Wednesday, July 22, 2020

thank you for coming to my Ted Talk

right now there are two loudest camps -- the wear a mask (always) Camp and the masks don't help much, if at all Camp -- but there are other camps in-between.


I wear a mask in the store and if a repair person comes over, but when walking outside I often do not and simply keep my distance from others. My family has sheltered at home from the beginning and we do interact with some other people who have done the same (sans masks).

I'm not going sit in a crowded restaurant, or beach. However, I will go for a walk and if I pass someone without a mask or don't have mine, I'll move as far and quickly away as possible. Certainly not gonna stop and chat with anyone at length.

When this first began, I was reminded of the Y2K scare and how IT professionals had to embellish the risks to get everyone's attention. I think there has been a little bit of (necessary) theatre not to intentionally mislead but to get people to take this more seriously. Because humans need simple messages, ie "don't do this all the time" versus "don't do this unless condition#1, Condition#2, etc".

There is still a lot we don't know about COVID-19 and as we learn, we must adapt.

To be clear, I am taking this seriously and believe we should have started with a "play it safe" and "do no harm to others" approach and are sorely lacking consistent, nonpartisan leadership.
thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

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Friday, July 17, 2020

Knocked another item on our Get The House Ready to Sell List

When we bought this house our inspector told us that we had a couple of problems with the electrical.  First problem was the feed was over the deck, which is absolutely against code.  Like it was never okay and there is no grandfather clause for that one.

Second, the electric panel in the basement was also not up to code.  It was using something called 'Cheaters' which allowed a 200 amp service to work with a 100 amp panel.  At least that is how it was explained to me.  It was also explained that this is fine in most parts of the country but not in Cook County.  Yay government oversight! 

We asked the owner to address it and he reluctantly gave us some money to take care of it.  I was prepared to walk away because this is a legitimate get out of contract free card issue.  But the respective realtors wanted their money after spending so much effort finding us a home and marketing his, so they convinced him to give us a credit.   Of course the standard way of determining how much money is by getting three of your electrician friends to give you lowball quotes and you take the average.  You will never find an electrician who will do the work for that price. 

Can you picture Boris hitting this with a rake?

I've been getting quotes for years from electricians who would do the panel and the move and upgrade the service (I wasn't sure if we had a 200 Amp service but it appears we do) and they all came in around $3K. 

Honestly, I don't remember how much was given but now that I think about it, it might have been more generous than I remember.

I got the panel taken care of in 2017, or was it 2018, via an Angie's list deal for about $800, IIRC.  But the electrician kept upping the price to move the feed because there are only so many good spots to put it and putting it in the best exterior location might have meant moving the panel which is a lot of work. 


When COVID-19 derailed our plans to list the house and move south, I decided it was time to fix this issue so that I wouldn't have to give the next buyer a credit for this.  I'm likely gonna have to give them a credit for something else, because there is always something else, so this helps.  Plus Boris was walking up the stairs once with an outstretched rake in his arms and although he's too short to reach the power line now...it's only a matter of time before we have fried Moose.


I got a couple of quotes and found someone I liked.  He figured out a way to move the line with minimal impact and without having to do some of the destructive things other electricians threatened.  He also consulted with ComEd to verify that it was up to code and best practices and we got their blessing so yay!



He came in April to give the estimate and I was honest and said I wanted to do this but couldn't pull the trigger at that moment because i had other projects in-flight but wanted to get this going before summer ended.  He was very accomodating and not pushy at all.


Ironically, once I was able to get to this, we had issues with weather.  May was rather rainy and we kept having to reschedule.  We pushed it out to the first Thursday in June but then Nightingale had us join the Adamas on a lakehouse vacation.  We were going to have him do the work anyway with my mom here to reach out if there  were any problems but my spidey sense said not to do that.  So I cancelled 11th hour and reschedule for the following week.  Between his schedule and the weather, we got it done on Friday, June 12th.  It was a good thing I rescheduled too because there was a slight misunderstanding in where they would put the new feed and by being there, they were able to rethink it on the fly. 

