September 2010 – The Beehive

September 24, 2010

Why don’t we just blow them to smithereens?

Last night on my way home, I was listening to John Rothman on KGO. His topic was the recent U.N. speech by the President Ahmandinejad of Iran, which prompted 33 delegations to walk out. In case you hadn’t heard, he asserted that the 9/11 attacks were actually orchestrated by the U.S. in order to bolster its economy and ensure the survival of the Zionist state, a.k.a. Israel. Clearly the economic agenda didn’t work, and I’m not really sure how destroying the twin towers could really help Israel out, but this guy thinks the Holocaust didn’t happen, so maybe this really works out in his head.

Anyway, John Rothman’s big thing was, reports indicate that Iran has the ability and materials to produce three nuclear weapons, and this guy is a nut job, so what are we going to do about it. Here’s what we should do about it: nothing. And here’s why.

Admittedly, I have not done serious research on this guy and really just know what I know based on snippets from news radio and occasional online news tidbits and newspaper headlines. It appears to me, though, that this guy has quite an ego on him, and he just wants to play with the big boys. I think he’s being inflammatory to get attention because when it comes down to it, he’s really a big nobody and no one of consequence would pay any attention to him otherwise. When we get all up in arms about his offensive comments, he gets exactly what he wants: news coverage. So let’s just stop. Let’s just say to ourselves, “Selves, this guy is just trying to get a rise out of us, so let’s not fall for it. If he wants to join us back in the real world, maybe we can talk, but until then, he’s not worth our time and effort.” End of story. When people stop paying attention and he’s not in the news, I think he shapes up pretty quick. Kind of a like a toddler having a tantrum over a toy. When he realizes no amount of screaming and crying is going to make mommy buy him the toy, the kid will stop. Yes, I just compared the President of Iran to a screaming toddler.

Rothman would no doubt reject this course of action out of hand because he’s afraid Iran is going to nuke somebody. I’m really not. See, a few decades back, there was this thing called the Cold War. There were two giant superpowers that each had thousands of nuclear weapons pointed at each other, and they were poised to plunge the entire planet into a nuclear winter. But they never did because of this concept called mutual assured destruction; the second one of them fired, the other would retaliate and both countries would be wiped out. Similarly here, the second Iran fires a nuke at Israel, or anybody else for that matter, it’s going to get wiped off the map. The only difference here is, Iran will have so few nuclear weapons that it wouldn’t be mutual assured destruction, it would really just be Iran’s assured destruction.

Now, one might argue that Ahmandinejad and the other people in charge of Iran might be the type of Islamic fundamentalists that would be okay with getting wiped out because they would become martyrs and go to heaven and get their 72 virgins and all that jazz. I don’t think so, particularly with respect to Ahmandinejad. Like I said, the guy’s got an ego, and I think he sees himself as too important here in this life to be moving on just yet. I mean, he had photos of his White House visit doctored so it appeared he was leading President Obama around the premises. (I know that when I have an important guest visit my home or office, I always have them give me the tour.) I just don’t see him giving up this fantasy he’s living for any amount of virgins. Even if he personally survived any retaliatory attack, he would be presiding over a destroyed country, and that’s the best case scenario. I think he’d more likely have to go into hiding, and then he really wouldn’t be making the news.

Finally, I’m sure some people have concern for any innocent lives that might be lost in a nuclear attack and counter attack. Of course, any such loss would be tragic, but like I said, I don’t think it will happen. I think we also have to consider this a situation where the U.S. policy of not negotiating with terrorists has to come into play. It has been a long-standing policy that the U.S. does not negotiate with terrorists, even if innocent lives are at stake. By threatening to develop and use nuclear weapons, Iran is, in essence, holding the world hostage. It’s really a terrorist act. We can’t bend to it because, if Iran is successful, they will likely raise the same threats again and other countries will be encouraged to adopt the same bad behavior. While lives may be at risk if we don’t play Iran’s game, I think even more may be at risk if we do.

And with that, I will stop talking about Ahmandinejad, because I’ve already afforded him more time, effort, and space on this blog than he really deserves.

September 24, 2010

Oh, That Crazy Myrna! or Why the AC Doesn’t Work, Part Deux

To recap our prior post on the same topic: AC = broken. Myrna lied about getting it checked out, and its functionality. The condenser unit is too large for the coils, and there is no way it can work in its current state.

We called an HVAC pro out and figured we would have to get the coils replaced to accommodate the larger condenser. He said that was doable, but he also took a look at our upstairs unit, condenser and coils. He noted that the upstairs coil is large enough to accommodate the 3-ton condenser. He also noted that the smaller, upstairs condenser and the downstairs coil are sometimes sold together as a set.

Then, he busted out the tape measure. I never would have guessed this, but the square footage of our upstairs is larger than the square footage of our downstairs. And, the small condenser unit associated with the upstairs was not large enough to cool the square footage up there. He said that the builders must have accidentally mixed up the condensers when they hooked them up.

This is when it dawned on me: the cement patio in the backyard was not original to the house, Myrna installed it herself! That means she had to move the condenser units from where they were originally placed, pour the patio, and replace and reconnect the condensers. Since she only hires unskilled laborers that work for $3/hr or less (i.e., not HVAC professionals) they must have mixed them up when they were put back. Yet another example of Myrna’s cheapness ultimately costing more in the end.

Based on the pro’s recommendation, we decided to switch the condensers, rather than replace the downstairs coils. Not only did he get things working right, but he placed them more appropriately outside the house. I’m happy we figured out what the problem was, and that everything is in tip-top shape now.

