Mercury must be in retrograde... aka Things are breaking everywhere...
Ok, so I haven't posted in a long time, but that's not for lack of trying... I wrote a LONG post on Friday and Blogger ate it. Chewed it up and swallowed it. Gone forever. I was in a mood so I decided not to write again that day. It would have just been one solid tear-jerking rant.
Saturday we took my car in for the routine 30k service. I have a 2004 Toyota Camry, though for some reason, anytime people ask me what year it is, I say "it's a '94" and they kind of stare at me, probably thinking "of course it's broken!" and I have to correct myself, while sounding like an idiot, "oh, wrong decade, I mean '04" This has happened almost everytime I've taken it in for service. So the service on Saturday was all routine, but about an hour after we left the shop, my ipod adapter stopped working. We were able to revive it and go on with our day. Went out to Cantler's in Annapolis for crabs with friends... good day.
Sunday we went to Wegman's. Oh, how I love Wegmans! So much fun in a grocery store! Bought these little purple and white striped eggplant and some amazing heirloom tomatoes. YUM. But on the way home from the store, my ipod adapter completely stopped working and has yet to be revived, and I noticed a noise. Hmm... what's that noise?
I had Monday off, and when I left the house to go to the gym, the noise was worse, and then *DING* there was the check engine light. hmm... I headed back to the shop that worked on my car and demanded they tell me what they screwed up. They denied it, of course. They told me that the other part that broke was not related and they didn't know what the noise was, and no, they hadn't touched the stereo. Must all be a coincidence. How convenient.
Made an appointment at the dealer as the car is still under warranty (being an '04, not a '94). We dropped it off at 7 am this morning and the guy behind the counter said that the shop may have caused the problems and thus voided the warranty, but maybe not. It could all be a coincidence, he said. I told him I should have bought some lottery tickets because I've never had a streak like this before. Matt dropped me off at home as today is my telecommuting day. About an hour later, BGE showed up.
BGE was the subject of my unpublished rant on Friday. When they installed our electric service last year, they screwed it into the trim on the siding. This proved to be a bad idea because the trim has pulled away from the house and caused water damage to the window sills and possibly walls in the office. Our contractor said it was BGE's fault and we spent a month trying to get in touch with them. Finally, after contacting our councilman, Matt got an actual phone call from a manager! I guess that's how you get service. So the manager came out to look at the problem and spotted it right away. I was relieved that we weren't imagining it. He took some photos and checked it all out, then said he was going to try and get a crew out today. They showed up about 45 minutes later and climbed up on the ladder to move our electric supply.
I stood outside watching them, in part because our alarm system was beeping due to lack of power, and in part because I wanted to see what they were doing. Apparently when our house was redone, the contractor left the asbestos shingles on the back of the bump-out and applied the wood siding directly over them. This makes sense because the shingles were structurally intact but would have been a hazzard to remove. The problem is BGE didn't know this and when they put the 8 inch screw through the trim, it didn't tap into anything. Nothing at all. So gravity took over and water came in. They were able to move it up about 6 inches and hit actual wood, but they couldn't fix the big gap in the siding. The guy actually did try even though he told me it wasn't his responsibility. He nailed and nailed and couldn't hit anything, plus the wood is pretty bowed at this point. He told us to call our contractor back. We're working on that now.
After the BGE saga, I got a call from the car dealer. The good news is that everything is covered under warranty. The noise is caused by a loose piece in my steering column. Um, scary??? The check engine light was from the airflow sensor. And he said the cd player was fine... don't know why the ipod wouldn't play. They had to order a part, so I can't have the car until tomorrow, which is good because considering my luck I'd probably crash it into something on the way home.
I'm wondering now, with my third warranty repair on the car this summer, what's going to happen to my "perfectly reliable toyota" after the warranty is up? Maybe I should go buy that lottery ticket.
Saturday we took my car in for the routine 30k service. I have a 2004 Toyota Camry, though for some reason, anytime people ask me what year it is, I say "it's a '94" and they kind of stare at me, probably thinking "of course it's broken!" and I have to correct myself, while sounding like an idiot, "oh, wrong decade, I mean '04" This has happened almost everytime I've taken it in for service. So the service on Saturday was all routine, but about an hour after we left the shop, my ipod adapter stopped working. We were able to revive it and go on with our day. Went out to Cantler's in Annapolis for crabs with friends... good day.
Sunday we went to Wegman's. Oh, how I love Wegmans! So much fun in a grocery store! Bought these little purple and white striped eggplant and some amazing heirloom tomatoes. YUM. But on the way home from the store, my ipod adapter completely stopped working and has yet to be revived, and I noticed a noise. Hmm... what's that noise?
I had Monday off, and when I left the house to go to the gym, the noise was worse, and then *DING* there was the check engine light. hmm... I headed back to the shop that worked on my car and demanded they tell me what they screwed up. They denied it, of course. They told me that the other part that broke was not related and they didn't know what the noise was, and no, they hadn't touched the stereo. Must all be a coincidence. How convenient.
Made an appointment at the dealer as the car is still under warranty (being an '04, not a '94). We dropped it off at 7 am this morning and the guy behind the counter said that the shop may have caused the problems and thus voided the warranty, but maybe not. It could all be a coincidence, he said. I told him I should have bought some lottery tickets because I've never had a streak like this before. Matt dropped me off at home as today is my telecommuting day. About an hour later, BGE showed up.
BGE was the subject of my unpublished rant on Friday. When they installed our electric service last year, they screwed it into the trim on the siding. This proved to be a bad idea because the trim has pulled away from the house and caused water damage to the window sills and possibly walls in the office. Our contractor said it was BGE's fault and we spent a month trying to get in touch with them. Finally, after contacting our councilman, Matt got an actual phone call from a manager! I guess that's how you get service. So the manager came out to look at the problem and spotted it right away. I was relieved that we weren't imagining it. He took some photos and checked it all out, then said he was going to try and get a crew out today. They showed up about 45 minutes later and climbed up on the ladder to move our electric supply.
I stood outside watching them, in part because our alarm system was beeping due to lack of power, and in part because I wanted to see what they were doing. Apparently when our house was redone, the contractor left the asbestos shingles on the back of the bump-out and applied the wood siding directly over them. This makes sense because the shingles were structurally intact but would have been a hazzard to remove. The problem is BGE didn't know this and when they put the 8 inch screw through the trim, it didn't tap into anything. Nothing at all. So gravity took over and water came in. They were able to move it up about 6 inches and hit actual wood, but they couldn't fix the big gap in the siding. The guy actually did try even though he told me it wasn't his responsibility. He nailed and nailed and couldn't hit anything, plus the wood is pretty bowed at this point. He told us to call our contractor back. We're working on that now.
After the BGE saga, I got a call from the car dealer. The good news is that everything is covered under warranty. The noise is caused by a loose piece in my steering column. Um, scary??? The check engine light was from the airflow sensor. And he said the cd player was fine... don't know why the ipod wouldn't play. They had to order a part, so I can't have the car until tomorrow, which is good because considering my luck I'd probably crash it into something on the way home.
I'm wondering now, with my third warranty repair on the car this summer, what's going to happen to my "perfectly reliable toyota" after the warranty is up? Maybe I should go buy that lottery ticket.