Greetings from the friendly confines of Northville. Over the past three days, our non-existent downstairs neighbor has not come to tell us that we're too loud, the fire and police departments have not dispatched from a mile down the road and driven by our front window, every time we walk in the house we don't have to walk up flights of stairs right off the bat, and LandArc hasn't removed our steps without any sort of heads up. Overall, things are going pretty well in the new location and eventually we'll finish unpacking some of the boxes that still remain full of clothes and other miscellaneous goods. Maureen and I have even successfully wall-mounted our television without a single threat of divorce or karate chop.
With all of these generally positive things, I thought I would dispense to the internet a little knowledge that I've gained over the past three days. First, as I walked out to my car on Saturday morning - the first night I parked my car at the house - I was a little bemused to find a ticket on my windshield. I read through the ticket, and I now owe $5 for parking my car on the street (in our little tiny out of the way cul de sac) between 3am and 6am. If I pay the ticket after 7 days it's $15. I searched all over our neighborhood and no where between any main street and our house is there a sign that reads "No parking between 3am and 6am". Today on a run about a mile from our house, I did see a sign that laid down the parking rules, but how the hell was I supposed to know about this if I did not drive by this sign in the past (which, of course, I never had)? It's only $5, but was I supposed to read all city ordinances prior to moving into the home? For this, I say Boo Northville. If you ever crash at our house, park on the street overnight at your own peril.
Second, and this is the kind of thing you don't really think about when looking for a first home, take into account the elevation of your home if you are a runner. As it turns out, our new home is pretty much at the highest point in the entire city. The first half of the run is fantastically fun, but the second half of the run makes you want to go into the past 6 months, risk a time paradox, and just warn the house-hunting version of you that Michigan is way less flat than you thought, especially in Northville. This isn't a deal breaker, but definitely something to keep in mind when house hunting.
Those are the only two things I've learned over the past week. Well, those and that I am officially giving up on being a fan of professional basketball.
Showing posts with label Things Learned. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Things Learned. Show all posts
Monday, July 12, 2010
Friday, January 15, 2010
Things I Learned Today #8 - Never, Ever Live in a Condo
Now I know that almost everyone at some point in life will live in some type of condo setup, and not all condos are created equally (i.e. some are way better than others), but I am having so much trouble with our current condo situation that I am throwing the entire concept of condo living under the bus. Unless something significant changes, I pledge to try to never, ever live in a condo again, and you shouldn't either. Maybe to be more specific I should say never rent another person's condo. Here's why:
As I've been complaining about since a week ago Tuesday (11 days), the internet at our address has not been working correctly. After several calls, hours of frustration, and more than a few angry words, I have an exact picture of what is wrong and how it is bordering on impossible to resolve the internet situation before spring. We have what is called in internet-installer lingo a "bad drop" - which is apparently the magical thing that makes the internet work. Actually, it is the line that runs from the master cable pole coming out of the ground (the source of my entire building's internet/cable access) under the sidewalk between the pole and the building, into individual connections for each unique dwelling. Somewhere under the sidewalk, the portion of the cable that serves my residence is damaged/severed/eaten my mole men. Because of this, Maureen and I need to have our "drop replaced".
Bright House Networks, the company that repackages Time Warner cable and internet and sells it to us, has actually been quite diligent in trying to find workarounds for this problem. You see, we need workarounds because they claim that they can't work on replacing the drop because the ground is frozen (thus requiring us to wait for spring), and that even if they could bury the cable in the ground, they wouldn't be able to do it for days because they need would need lots of formal approvals from the condo homeowners' association as well as the property management company, the organization I've dealt with only once and I already hate, named LandArc.
Bright House can not run a cable on the ground across the sidewalk as this is officially a tripping hazard, so instead they have it set up like a hilariously dangerous clothesline hazard right at chest/neck level running up into a nearby tree and then across the sidewalk in the air to our building. Because I was afraid that this wire would permanently damage someone, I emailed our landlady and called the property management company, those good folks at LandArc, so that they could work with Bright House to figure out a repair that met the amazingly unyielding high aesthetic standards of a condominium complex in beautiful Livonia, Michigan as well as not run the risk of taking someone down.
