bought the napoleon dynamite DVD, which my sweetie was convinced i would never be able to do. also picked up cables to connect the laptop to the television so that on saturday, we could run the DVD off my 14" laptop while watching it on my 13" television...?
wednesday: walked around town and dropped off my internship stuff. both BCAMP and ABPBC are in sun towers, so if i get hired at either of those places, i could head to victory square and shoot up during my lunch break. MR at ABPBC was honest, though -- she said that she probably wouldn't hire on an intern if she couldn't find funding for it. BCAMP is still a possibility, but the director wants me to think up potential projects -- she knows much better than i what her organization does, though, so i'm sort of at a loss. dropped off my CV at adbusters, too. tried to tell the lady i spoke to that i'm applying for an internship, not one of their writer/editor jobs, but it didn't seem to sink in. she was sort of bitchy.
thursday: my cold got worse. it also snowed about 4 cm. news stories showed helpless and hopeless vancouverites slipping everywhere, many of them complaining that city crews hadn't salted enough. bunch of wieners. i also got promoted/demoted in my freelancing job, depending on how you look at it. my supervising editor moved me to another journal -- the visual computer, from the international journal of advanced manufacturing technology; the upshot is that it's easier to edit, but i'm paid less per page (2.75 euros). i think it's still a good deal, though. we'll see...
my sweetie picked up a wireless router yesterday, i'm now doing this from bed. sort of dangerous, in that now i have no reason to leave bed.
wireless is awesome.
monday: picked up S&A's wedding gift (part of it, anyway). that night, we dropped it off at their place and watched them forcefeed their cat. see, cats are kind of retardedly designed. housecats will get fat, then if something upsets them, they can stop eating. like other animals, they'll begin to metabolize their own body fat if they don't have food. problem is, their livers can't handle that. it gets all fatty and useless, and, if untreated, the cat just dies. apparently, then, the solution is to forcefeed the cat. i watched as A held the cat's head while S squirted pasty liquid catfood into the cat's mouth as the animal protested. rawr-rawr-rawr-rawr...
tuesday: finally got my letters and CV all ready for the internship application. went to school and printed everything out. then went and bought myself a long overdue pair of cons. they've got quite the racket going; there must be, like $2 worth of material in them and they're selling for $60. brings me one step closer to being joey ramone next halloween, though. also, bought the napoleon dynamite DVD, which my sweetie was convinced i would never be able to do. also picked up cables to connect the laptop to the television so that on saturday, we could run the DVD off my 14" laptop while watching it on my 13" television...?
wednesday: walked around town and dropped off my internship stuff. both BCAMP and ABPBC are in sun towers, so if i get hired at either of those places, i could head to victory square and shoot up during my lunch break. MR at ABPBC was honest, though -- she said that she probably wouldn't hire on an intern if she couldn't find funding for it. BCAMP is still a possibility, but the director wants me to think up potential projects -- she knows much better than i what her organization does, though, so i'm sort of at a loss. dropped off my CV at adbusters, too. tried to tell the lady i spoke to that i'm applying for an internship, not one of their writer/editor jobs, but it didn't seem to sink in. she was sort of bitchy.
thursday: my cold got worse. it also snowed about 4 cm. news stories showed helpless and hopeless vancouverites slipping everywhere, many of them complaining that city crews hadn't salted enough. bunch of wieners. i also got promoted/demoted in my freelancing job, depending on how you look at it. my supervising editor moved me to another journal -- the visual computer, from the international journal of advanced manufacturing technology; the upshot is that it's easier to edit, but i'm paid less per page (2.75 euros). i think it's still a good deal, though. we'll see...
my sweetie picked up a wireless router yesterday, i'm now doing this from bed. sort of dangerous, in that now i have no reason to leave bed.
wireless is awesome.
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