Nothing is black and white--it's all about negotiation!

Sigh--it's so tough to be in business and try and try and try to provide service. Look at it from the business owner's point of view--he's sent technician after technician out to fix these problems and now we don't think we should have to pay $700 to replace the line set. It's almost a boo-hoo!

We agreed to pay the cost of materials of the new line set. He had to absorb the labor cost and the cost of the refrigerant. He doesn't get to make a profit on labor or refrigerant. We don't get to make a profit on anything.

MAYBE we will have a unit that operates effectively.

Sigh...

Remember the name, Temperature-Control, Incorporated. It's not the only company in town.

And the owner just got an award for providing great customer service!! Are you kidding me??

Temperature-Control, Incorporated "We're Better By A Big Degree"


A few years ago we had the "pleasure" of replacing the heat pump in our house. The old one worked faithfully for 20 years but finally gave up the ghost. And, doncha know, the new ones are so much better--more efficient, to say the least.

We had our new unit installed in August, 2007. Lots of $$$ but that's okay; we needed a NEW, EFFICIENT unit.

September, 2007--PROBLEM service call--new motor had to be installed.
December, 2007--PROBLEM service call--no refrigerant in unit so no heat; need to order a new reversing valve.
December, 2007--PROBLEM service call--reversing valve installed.
December, 2007--PROBLEM service call--buzzing noise and no air flow when started up; can't re-create the problem.
December, 2007--PROBLEM service call--unit won't shut down, contactor points spot welded together.
May, 2008--Regular Spring service call--PROBLEM found--low side pressure but can't find leak.
May, 2008--technician returns--cannot find leak--injects new type of dye
May, 2008--technician returns--cannot find leak (hmm...why did it have low side pressure--don't know).
June, 2008--technician returns--PROBLEM electronic air filter is zapping--no leak
June, 2008--PROBLEM service call--black & white T-stat wires reversed in air handler--no detection of leak but has to add refrigerant.
December, 2008--Regular Fall service call--unit is working fine.
February, 2009--PROBLEM service call--electronic air filter post is rusted off--filter has to be replaced.
April--October 2009--We're in Alaska and not needing air conditioning!
October, 2009--PROBLEM service call--located leak inside evap. coil--ordered new coil.
October, 2009--technician returns--PROBLEM--couldn't pump down system and compressor would not run, traced problem to compressor--end connector burned off. Installs new end connector and installs new coil.
April, 2010--Regular Spring service call--unit is working fine.
April--October 2010--We're in Alaska and not needing air conditioning!
October, 2010--PROBLEM service call--low on refrigerant--adds refrigerant. We pay for refrigerant and dye--ridiculous!
April, 2011--Regular Spring service call--PROBLEM--low on refrigerant--adds refrigerant--no charge to us.
April--October 2011--We're in Alaska and not needing air conditioning!
October, 2011--PROBLEM service call--low on refrigerant--adds refrigerant--no charge to us.
April, 2012--PROBLEM so moved up Regular Spring service a week--low on refrigerant--adds refrigerant. Maybe the set lines are leaking. That will cost $700 to replace. Are you kidding me??????????
April, 2012--PROBLEM--cap off compressor, air handler and set lines, add gauges to determine if there is a leak
April, 2012--PROBLEM--there is a leak in the set line
April, 2012--PROBLEM--set line is scheduled to be replaced on Monday! I do not plan to pay for it.

I would think a Customer Service Award Winner owner would be bending over backwards to make things right. We can't get him to call us. We finally tracked him down and spoke with him. He agreed to check the set line.

Customer Service--are you kidding me?? We're such idiots!

Miss Adventure, 2012

The year is in its infancy, so we can't actually award the crown yet, but I have to nominate Peggie for Miss Adventure 2012.

Most evenings we go for a walk into a mostly undeveloped desert area near our house. We always see cottontails, quail, doves, and dogs. Sometimes we see something more rare, like tonight. There was a stick in the road. As we got closer, it turned into a snake. When Peggie was one step away it turned into a rattlesnake. I couldn't get a coherent warning out, just "Watch out." or some such. Peggie had time to do a dance step, but not before one foot came within a shoe length of the head. The snake, a western diamondback did not move. So we picked it up to see if it was alive. NO NO NO!!!

I used my walking stick to nudge it. It was only a little over a foot long and as big as a finger. Only a button for a rattle. It moved its head a couple of inches and extended its forked tongue a few times. We gave it a more reasonable berth and continued. Maybe it will be there again tomorrow. We will watch more closely for sticks from now on.

Adventures of the third kind.

How many kinds of adventures are there. I mean categories.

Like, the title of this blog referred to our intent to spend a summer working in Skagway. This category of adventure means setting out to do something different or unusual to see what experiences you can have. It is intended to be fun.

On the way to Skagway, we had an "adventure" of the second kind. That is, descending the 13.5 miles of 9% grade, pulling a trailer, while the brakes on the truck make that baaaad sound all the way. So you could define this category as potentially death defying, but-turned-out-okay. And definitely not anticipated, and definitely not fun.

Then there is the adventure that happens unexpectedly while engaged in a routine activity. It isn't death defying, dangerous, or necessarily interesting or fun. It is just unexpected. Many of us have this kind of adventure at the auto repair shop. You need an oil change, and end up with new brakes. This is the kind I had today.