Instead of this possible solution, LandArc contacted our landlady to tell her that if the wire does not come down, they will bring it down and will fine her for not going through the formal approval process. The biggest problem here is that there is no way the homeowners' association would ever approve of a wire across the sidewalk (though the sidewalk has almost zero traffic) at chest level. Because Bright House claims that they can't fix the underground line and the above ground line (either on the ground or floating in the air) is also against the rules, it appears as though it is going to be literally impossible to provide me with the internet I so desperately require for my work and income that allows me to pay these horrible people for residence. I'm good with our landlady, but I already feel like I would be happy to never have to deal with LandArc again.
When I talked to someone from that company today, she kept saying "you have to submit your request to the HOA" and I was like "I understand, but they're not going to approve the request" and she was like "you'll have to talk that over with your landlord" and I said "talk about what, my breakfast? How is talking about this with my landlord going to fix the situation?" And she said "you'll have to talk about it with your landlord" over and over and over. I wonder how much longer we could have made it with our current clothesline setup if I had not told LandArc about my concerns. I mean, I know where the cable is and I told Maureen, so our individual risk of injury is very low.
So to summarize, the underground line can not physically be replaced and anything above ground is against the condo association's rules, so it seems that my internet will be slightly more effective between now and spring if I take the Cat5 cable currently running into our modem and shove it right into my butt, because that way at least I'll get a little rise from it. This is so incredibly out of my control and all solutions are prevented by the HOA and property management company, and I will never again put my fate into the hands of people who know and care nothing about me and refuse to even discuss alternative solutions aside from "submit request in writing, talk to your landlord about it."
On top of all this, I never want to live above someone ever again, if possible. She has complained that our walking offends her. My favorite is when she came to complain last Sunday and said "two days ago we were making too much noise." The absolute best part of this is that Maureen and I were in California "two days ago"....so yeah. Condos suck.
As I've been complaining about since a week ago Tuesday (11 days), the internet at our address has not been working correctly. After several calls, hours of frustration, and more than a few angry words, I have an exact picture of what is wrong and how it is bordering on impossible to resolve the internet situation before spring. We have what is called in internet-installer lingo a "bad drop" - which is apparently the magical thing that makes the internet work. Actually, it is the line that runs from the master cable pole coming out of the ground (the source of my entire building's internet/cable access) under the sidewalk between the pole and the building, into individual connections for each unique dwelling. Somewhere under the sidewalk, the portion of the cable that serves my residence is damaged/severed/eaten my mole men. Because of this, Maureen and I need to have our "drop replaced".
Bright House Networks, the company that repackages Time Warner cable and internet and sells it to us, has actually been quite diligent in trying to find workarounds for this problem. You see, we need workarounds because they claim that they can't work on replacing the drop because the ground is frozen (thus requiring us to wait for spring), and that even if they could bury the cable in the ground, they wouldn't be able to do it for days because they need would need lots of formal approvals from the condo homeowners' association as well as the property management company, the organization I've dealt with only once and I already hate, named LandArc.
Bright House can not run a cable on the ground across the sidewalk as this is officially a tripping hazard, so instead they have it set up like a hilariously dangerous clothesline hazard right at chest/neck level running up into a nearby tree and then across the sidewalk in the air to our building. Because I was afraid that this wire would permanently damage someone, I emailed our landlady and called the property management company, those good folks at LandArc, so that they could work with Bright House to figure out a repair that met the amazingly unyielding high aesthetic standards of a condominium complex in beautiful Livonia, Michigan as well as not run the risk of taking someone down.
Instead of this possible solution, LandArc contacted our landlady to tell her that if the wire does not come down, they will bring it down and will fine her for not going through the formal approval process. The biggest problem here is that there is no way the homeowners' association would ever approve of a wire across the sidewalk (though the sidewalk has almost zero traffic) at chest level. Because Bright House claims that they can't fix the underground line and the above ground line (either on the ground or floating in the air) is also against the rules, it appears as though it is going to be literally impossible to provide me with the internet I so desperately require for my work and income that allows me to pay these horrible people for residence. I'm good with our landlady, but I already feel like I would be happy to never have to deal with LandArc again.
When I talked to someone from that company today, she kept saying "you have to submit your request to the HOA" and I was like "I understand, but they're not going to approve the request" and she was like "you'll have to talk that over with your landlord" and I said "talk about what, my breakfast? How is talking about this with my landlord going to fix the situation?" And she said "you'll have to talk about it with your landlord" over and over and over. I wonder how much longer we could have made it with our current clothesline setup if I had not told LandArc about my concerns. I mean, I know where the cable is and I told Maureen, so our individual risk of injury is very low.
