While we will never forget the lives lost on 9/11, today was a normal day. Here is the sunset as we left the mall near our home after shopping for our wife’s / mom’s birthday. I think this is God’s way of reminding us that everything is alright…
Jake and I went climbing for the second time today. We climbed at an indoor gym called Peak Experiences. They advertise themselves as one of the East Coast’s largest indoor rock climbing centers. They have many walls to climb, equipment to rent, classes and so on. It’s not been that crowded when we have gone (twice now), so it’s been low key and somewhat relaxing.
Both Jake and I took our belay test this week, after attending out introduction class last weekend. We both passed with flying colors. This translates into me being belay certified and Jake (being under 16) has to have 15 observed belays, but no more than 5 in any day. Of course, this meant that I climbed 5 times today so will likely be sore tomorrow. I fell once (he caught me), and skinned my arm against the rock. No big deal, just a small scrape. Jake climbed to the top of their 50-foot wall, their biggest climb (although not too challenging other than the height). While I don’t need to have a back up belayer, Jake still requires someone to back him up until he’s completed the 15 belays.
We received a 2-week trial membership with the class, so got in for just the rental today. Once again, this was a great bonding opportunity for us – and one that we will continue as time and money permits.
The forecast for Saturday (yesterday) was to be a cool morning, so Sara and I decided to start running on the street again. Both of us have been running on treadmills during the heat of the summer, but it was September, so cooler weather was around the corner. We ran three miles, certainly not the distance we used to run, but enough to get our feet wet, so to speak, with the streets. She’ll be out of town the next two weekends, so I will need to find another partner or two, or hit the streets solo. My goal is to run a 10K on October 13th – now less than six weeks away. Now where is my training book from the 10K in April? I guess I need between 3 – 4 miles every Monday and Wednesday, plus cross training (elliptical) on Thursday, and a long run on Saturday. Either that or suffer through the 10K on the 13th!
Today, Jake and I are going to an indoor climbing gym (http://www.peakexperiences.com/climbing-center/About-us.htm). While I used to climb in college, I haven’t been for years. Climbing is a very humbling experience as I remember, but once you let go of your fear of falling, you can enjoy the fact that you have no strength in your fingers to keep your old, fat body from falling when you make the next move. Of course, my legs are stronger now than they have been ever, I presume, and that won’t hurt. Jake is like a monkey, however – tall and lean, and getting stronger every day.
Tomorrow morning (Labor Day), I’m planning on hitting the local industrial park for a long solo run. Of course, that is dependent on not killing myself at the climbing gym today!
crazy clouds — photo taken with my cell phone on the way to work this morning.
I got this cool little $30 remote control airplane from Target today. Somebody at this weekend’s rocket launch had one (or a similar model). For $30, I was going to track one down and play. So far, so good. There are apparently many “mods” for the plane, none of which I am willing to try on the first day. After all, I don’t want to throw $30 down the drain since I simply don’t see the mods the same way others do. Perhaps I’ll let my son at it, after a week or two of flying in the purchased format! After a quick test on my street (and being berated by my 11 year old twin neighbors), I took it to my pool which is virtually empty this time of the year. We have an empty field – perfect to test. The three kids there all thought it was cool and wanted to fly it. Maybe next time, after the mods!
Here is my son’s metropolitan police call box rocket – before having a pseudo successful flight. There was a bit of damage after yesterday’s flight due to a shock cord that burned through (so the parachute and top landed safely but the bottom didn’t). With some loving care, it will fly again! You can graciously ignore my thumb in the bottom right – I’m still not used to my phone’s camera capabilities!
Nice dishwasher to the left, huh? Well, here’s my story about how long this took to get. It’s installed now, but that’s just the end of the story. It begins like this…
Back in April, we received a recall notice from our dishwasher manufacturer (Maytag). It seems that the JetDry reservoir was leaking on many of those (or other brand) dishwashers. It would leak onto the wiring harness, causing fires in many cases. Of course, we should stop using it immediately and contact them for both replacement parts and recommended dealers. We have been using this every day since I installed it long ago, not long before my employer stopped selling appliances. It was dependable, quiet, and certainly not dangerous — not until the reservoir started leaking on the wiring. We contacted Maytag, received the new part (inner door and new wiring harness), then contacted the dealers listed who was closest to our home out of the three possibilities.
A few days later, a technician from the dealer came to make this simple swap of door and harness, but ended up shorting out the main circuit board and apparently the heating element. Of course, he indicated that we would be the recipients of new components to get it working, after he tried once to tell me that I would have to pay for the heating element. Of course, I reminded him that it was working when he walked in the door, and certainly expected that it would be working at no additional charge when he completed his work. After speaking with his company, they ordered the part and a new technician showed up to replace the part. He refused to actually install the part until we paid for it (which I had zero intent of doing), so drove off in a huff. Okay, now we were getting PO’d.
After multiple calls to the service company (they knew our phone number by now), we finally talked to the owner who assured us that this type of rude behavior would be dealt with in the strictest of manners. Yeah, right. She also assured us that she would have the parts replaced at their cost. Maytag sent us several other parts, and their technician came back to install them. No good. Another round of calls to the service dealer left my poor wife just fit to be tied. At this point, she initiated calls to Maytag. Now, let me assure you that if you can ever get through the phone tree at Maytag, you are a better person than I.
