First off, I thank Willis Haviland Carrier for inventing air conditioning in 1902.

Our central air conditioning system is working again. The repair guys came Friday afternoon. They found two problems:

1. We were out of freon coolant, or specifically, “Refrigerant 22″. To replace, it cost us $4 per ounce, and $270 for replacing 4 lbs. of the stuff.
2. Our air filter was filthy, which I hadn’t been replaced in years, as I didn’t know how or where. If I had a manual……

So yeah, whatever.  More refrigerant, replaced air filter (which I ran out and bought from Home Depot), labor, and taxes.  The house is comfortable again.

I’m so looking forward to picking up this sequel when it is released this year.  That HIND helicopter looks like it is going to be a pain in the butt. Yes, the game actually looks like this. The original was so much fun.

Green Lantern: First Flight, a direct-to-DVD animated movie, is coming out July 28th.  I’ve already added it to my queue. Movie trailer looks great, and good voice cast too. Lending their voices to the film will be Christopher Meloni (Law And Order: SVU) as Hal Jordan; Victor Garber (ALIAS) as Hal Jordan’s nemesis, Sinestro; Michael Madsen as Hal Jordan’s alien mentor, Kilowog; and the lovely Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica) as Green Lantern Corps member, Boodikka.

To get all caught up, read this. Now for the weekend. As a reminder, the week of June 29th, Verizon promised to have a new fiber optic cable buried underground later that week.  Then about two days later, they called me to inform that they couldn’t be out there earlier than July 13th, and yes, I need to be home for them, 8am – 5pm. Now, continue below.

1. On Sunday, I thought to myself, if the cable-burying guys are the same as last time, they won’t come into the house.  Doesn’t a tech have to come too?  I called tech support and they confirmed that I was right, and there should be a tech present.  The rep schedules one, but won’t provide an exact time.  He will just come along at some point in the day with the cable-burying subcontractor.  Why does the customer have to remind Verizon what they need to do?
2. By 4pm, I’ve seen nobody from Verizon, and it’s just an hour to go before quitting time at 5pm. Calling again, the Verizon folks couldn’t tell me if they came or not. That’s right.  After holding again, the rep told me it was scheduled for tomorrow (July 14th.) And they had no idea what time a tech should come out – again estimated 8am-5pm. Tomorrow?  It’s been July 13th for two weeks, and now it’s another day?  I’m supposed to change my schedule again for them?  Furious with him, the rep backtracked, and recommended me to call the subcontractor directly to complain. Do you know who he gave me?  Regular (non-FiOS) Verizon Billing and Sales. And they didn’t know anything about the contractor.
3. I later discovered the cable-burying folks did the work at some point over the weekend without needing me to be home, because the cable I saw over the weekend came from underground.  Why was I told to be home in the first place?
4. Still, the folks in Dispatch (the DRC) confirmed they could only send a tech out to connect me at the earliest on Tuesday.  There was no way I was taking another day at home.  My boss would kill me. What happened to working until 8pm like the installers?  They said installations are different. For techs, the cutoff time is 5pm.  If I can’t change my schedule, it will have to wait until the weekend. I really complained at that point, absolutely furious.
5. The dispatch center called back, and offered to try for the weekend. I said sure, and they would call me back by 5:30pm. BTW, they never called.
6. Unbelievably, the same Verizon tech who came out to do repair work last Tuesday July 7th rang my doorbell at 6:15pm.  The Dispatch center called him last second, and sent him to my house.  I was glad, but see rule above about not working past 5pm.  It’s the rule, eh?
7. After a brief scare, the new underground cable works.  The tech cleaned up, and left around 7pm.

Seriously, my wife said it best.  I almost had an aneurysm today. God strike me down if I’m lying, but these people are out of their collective f#*king minds.

Geez, it was hot in the house today.  I was working from home today, waiting for Verizon to show up all day, and no central AC. I opened every window in the house, hoping for the fabled “cross-ventilation”, working in the dining room, with a fan positioned 2 feet from my face.

With the downstairs hot, the upstairs is naturally an oven.  It’s been so hot that I can’t even use my PC, as we’ve been receiving warning messages from my NVidia video card within the PC that it was slowing down to compensate for the heat.  According to what I saw on the temperature monitor, it’s been about 135 degrees in the PC case.  I figured that wasn’t good.  There was probably too much accumulated dust in the case, plus the circulation under my desk has never been good with that stupid crow’s nest of wires everywhere.

Monday night after my parents left, I moved my desk a few inches to the right, cleaned out the PC chassis, and redistributed the wires to power strips on either side of the desk.  This way, I get more air circulation, and hopefully lower temperatures. With all of our troubles, my wife wouldn’t take well to finding my PC turning into a molten metal, and burning through the floor into the living room below.

I took a screenshot tonight, and so far, so good. I did see it reach 109, but it dropped after that. It appears to be holding at around 100 degrees or less.

NVidia video card temperature monitor

Ya see, I’m catching up.

I’ve posted June 2009 and July 2009 photos.  Highlights are Nicholas’ baptism, Premod & Ishk’s wedding, the Kurians coming to visit, and the grea inaugural Ipe BBQ.