So to summarize, the underground line can not physically be replaced and anything above ground is against the condo association's rules, so it seems that my internet will be slightly more effective between now and spring if I take the Cat5 cable currently running into our modem and shove it right into my butt, because that way at least I'll get a little rise from it. This is so incredibly out of my control and all solutions are prevented by the HOA and property management company, and I will never again put my fate into the hands of people who know and care nothing about me and refuse to even discuss alternative solutions aside from "submit request in writing, talk to your landlord about it."
On top of all this, I never want to live above someone ever again, if possible. She has complained that our walking offends her. My favorite is when she came to complain last Sunday and said "two days ago we were making too much noise." The absolute best part of this is that Maureen and I were in California "two days ago"....so yeah. Condos suck.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Things I Learned Today #6 - Power Adapters
At about 5:30 pm this evening, I took advantage of the primary laptop benefit - portability - unplugged my laptop from its power adapter, and carried it upstairs to listen to some internet radio while I worked on a couple things in my room. At 6:00 pm, I utilized that exact same portability, carried my laptop downstairs, and plugged it back into the power adapter. To my great distress, the computer's battery did not begin to recharge, the screen did not return to regular brightness levels, and a high-pitched whine began to emit from within the brick portion of the power adapter. "That's weird", I thought, "maybe I should try a different outlet." I tried another outlet with the same affect. "Huh, maybe I need to check the connections." I unplugged and replugged the necessary wires, stuck it in the wall again, and finally determined that my laptop power adapter had completely died. I am fascinated by this occurrence.
I had absolutely no idea that a laptop power adapter could die. In my mind, it is a wire that transmits electricity from point A to point B, and probably does not contain parts that can break. Apparently not.
However, it does appear that some companies have anticipated this type of failure and know better than me, as is evidenced by the fact that there is an ample supply of universal power adapters with swappable adapter heads at places like Best Buy or MicroCenter. These companies also anticipated that people like me, with meetings tomorrow and tons of data to show on my computer, would be completely under their thumb because I do not have the opportunity to comparison shop or purchase online. All of the available replacement power sources at these stores cost between $90 (my high-end choice) and $200. They take you to the freaking cleaner on this one. For alot of people, that's about 1/3 of the cost of the whole laptop. I would think this should be against some kind of law against screwing your customers. Oh well. At least next time I know that it is probably worth considering buying a backup power adapter before the need is absolutely critical.
I had absolutely no idea that a laptop power adapter could die. In my mind, it is a wire that transmits electricity from point A to point B, and probably does not contain parts that can break. Apparently not.
However, it does appear that some companies have anticipated this type of failure and know better than me, as is evidenced by the fact that there is an ample supply of universal power adapters with swappable adapter heads at places like Best Buy or MicroCenter. These companies also anticipated that people like me, with meetings tomorrow and tons of data to show on my computer, would be completely under their thumb because I do not have the opportunity to comparison shop or purchase online. All of the available replacement power sources at these stores cost between $90 (my high-end choice) and $200. They take you to the freaking cleaner on this one. For alot of people, that's about 1/3 of the cost of the whole laptop. I would think this should be against some kind of law against screwing your customers. Oh well. At least next time I know that it is probably worth considering buying a backup power adapter before the need is absolutely critical.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Things I Learned Today #5 - Subway Lies
Have you seen one of those incredibly annoying $5 footlong commercials for Subway submarine sandwiches? I have. If I had to pick one commercial to not watch today, it would almost certainly be one of these commercials.While I hate the commercials, I love the concept of the $5 footlong, so you can only begin to imagine how excited I was today when I realized that I would be purchasing lunch from the Subway shop in the Renaissance Center downtown. "$5!" I thought to myself, "I'm saving so much money, I'm going to buy a soda. I was born to be alive on this day." My enthusiasm was quickly smashed when I stepped up to the counter, asked them if they had $5 footlongs, and the guy behind the counter responded that they did not. The only thing that could have been worse than this piece of news would be if I had found out that GM, Ford, and Chrysler simultaneously declared bankruptcy today. This was the first time in my life that I experienced a franchise that decided to not participate in the larger marketing plan of their franchise brand.