The trick, it seems, is to just never press anything. The phone system then presumes that you don’t have touch tone service so will finally let you talk to someone. We finally spoke to someone in their executive response center who was somewhat sympathetic after we explained that we had been without a dishwasher for over two months due to the incompetence of a representative service company. They came to the determination that they needed to review the situation and get back to us. After no call backs, we tracked down the same person at Maytag and she determined that the only solution was to provide us with a replacement dishwasher (cheaper for them). She would call us back with details… and the saga continues…
Many voicemails later (another month had gone by), we finally spoke to another human being. It seems that Maytag Executive Response person #1 had left for maternity leave. No one was picking up her voicemails — it was just allowed to collect without review. This person actually provided her extension so we could reach her directly. She provided us with a model number for our review (to ensure that it would be acceptable as a replacement), and told us that if we agreed, it would be 3 – 4 weeks until our replacement would be able to be installed. Of course, it would be installed by the same company that fried the original dishwasher…
Earlier this week, we received two boxes from Maytag containing parts (a pump and logic board). This after they had the new dishwasher order in process. After calling Maytag again, they sent us one return label for one of the two parts. My wife determined that she was holding those parts hostage until the new dishwasher was actually installed. This was the only thing she could do to provide some sense of power in this whole fiasco. We also had a voicemail that the new dishwasher had arrived at the dealer.
When she called the dealer to arrange installation, the dispatcher told her that they didn’t install the dishwasher. She about came through the phone. The dispatcher put the phone aside to talk to the owner who told her that they would do whatever the customer wanted. Zero cost, all parts and labor included to get this done. I finally think that they wanted to be done with this mess as much as we did. Of course they hadn’t been doing the freeking dishes by hand for the past 4 1/2 months!
Yesterday, they were to show up between 1 and 4 to install. Of course, 4:00 came and went as you would expect. Finally, at 5:00 they called and said they were on their way. They remove the old dishwasher and found that the hose would not work (the old hose, not the new one), so had to head to Home Depot to get parts. When I got home from work, the old dishwasher was sitting in the front yard (very attractive), and the new dishwasher was unboxed and in the middle of my kitchen. To make a long story even longer, they finally finished their installation at 7:00 last night.
We headed south to Ocracoke Island yesterday to visit with two families that are friends of ours. The word “friends” is an understatement – they are part of our extended family. We have five other couples that we have intertwined our families with – and spend a great bit of time with either as a whole or with the women, the men, or just the kids. The women are my daughter’s “other mothers” – met through girls scouts, school, and the neighborhood. Our lives have been part of each other’s lives ever since. One of the couples moved to Pennsylvania two years ago, but remain an integral part of our circle. The men all get together to fish once each year in the Chesapeake Bay; the women have an “off-site” get together, usually at the beach. The women and boys even took a road trip to PA for last New Years Eve since it was their PA friend’s birthday and a great excuse for the boys to visit their friend and missing comrade.
At dinner last evening, we were sitting on the porch of their Ocracoke rental. We were talking about being family – all of us together. It is a chosen family, rather than a birth family. None of us are close to all members of our birth families – we don’t even live close to many of them. Our group knows that these friends are the ones that we can call, without reservation, to help in any crisis. It’s a great support structure that we have built, and is one that will truly last a lifetime. In most cases, it took a while for everyone to gain the trust in each other, to understand how much they can count on each other. That trust is now in place and won’t easily be broken. These friends are the reason we won’t likely leave the area – they would be the one thing that we simply couldn’t replace.
The oppressive heat wave continues… time to spend on the beach or inside.
We rented the kayaks yesterday from Kitty Hawk Kites. The rental side of their business is apparently not big, but they are competitively priced and don’t nickel and dime you to death with charges for paddles, PFDs or back rests. We rented one shorter open, sit-on kayak and a longer, sit-in one. The girls and I took them onto the sound at a public access area to get a feel for how they worked (both the kayak and the girls). After about 30 minutes of using the kayaks, the girls were bored and just wanted to go swimming. They swam and I farted around with each of the kayaks for about 15 minutes before deciding that I needed to put a shirt on before I got any more burned. The girls are obviously having a great time together – Kara was a good addition to our trip.
Sue and the boys were successful in their half-day fishing trip. Our son caught the first fish for the boat and Sue caught two more. The friend caught tons of sharks, most biting through the lines just before being brought on board. A bit of sea sickness for our son, but he was a trouper like always.
Later in the afternoon, Sue and the boys took the kayaks into the sound from a private dock to which we apparently have access (it’s a resident/renter thing). They were out for a long time, including when Sue went way out / down the shoreline. Our son was very impressed that she was able to go that far and make it back. The water is about 2 – 3 feet deep until you go something like one-half mile out, so if you get stuck, you can just get out and walk back. The footing, however, is filled with oyster shells, so will cut your feet if you don’t have proper waterproof shoes on. Today, we’re heading back to Cape Hatteras to hit the beach. We’re going early because of the heat, and will head back in for a late lunch or a bit of air conditioned shopping.
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