At the same time I’m pretty angry at Myrna for breaching our contract. What she did amounts to fraud because she must have known that thing was not working, and she lied about it to induce us to close on the sale. Plus, our dual agent either knew or should have known that the AC had not been checked out by a pro, so I’m angry with her too. And, I’m angry with us because we should have known better than to take Myrna’s word for it that the AC was working; we should have asked for receipts or something from when she had it checked out at the very minimum to ensure that it was actually done.

Next stop, small claims court!

September 21, 2010

Oh, That Crazy Myrna! or Why the AC Doesn’t Work, Part I

If you have read a post or two about the things we have been doing in our house and yard, you probably know that we typically run into some little “quirk” in the way the former owner, Myrna, did things around the house. For example,

Not removing outlet covers, switch plates, or window blinds when painting a room (resulting in various pastel paints on the edges of virtually all the outlet covers, switch plates, and blinds in the house);
Putting clear packing tape over the edges and corners of frequently used kitchen cabinets to prevent skin oils from damaging the wood (this, by the way, does not protect the wood from the tape adhesive and its finish-harming effects);
Taping sheets of clear plastic over the shower surround to prevent the shower from getting dirty or moldy (again, does not protect shower surfaces from the effects of the adhesive);
Not removing an unwanted shrub (and associated trellis) before planting new plants around and on top of it;
Adding a retaining wall and simply dumping fill dirt directly over an exiting sprinkler system rather than extending the sprinkler heads to the new, higher surface.

Now, I originally described these as quirks, but they have become so frequent and, for lack of a better word, stupid, that it is clear they are just examples of extreme corner-cutting by a ridiculous tight wad.

The latest evidence is our air conditioning. The story of the AC is an epic saga. When we were in escrow on the house, we brought in our own independent home inspector. When he checked out the downstairs AC, he showed us that it was not properly functioning; it cycled up, but would only remain on for a minute at best. He told us it could very well be because the weather was cold, and AC often does not work in cold ambient temperatures. Nonetheless, he recommended that we have a pro look at it, since he was not an HVAC expert. So we included as one of our contingencies to closing that the AC had to be inspected and repaired if necessary. Myrna agreed.

When we did our final walk through, the unit was still cycling the same way it had been. Myrna was there, and she assured us that the unit was functioning properly, we were just having problems because it was cold that morning. All of our other repair requests had been attended to, so we believed her. Plus, our agent was also Myrna’s agent, and we figured if she knew Myrna didn’t comply with the repair request, she had a fiduciary duty to inform us.

Fast forward a few months to warm weather. Surprise! AC unit is still cycling and shutting off. We spoke to our agent and she advised us that the home warranty that was part of the purchase should cover it, and we should call them. A quick note on home warranties: they are meant to cover things that break within the first year of the new owner’s occupancy of the house. The explicitly do not cover things that were wrong with the house at the time of purchase that are only discovered after the closing. We called the home warranty people and they sent someone out. He pointed out that we had a 3-ton condenser unit hooked up to 2-ton air conditioning coils. A clear mismatch. Not functional and also not covered by the warranty because the condition must have been existing when we purchased the house.

Needless to say, we ended up hiring our own AC guy, on the recommendation of Steve’s boss, who confirmed the mismatch. With a little investigation, we also found some things that the home warranty guy missed in his haste to declare NO COVERAGE!, and got a proposal for repair. But time is short, and this post is long, so that will be a story for another day . . .

September 13, 2010

100th Post!

Yes, this is our 100th post. I told Steve we were coming up on it, and asked him if maybe he wanted his first post to be our 100th, and he said “you’ve written 99 posts already?” Well, it’s been a while, so yeah, I’ve written that many. Anyway, I thought I needed something memorable or exciting, so I’ve really put off posting anything that has been sort of in the works because it didn’t seem worthy. And now I realize that if I keep waiting for something huge to come up, it will never get written. So, here is something kind of stupid I came across today that I thought I would share.

First, a bit of background. In addition to the various interior design classes I am taking this semester, I am taking an online business law course. It is required for the advanced certificate in interior design, and I thought it would be pretty easy for me since I already have a fair amount of education and experience in that area. Every other week, we have a discussion question that we are supposed to post a comment about in an online forum. Two weeks ago, the teacher gave us our first question, due today. It is “if you could change one thing in the Constitution, what would it be and why?”

I’ll talk a little bit about some of the responses in a minute, but here is the point of this post: At 5:08 pm today, one of my classmates sends an email to the entire class, sans the instructor, saying he knows it is due today, but do we know if there is an exact time deadline or if he has until 11:59 p.m. I had to restrain myself from responding to him because the only thing I could think to say was

Dear Dumb-Ass,

In the time it took you to compose your message and send it out to the entire class, you could have completed the assignment, making your stupid question moot.

Sincerely,

Erin

It’s just not that hard. One or two sentences. That’s it.

It seems like most of the class has probably already posted their responses. Some are rather silly, some are stretching it to say they are written in English, and some are pretty thoughtful. What I’ve found the most interesting, though, is how un-politically correct many of them are. I chose something I thought would be pretty uncontroversial because I did not want to offend anyone. Some people . . . not real worried about that. There are people who have no qualms about saying they want to deport illegal aliens in summary proceedings and get rid of the 14th Amendment provision that persons born on U.S. soil are citizens. And they are happy to say it in a way that makes them sound xenophobic and racist.

That is not to say that those proposed changes might not be good ideas. If you are going to make such a proposal, though, you should probably do it in a way that does not imply that illegal immigrants are lazy slobs who aren’t paying taxes, or are terrorists trying to cause civil unrest. Because clearly there are people in our class that were not born here and/or are not citizens, and if I were them I might take offense. Just a thought.