Today I learned to never count your $5 footlongs before they're hatched and toasted with provolone cheese. Furthermore, I recommend the Renaissance Center somehow force Subway to honor the time-honored tradition of eating sandwiches measuring at least 12 inches for $5 or less. With this thought, I leave you with a quote from the dearly departed Mitch Hedberg:
“All McDonald's commercials end the same way: “prices and participation may vary.” I want to open my own McDonald's and not participate in anything. I want to be a stubborn McDonald's owner. “Cheeseburgers? Nope. We got spaghetti!...And blankets. We are not affiliated with that clown, he attracts too many children.”
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Things I Learned Today #4 - Jesus Agrees with my TV Choices
Great news for those of us who enjoy terrible television or enjoy fantastic television, and even better news for those like myself with the distinction of liking terrible and fantastic television. On the terrible TV front, NBC renewed Days of Our Lives today until September 2010, with the option to pick up the contract until September 2011. That is, at a minimum, 18 more months of Days. Perhaps that will give the writers appropriate time to wrap up the current loose ends of who killed Trent Robbins, who killed the mayor, why did Abe only have to run a campaign that lasted one month in real world time (approximately 2 days in Days of Our Lives time), whether or not Kate will die of lung cancer, will John Black gain his memory back and find true love for the two hundredth time with Marlena, and why should we care about any of this? No good reason, that is why.
On the fantastic TV front, Jeffrey Tambor of Arrested Development said in an interview that an Arrested Development movie is "a go". This show was one of the best and most hilarious of all time, yet it was nearly impossible to convince people to just give it a try when it originally debuted several years ago. Since its cancellation, it has continued to spread in popularity thanks to DVD sales and continued good word of mouth. If this movie comes to fruition, I can't imagine many things that could make me more excited - perhaps if Days is picked up for an additional 18 or 36 months. The two entertainment things that I miss more than anything in the world are Mitch Hedberg and Arrested Development. Mitch is dead from drugs and I doubt that we'll have a 2Pac like series of posthumous releases, but perhaps Arrested can live on in movie format.
Finally, today I learned that if I want to get people commenting on and reading the blog, I have to write about something else about which people strongly disagree with me, a la yesterday's post about The Detroitist. When I started this thing several months ago, my friend and mentor Heiko suggested that I focus on generating traffic by writing posts about how much Apple (the company, not the fruit) sucks. He loves Apple (the fruit and the company) and is a holder of stock (the company), but there are so many fanboys who are crazy in their pro-Apple standpoint that I would instantly whip up the ire of gadget lovers everywhere. I would have to deal with a fair amount of anger, but people would be reading. The broader problem with this approach, I have found, is that as painstaking as I am in trying to make my point clear, people selectively decide to ignore entire portions of my arguments. This could either be because I am not as eloquent and persuasive with my words as I think I am, or that skimming results in important segments being skipped. For example, yesterday I tried to repeatedly make clear that I am well aware of the obvious troubles in our state and there are no simple solutions, but in the comments I was accused of being a simpleton who thinks he can "believe" himself out of a problem. I can't believe myself out of a problem, but I do believe that singularly detailing a terrible situation is even less effective than trying to believe myself out of that situation.
On the fantastic TV front, Jeffrey Tambor of Arrested Development said in an interview that an Arrested Development movie is "a go". This show was one of the best and most hilarious of all time, yet it was nearly impossible to convince people to just give it a try when it originally debuted several years ago. Since its cancellation, it has continued to spread in popularity thanks to DVD sales and continued good word of mouth. If this movie comes to fruition, I can't imagine many things that could make me more excited - perhaps if Days is picked up for an additional 18 or 36 months. The two entertainment things that I miss more than anything in the world are Mitch Hedberg and Arrested Development. Mitch is dead from drugs and I doubt that we'll have a 2Pac like series of posthumous releases, but perhaps Arrested can live on in movie format.
Finally, today I learned that if I want to get people commenting on and reading the blog, I have to write about something else about which people strongly disagree with me, a la yesterday's post about The Detroitist. When I started this thing several months ago, my friend and mentor Heiko suggested that I focus on generating traffic by writing posts about how much Apple (the company, not the fruit) sucks. He loves Apple (the fruit and the company) and is a holder of stock (the company), but there are so many fanboys who are crazy in their pro-Apple standpoint that I would instantly whip up the ire of gadget lovers everywhere. I would have to deal with a fair amount of anger, but people would be reading. The broader problem with this approach, I have found, is that as painstaking as I am in trying to make my point clear, people selectively decide to ignore entire portions of my arguments. This could either be because I am not as eloquent and persuasive with my words as I think I am, or that skimming results in important segments being skipped. For example, yesterday I tried to repeatedly make clear that I am well aware of the obvious troubles in our state and there are no simple solutions, but in the comments I was accused of being a simpleton who thinks he can "believe" himself out of a problem. I can't believe myself out of a problem, but I do believe that singularly detailing a terrible situation is even less effective than trying to believe myself out of that situation.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Things I Learned Today #4
The title of this post is deceptive, because I actually learned this four days ago and I don't have conclusive evidence that it is, in fact, true. But that's OK because as I have stated before, the truth isn't really that important on the internet.
