Dandelyon's Worlds

Last night I wasn't pleased with having spent a day's worth of my writing time on trying to get our heater fixed, but I was pleased with the technician who showed up, even though he didn't fix the boiler.  I was also pleased with the promise that he would be back in the morning no later than 10:00 to finish fixing my boiler by installing a new fuel pump. He gave me a bill for the service call and I paid it right away, even though I still had no heat. In retrospect, I should have refused to pay anything until the job was done.

He didn't show up at all today.

His boss Dave Maerzke 414-217-6114 decided not to have him finish the job.  ( the whole song and dance )
I know that heating contractors have a very busy time when the temperatures plummet. In general terms, I have a lot of respect for people willing to work early and late and very, very long hours to make sure folks they don't even know have heat.  I know, from a friend who's in that business, that when there's work it comes all at once, because the conditions that stress a unit stress all of the units in a city at the same time.

I  also try hard to give people the benefit of the doubt--we're all human, after all. 

But I think it's reasonable to believe that somebody who takes your money to start a job and promises to come back the next day to finish it should show up as promised (even if it wasn't the day before a long holiday weekend.)  To not bother to even try to complete the job seems to me to be derelict, especially since this guy's stated reason for his behavior is nothing more than the normal circumstances of the type of business he chose to be in.

So, I had hoped to be able to tell you all that I am thankful that I have heat.  Instead I guess I just have to be thankful that I can tell all of my friends about this heating contractor who can cheerfully leave a paying customer in the cold with the job half done.

Once again, the boiler is not working. The guy who came in to look at it didn't have the part. On the other hand, he was really nice, and seemed to know exactly what he was doing, even if he wasn't as good at explaining it as Dan. But Dan is out of town for the holiday.

It shouldn't be too expensive, but I really don't need any more expenses.

And I really didn't need to spend time--this morning, and lunchtime, and since work let me go--on the heat instead of writing.

I am pleased with the additions I'm making to Clockwork Dragon, but still...I wanted to have at least twice as many of those new additions by now.

Oh, well, now I'm off to check exactly how cold the radiators are. Bet you didn't expect me to be using aquarium thermometers on my radiators! Me neither.

I have a beautiful old Victorian house that had been in a state of deferred maintenance when I got it, and haven't had money to fix all the things that it needs, much less bring it to a modern state of insulation. So when the temperature plummets suddenly, the furnace lags behind, and it's not warm inside. It's far from freezing, but it's not shirtsleeves-comfortable. And I'm not as far along on making the insulated drapes I've been working on as I wished, though there are pieces of warm material being cut, and cut brocade, draping the dining room table.

So I'm sitting here in sweat pants and a coat, eagerly awaiting #scifichat, which starts in about an hour. Today, the plan is to do worldbuilding for a shared-world anthology, which will be open to submissions by speculative fiction writers who use Twitter.

It's from 2-4 p.m. Eastern Standard time, which is 1-3 Chicago time.

I hope I like the world we create!

In other shared world news -- Torn World is getting closer and closer to being open, with stories and art available for reading and enjoyment. And Ellen made a comment that there will be extras for people who join before New Years; I don't know the details, but you can check out ellenmillion 's journal for links and stuff. I'd go look them up, but I want to get this reminder out in case any of my friends want to join in the chat.