So yeah, the central air conditioning appears to have heaved and died.  It’s been between 75-77 degrees in the house today, and it feels hot!.  Stuffy is more like it.  We last had the system serviced in 2006, but I’m hoping it’s not too serious.  I will have to call a few places about getting a diagnosis, but I don’t know when I can get someone this week to come to our place. I’ve already got both Verizon and my parents coming over sometime. Monday.

Stupid BBQ grill.

I don’t consider myself an expert, but I think I’m decent and sufficiently manly enough to put stuff together.  Maybe it’s from all those GI Joe toys during my formative years, who am I to say?  It continued with desks, bookshelves, bicycles, etc. I finally met my greatest challenge — the Kenmore Liquid Propane Gas Grill, model number 415.16127800.

I’m glad I didn’t attempt to put it together Saturday evening, as it was not a 90-min job.  I  spent approximately seven hours on Sunday afternoon in the backyard doing my best to put that thing together, spewing popular profanity, and inventing some choice new ones that generations will be using for centuries to come. Seven hours.

My sister and brother-in-law decided to come over that evening for a BBQ dinner, so now the pressure doubled.  When they arrived, my BIL was able to help with the last 45 mins of the endeavor.  In the end, we vanquished the beast, and then grilled hamburgers upon its corpse. Grisly pictures below.

Seems innocent enoug

The pieces

How many pieces?

Coming along

Still coming along, but with help

One grill ready to go

If we're done, why do we have extra pieces?

Saturday night, we hosted our friends the Kurians on their 2nd-to-last-night of the great 2009 road trip.  We rarely ever have sleepover guests, we like them, and the kids get along together nicely, so what’s not to look forward too?

We spent the day tidying up, picking up supplies, etc.  I offered to grill up dinner and such that night, but key parts of my plan were not yet in place.

1. We didn’t have a liquid propane tank, so Josh and I picked one up during our errands Friday night.  BTW, $48 for a brand new tank?  Yeeesh.
2. We didn’t have any BBQ tools like tongs, spatulas, or a cleaning brush.  I sent my wife out to get them on Saturday, and she didn’t find any….. at ShopRite.
3. I completely ran out of time by the time they walked in our door, and never assembled the grill.  As a matter of fact, it was still sitting comfortably in cold storage in the basement.

No matter.  My wife made due that night with baking some BBQ chicken, veggies, potato salad, and we had all sorts of desserts.  Sanjay’s brother Steve even helped himself by coming over.  He might have smelled the chicken….. or the booze.

The slumber party commenced, and Sunday morning, we sent them off on full stomachs to church, and the open road back to home.  Of course, with all that prep, we didn’t actually make it to church, so we relaxed at home as a family.

Cue the “Awwwwww.”

By the time you read this, select pictures (those meeting the bare minimum of quality) should be posted online.

Hey, I’m not so bad at the home improvement / Mr. Fix-It tasks.  Let me give you the recap:

A few months ago, I noticed a small leak in the upstairs guest / kids’ bathroom under the toilet coming from the left side under the fill valve, right where the water enters the tank.  This happened last year to the toilet in our bathroom, so I knew what the culprit was — a leaky fill valve.  [Dun dun DUN!] The fill valve is that thing (the scientific term is “doo-hickey” but I’m laymanizing this for you) that goes down when the tank is flushed, fills the bowl with water, and rises again to the original height.  When it reaches the specified height in the tank, the water stops pouring in, and you’re ready to flush again.

The repair requires draining the tank and replacing the original fill valve.  Not that easy, because you have to lie down on your back under the toilet bowl (as a germaphobe, not my favorite place) and loosen the fittings with pliers. The last time (and really, first time) I did this, I made multiple trips to Home Depot and Lowe’s to return and replace the wrong components.  Yes, one of those fabled “I made 10 trips to Home Depot” stories.

Not fun, so I’ve put the whole thing off in typical procrastination fashion.  A little water on the floor?  Nothing a paper towel can’t pick up.  Did you ever leave something, hoping it would be fine, and have the whole thing get progressively worse? Two weeks ago, I was in the dining room, and I heard this strange tapping sound. A slow tapping. A weird, unnerving slow tapping.  I discovered the tapping to be the result of water dripping onto paper on the dining table. Dripping from the ceiling onto the paper on the dining table.

Dripping through the ceiling light mount, through the chain/wiring holding the ceiling light,  down the ceiling light, onto the paper on the dining table. Thinking that water and electricity don’t mix, suspecting the worse, I ran upstairs to confirm that the toilet sits above the ceiling light in the dining room.  I turned off the water to the toilet, and sent Josh to start using the downstairs bathroom. I had so little time over the next few days, and I hated doing that actual repair,  I was able to hold off on the repair work.

This couldn’t last forever, and especially since we were expecting family friends to stay over this weekend, I finally took the proverbial plunge. This time, I knew what I was doing.  It only required one trip to Lowe’s to select and purchase the correct fill valve, and the work itself took approximately an hour.  It’s been three nights, and so far, no floods, and no apparent damage to the house.  Not so bad!

I still hate laying down under the toilet bowl.  Disgusting!

Edit: Picture of my handiwork below.

A new fill valve installed in 60 minutes