It cost $2500 and I do like how it came out.  I'm worried that if we stay here, we'll someday put an addition on the house and that will mean this was for naught but what can you do.

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Tuesday, July 14, 2020

Job History repeats itself

Just wanted to share the not so pleasant news ...My job at Big Audit, along with 400+ other souls, was eliminated.  I got the news June 22 although my last official day was July 5th. 

We knew this might be coming and would have come sooner had COVID-19 not slowed things down a bit.  Like my last job, they outsourced my position to offshore/Not-America. This is just the wave of the future of corporate America.  Same way manufacturing went overseas in the 70s and 80s, other jobs were outsourced in the 90s etc.  Same as it's always been.


I should have been safe because I work with Federal Data that cannot be accessed by 3rd party or non-citizens (or non-employees of KPMG but the got around this by making offshore legit KPMG employees). Whatever your political viewpoint, the Trump Administration relaxing of regulations lead directly to the elimination of my job. 

I'm less mad about that than I am that my Office Nemesis got to keep his job but I lost mine. He made my life a living hell for the last 3+ years and it didn't need to be that way.  Poor leadership enabled him and lack of oversight empowered him. 

Anyway, there is never a good time to lose a job but in the middle of COVID-19 things are moving slower than ever.  Luckily we are good savers and don't spend money too frivolously so we are okay for now.  Hopefully something comes along that is a similar job where I could work from anywhere but this was a unicorn opportunity not likely to be repeated.

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Wednesday, July 8, 2020

What are the odds

In the summer of 1988, I worked at PPSB as a telephone solicitor.  I sold crummy magazine subscriptions to people.  I got the only job an experienced no-talent, not connected 19 yr old could get.

As you might imagine, a job like that has a revolving door of people.  I started with a guy named Alex who lived not to far away.  A couple of times we'd go to his place for lunch and have a few drinks to make our afternoons a little more pleasant.  He was a much heavier drinker than I, Cutty Sark being his drink of choice.  We really only did this two or three times before he got fired for being late or something.

Besides Alex, I can only remember a few others from that job.  There was Melissa who went to Northern University and was home for the summer.  She had  real boyfriend somewhere but hooked up with Alex to pass the time.  She lived within walking distance of the building.  Melissa was, as we'd say, good on the phones. 

Then there was Connie, who also was good at the phones.  She wasn't as comely as Melissa but had a steady live-in boyfriend.  She lived somewhere on Belmont, just west of the blue line station. 

Another girl named Marie was planning to go to medical school.   Connie, Marie and I went to Medussa's one night.  It was probably the only time any of us did anything outside of work.

Finally there was Kristen.  She split her time between San Diego and Chicago after her parent's divorce.  I had a crush on her but didn't do anything about it.



I've run into Melissa once since then.  I was walking somewhere downtown and she was outside her office building, presumable having a smoke.  She recognized me before I realized how I knew her.  She had also put some on weight which made me uncertain if it was her.

I've run into Connie and Marie probably twice as well.  Connie was my waitress one time at a bar & grill in the late 90s or early noughties.  Another time I was on a date and Marie and someone were sitting at the table next to me. 

I've run into Kirsten twice as well, both times at bars.  Once in the mid-90s and once in the early noughts.  Neither time was she willing to give me her number.

Clearly none of us made enough of an impression on one another to stay in touch in any way.  I have a vague memory of calling Marie once to see what she was up to, but again it didn't grow organically.

My point is, assuming everyone was always in Chicago during these 32 years, what are the odds that we would run into one another so seldom as we have?  I'll come back to that.

In 2008 I was in Krakow and I ran into Kimberly Chulis in the town square.  now we knew we were each going to be in Poland at the same time but had no plans to meet up.  In fact, if I had taken longer to get ready that day or she and her mom had lingered at breakfast, we might not have bumped into each other when we did.

My argument is that it is more unlikely for Kimberly and me to bump into each other than Alex, Melissa, Marie, Connie and Kristen not to run into each other in a longer time span, yet here we are. 


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