5 miles at the Y

It’s getting warm here in Central TX, and we have been using our air conditioner unit(s) lately. But the downstairs A/C was not putting out any cool air, so we called in the warranty department. Once out at our house, the repairman detected a leak which was inside one of exterior walls. he cut through the drywall, and determined that the builder really didn’t do a good job. In fact, they did it all wrong. So now he is going to call the builder and have them remove some brick from the exterior so that he can fix the problem. It’s amazing that the home builders cannot just crank out these cookie-cutter homes without screwing something up. Luckily everything is still under warranty, so no money will come out of our pockets.

The repairman did refill the unit with whatever stuff it needed (freon?) and so we have cool air again, plus he said to just call him up if it runs out again.

I don’t remember these guys when I used to live in California, but here in Texas, the pest control salesmen are out in full force when the weather starts warming up. In the past 2 weeks, we have had four salesmen come by trying to get us to sign up with their service, which usually consists of spraying the perimeter of the house with some kind of poison that is supposed to keep away the ants, spiders and scorpions. It’s pretty funny because these guys always have the same spiel. “Many of your neighbors have noticed lots of ants and spiders in the past few days. We’re having a special for your neighborhood right now…” blah blah blah. They try to shift the conversation to who is handling your pest control, and then something like, “well, we can beat their price.” I usually just politely say, “Thanks but no thanks” as I shut the door.

But some of these guys are really shady. At our old house, I could swear that one of them sprayed some kind of sugar solution under our front door, then appeared to sell us their service a couple days later. There was this little stain that ran from the weather stripping under our door and into our living room about 8 feet in, and the ants were all over it. You could tell that someone squirted something in using a little tube or something. That reminds me of another service, which is a cat and dog poop disposal service. A friend of mine said they saw some dude throwing dog poo into their neighbor’s backyard. Then a couple days later the salesmen showed up to “help” them with their problem. It’s a tough business I guess.

Yesterday I stopped at the local Autozone to pick up some new wiper blades for my Sentra and Mariko’s Odyssey, and was thinking of spending about $6 per blade. There was actually quite a wide range of prices. The most expensive were about $20, and had some silicone material or something, and the cheapest ones were $3.50. I wen’t with the cheapest ones, thinking that there can’t be a 6x difference in performance or product life.

For 5 blades, it cost about $18. Installation was easy, and last night I actually drove in the rain a bit and the blades were silent and performed great. A little research on the Internet showed that many people preferred to replace the cheapo blades more frequently, and I think this is what I will do. They also recommend using Rain-X, which is pretty easy now that they have an additive that goes in the wiper fluid reservoir. I think I will skip that for now.

I ordered a set of 100 semi-random Moo-cards. Semi-randomly picked from my Flickr account, that is. I don’t know what I will use them for, but they are kind of fun. I’ll take some pics of the cards that are from pics. Maybe I will make more cards from those pics of cards of pics. Whatever. It’s 1:29am and I am getting loopy.

1.0 mile at the Y

I usually listen to music when I am running. On my normal road run around the neighborhood it is pretty safe to run with headphones, because the sidewalks are wide and there isn’t a whole lot of traffic. And then the treadmill at the gym is the perfect place to space out and listen to some tunes.

But lately I have been loading up podcasts on my Shuffle for my runs. Tonight I listened to some Leo Laporte podcasts, “The Daily GizWiz” with Dick DeBartolo, and “Net@Nite” with Amber MacArthur. Both are funny and informative. LaPorte and DeBartolo have a good rapport, and it’s fun to hear about cool, practical, and sometimes wacky gadgets. Net@Nite focuses on web sites and trends and helps me keep in tune with the latest on the Net. I learn about tons of new sites listening to it. Definitely give those podcasts a listen to. Even if you aren’t running! It’s good for the car too. 🙂