Like many crotchety people over the age of 40 (even though I'm 26), I am increasingly confused by why an individual chooses to wear his pants somewhere from 6 inches to 2 feet below the actual waste line. I don't really mind the style and don't find it remotely offensive, but I could never understand why someone would want to constrict his ability to move the knees independently of each other. That reminds me of a good visual joke. This is the perfect medium for such a joke.
Q: What's this?
A: A Polish person stealing a pair of shoes from KMart (it would be funny if you could see what I was doing when I said "What's this?")
For some reason, on the radio they were explaining the origin of this fashion, and apparently it is based on the fact that prisoners are not allowed to have belts while in prison, resulting in some pant-related downward slippage. Because of this, wearing the pants low is an emulation of prisoners, and I guess provides some sort of prison cred to individuals who wear their pants low. Fascinating stuff. This is most interesting because it also explains why I walk around stabbing people - because that's how prisoners got into prison. Everything is logical if you just take a second to think about and understand it.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Things I Learned Today #3
What's that, Michigan? You want a tech support tip that will save you somewhere between 0 and 5 seconds a day? Then do I have some magic for you!
Yesterday I somehow accidentally deleted my "Show Desktop" icon from my Quick Launch toolbar in Windows. This is a borderline disaster in my world because I often have upwards of 10 windows open at any time on my computer and I don't want to have to minimize every single window just to get to the desktop. After spending part of the day clicking minimize way too many times, I found out after a very tiny bit of looking that holding the windows button next to the space bar plus 'D' at the same time has the same effect as the "Show Desktop" icon.
I know that I just blew your pants off with that one. Tomorrow, stay tuned for exciting tips on how best to remove dirt stains from your clothes (hint: use soap).
Yesterday I somehow accidentally deleted my "Show Desktop" icon from my Quick Launch toolbar in Windows. This is a borderline disaster in my world because I often have upwards of 10 windows open at any time on my computer and I don't want to have to minimize every single window just to get to the desktop. After spending part of the day clicking minimize way too many times, I found out after a very tiny bit of looking that holding the windows button next to the space bar plus 'D' at the same time has the same effect as the "Show Desktop" icon.
I know that I just blew your pants off with that one. Tomorrow, stay tuned for exciting tips on how best to remove dirt stains from your clothes (hint: use soap).
Friday, August 8, 2008
Things I Learned Today #2
Dental hygiene is very important to me, but if you're ever squeezing the toothpaste tube and WAY more toothpaste ends up on the actual brush than you typically use, do not proceed with tooth brushery as usual. For starters, the excessive foaming of the toothpaste ends up everywhere; face, hands, clothes, floor, etc. Also, some of the excess toothpaste will inevitably find its way down your throat and into your stomach. Next, when you try to rinse your mouth when you're done, the leftover toothpaste in your mouth foams even more on contact with the water, so you have to waste even more water in the effort to get all the residual out. Your mouth will have an unpleasant tingle for far longer than you may hope, and, perhaps most importantly, you are just wasting toothpaste. They say "you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube", but those people have never tried a funnel and pneumatic pressure - like that device the guy used in No Country for Old Men but for the purposes of toothpaste good, not killing evil (I just wanted to figure out how to get in a plug for the movie so I could include the awesome trailer).Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Things I Learned Today #1
Today I learned that it is not a good idea to eat 1.25 pounds of canned pineapple and then go for a four mile run within half an hour of consuming said pineapple - especially if it is 80 degrees and sunny outside. Most upsettingly, this is exactly what big pineapple advocates in their latest ad campaign. You remember the popular jingle - "Do you know what is fun to do? Eat one and a quarter pounds of canned pineapple and immediately go for a four mile run." Lies.
I wonder if it would work any better with mandarin oranges...tomorrow I can find out! Note to self: remember to go buy groceries.
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