The MacDeskBlog

Occasionally, someone publicly says something so outrageous that I feel compelled to react. Unfortunately, this is one of those times. Had I a blog when Trent Lott implicitly endorsed segregation at Strom Thurmond’s birthday party, I would have pointed my little candle light at it.

Berkeley lefty snubbed by House Republicans / They kill plan to name post office after longtime Councilwoman Maudelle Shirek

[...]

[Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland], in a statement after the vote, blasted [Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa], saying his “campaign of innuendo and unsubstantiated ‘concern’ is better suited to the era of Joe McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover than today’s House of Representatives.”

To which King responded: “I think that if Barbara Lee would read the history of Joe McCarthy, she would realize that he was a hero for America.”

[...]

If you live in Iowa, please, please, please, write to Mr. King and tell him that Joe McCarthy was most certainly NOT a hero for America and that Mr. King should be ashamed of himself for saying so.

I’ve been sitting on this news for over two months now. Wow. I knew this took a long time, but I didn’t realize just how long until this moment. I had a mediation session with my former contractor in early July. By the end of the day, it was pretty clear that his insurance carrier would settle my case against him. Then it just became a question of when they would realize how much money it would take. That took another couple of weeks, at which point we reached a settlement. Alas, their incompetence continued, which was aggravating but not surprising. They wanted me to sign the settlement agreement which stipulated that I had received the money from them before they were willing to write the check. After a lot of back and forth, we finally cleared that up and they got their signed settlement agreement minus the stipulation that they had already paid me. It took them another three weeks after that to finally send a check by courier, after the first one “got lost in the mail” (yeah right). [Of course, as with any settlement agreement, nobody admitted any fault of any sort.]

I am extremely happy today as I deposited the check. My attorney was extremely happy yesterday, as he got paid for the past two months of work. And my creditors will be extremely happy within the next week, as I am able to catch up on bills which have run up in anticipation of the check.

It’s a good day. I think I’ll go celebrate by heading to the Giants game to watch Barry Bonds hit #704 tonight against the Dodgers.

I know I haven’t been posting the financials of MacDesktops for the past few months. I wish that were because I’m breaking even now. Alas, it’s just because I’ve been too busy. Support of advertisers and usage of commission links would be appreciated. Given the conditions in Gulf Coast right now, and the great need for charitable contributions to organizations such as the Red Cross, I’m hesitant to even mention that donations would still be welcome too. But if you think that MacDesktops provides a service which is worth something to you, please think about sending a little something after helping southern Mississippi and Louisiana.

One of the contacts that I made through my incompetent former contractor was with a custom garage door manufacturer. The company had a nice selection of door styles and options and built each door to fit. They also offered a heavy discount for cash transactions, and I’m talking heavy. They built and installed my garage door back in 2003, and I was pleased.

So, when it came time to uninstall the garage door prior to jackhammering out the bad foundation in March of this year, I called them. They uninstalled the door and the opener for $100 and told me it would cost $400 to reinstall everything when I was ready. $400 seemed rather steep to me, but last week, when I was ready to have the door reinstalled, I called them up and scheduled it for Monday of this week. I was again quoted $400 for the installation.

Monday arrived, and the installer called me at 7AM. Maybe he thought he was calling a contractor, who would probably be up and about at 7AM, so I cut him some slack. Then he calls me back at 9AM to inform me that installing the garage door opener will cost extra (!) as well as “re-scribing” the door. He wants an extra $250 on top of the $400 I was quoted twice. So I hung up on him and called the office. I talked the office down from $650 to $600 and grudgingly rescheduled the installation for Tuesday morning. The installer had left instructions with my carpenter on some small framing changes which needed to be made before the installation.

When the phone rang Tuesday morning at 7AM, I didn’t answer it and the company didn’t leave a message. My carpenter had finished the framing when the installer arrived again. This time the installer said that part of the foundation needs to be chipped out in order for him to install the door and complained that the work had not already been completed though he had not said anything about it on Monday. Further, he said something about them not being interested in coming back again to do the work after Tuesday. We had to chip out the foundation then and there or he wouldn’t do the work!

When my carpenter called me to inform me of this, I told him to rudely toss the guy off my property.

Unfortunately, this means that I need to learn how to properly install a garage door, and probably need to tap some of the screws/bolts into the concrete. But I’m willing to take that responsibility on in order to avoid doing business with a company which tries to rape its customers like this.

A business really should honor its commitments such as the price it quotes for work. Further, if they require particular preparation be completed prior to their own work, they need to ensure that they make all of those requirements explicitly known. It should be entirely obvious that businesses should always (and I mean ALWAYS) treat their customers with the utmost respect.

The company who did this to me is City Overhead Doors on Mission St in San Francisco. I strongly discourage anyone from doing business with them.

I went to the house after work on Wednesday and installed the rest of the insulation, finishing just before midnight. Sheet rock was supposed to be delivered this morning at 8AM but the lumber yard totally screwed me today. The sheet rockers, of course, arrived pretty much on time, and spent a few hours twiddling their thumbs before giving up on the delivery which finally arrived at 2:45PM!

Insulation inspection is tomorrow. Sheet rockers start (for real) early tomorrow and will be working through the weekend.