The check engine light began coming on again after we had a new gas tank installed due to a recall stemming from the regurgitation of fuel when the pump automatically shuts off. The code translated to "gascap." But tightening the gascap did not cause the light to go out. It turned out to be a faulty "rollover valve." You see, the Wrangler has a valve on the filler tube that will prevent the rapid emptying of the fuel tank in case of a rollover. Fire prevention, doncha know.

However, the filler tube is integrated into the tank itself. All one piece. So I needed a new tank. Again. So the adventure here is the extra three hours I got to spend in the waiting room watching Sandra Lee, Rachel Ray, Paula Dean, The Barefoot Contessa, and numerous others share recipes and cooking tips. I had a book, but I finished it in only three hours. I read the newspaper, did the Jumble, Cryptogram, and Crossword, and started on the Sudoku. Had a conversation with a former Southern Pacific engineer about trains because I was wearing a hat with a train on it. Shared accounts of weekend activities with a new-car salesman taking a smoke break.

So there went another day.

How did yours go?

AZ springtime.

Prior to my adventure with the plumbing, we enjoyed a weekend visit from Greg and Ariana. Casey joined us as well. We went to the Desert Museum, always a treat, and got to watch the raptor free flight and the feeding of the cats. Ariana is old enough to be excited and interested in most of the animals. What she enjoyed most was playing in the sand in the back yard. Every flowering plant we have is in bloom. She and Casey picked flowers and decorated "sand castles" with colorful arrangements.

Dave and Margie came for a visit the next weekend. We went to the Arizona Historical Museum to see the 100 year quilt exhibit and were excited to see that they had collected the "quilt bomb" from the trees out front and had included them in the interior exhibit. Peggie's piece was at the front entrance!!

We also had to take a little jeep ride, of course. We took a wash that runs from Oracle to Mammoth, through the Tortilla Mountains where the Tiger Mine was located before they closed it down. Now the overburden has been sculpted and planted so it blends in like the natural hills around it. When we got to Mammoth we continued along the railroad north to Camp Grant Wash, where we turned back through the mountains on our return to Tucson via Willow Springs Road. It was a gorgeous day. Some poppies remained, but the best flowers were on the hedgehog cactus. We spotted deer, including a magnificent three point buck, cardinals, hawks, (especially a red tail sitting on her nest on the platform of a windmill) ravens and a pretty little vermilion flycatcher. But best of all on an Arizona jeep trip, we got our wheels wet! In Camp Grant Wash a spring feeds a stream that stays on the surface for a mile or so. It meanders across the sandy stream bed so often one loses count of the number of times you are required to cross it. Luckily, the sand is firm and there is no danger of becoming mired. I have been on this route a number of times during all seasons of the year and the stream appears to be permanent. This is unusual in Arizona. This was also Easter weekend, so for the first time I have seen, there were people camping in the canyon allowing the children to play in the water.

A LOT of people. We estimated two hundred or so in the mile of water. Those of you not from desert climates need to get the picture here. The water is nowhere more than two inches deep and would make a stream about three feet wide if it stayed together. But it meanders in ribbons like the mouth of big river like the Mississippi. Even so, the children were wet from head to toe and having a great time. The wash bed varies from thirty to a hundred foot width of flat, driveable surface between steeply climbing stone walls. Four wheel drive is unnecessary, in fact most family sedans could drive it.

We concluded the weekend by joining some of the Bice (mom's family) clan at a Glendale park for an Easter potluck.

Gimmee three trips...

Extra credit if you get the reference for the parody.

Gimmee three trips, gimmee three trips, mister, gimmee three trips to the store.

My manhood is intact.

The upstairs toilet was leaking. It needed a new float valve. So I headed to the local Ace. Picked up the new valve. Came back home. Disconnected the old valve. Oops. The flex line over-flexed and broke. This required replacing the shut off valve, because the flex hose is integrated. So I headed to the local Ace. There are MANY different kinds of shut off valves and flex hoses to choose from. I selected one. Oops. Wrong one. So I headed to the local Ace. Exchanged wrong one for correct (?) one. Stephanie, at the register, (we are on a first name basis now) said if I needed to return, to give her a call and she would just set up a cot for me in the back room.

The second job, replacing the shut-off valve and flex hose, required turning off the main water line. No problem. It also resulted in a cut on my finger. So I jumped up, went to the handy bathroom sink to wash away the blood.... Oh, well, there were Kleenix handy, too.

But the moral to the story is that I completed another successful home repair.

And a note just for my children: When removing the original shut-off valve didn't work as expected, I went on-line to get the info needed to get the job done.

MMMM Give me meat! Me man! Albeit, a modern man!

E=mc2

Yep. Relativity.

According to Einstein, and supported by actual experiments, time is not constant. The faster you are moving, the slower it goes.

That explains why the five years from 2002-2007 took longer than the five years from 2007 until now. During the previous five years I was hurrying just as fast as I could go. So time slowed down. During the last five years, I have done some hurrying, but mostly I have been taking it easy, so time has flown.

It is spring break at the local schools. This week I awoke from a nightmare. I was trying to teach a class, but the students, on the first day back from spring break, were restless. They were wantonly hostile and misbehaving, even the ones who were usually good students. I was totally hopeless. Thank goodness I woke up.

The wildflowers are all over. If you haven't yet, get out to see them.