Oy! The oven saga continues.
We got a competent professional out to work on the oven install today. Turns out, if we'd had somebody before who knew what he was doing, and knew what we lacked, it'd be working today. We could have fixed those issues.
First, we needed another nipple, this time double male 1/2 inch. Today's guy was kind enough to wait a few minutes while I called the closest hardware store (Ace - and why didn't we start there anyway?) to establish they had one, and then he waited another ten minutes while I drove over to pick it up. Ace was thoughtful enough to have it up at the front counter as I walked in!
But there were still two more issues he found insurmountable. It's what you get when a professional worries about losing his license, because you finally got a professional who know what he's not got to work with/on. First, plugging the stove into a short extension cord just doesn't cut it.
Note previous look-it-up-on-you-tube guy found that just fine, thank you. But we need a new circuit box behind the oven, standard up-to-code wiring going through the studs, etc., etc. Fortunately, we know a guy, one of Rich's many friends. He'll even provide parts and do the job for free, out of friendship. What's that, another couple hundred dollars saved?
Can't do that for the next bit, but it may not cost anyway. We need to get the gas people out to check the gas line as it comes across after leaving the stove top. They didn't check it because they'd already shut it off once they condemned the old oven due to internal heat damage. So we need them back out to see if the line leaks or not, before our professional (or any professional) will hook up our gas.
Steve said he couldn't decide whether to cuss or cry at this latest delay. He did make a choice, and I didn't see a single tear. I just started planning what needed to be done and when, whom to contact, how to get parts, etc. As for not getting Texas toast yet, well, I simply don't have an appetite at the moment. Stomach is kind of knotted. Small expenses I can handle at the moment, but any large purchase needs to wait for my replacement credit card to arrive. I was assured via email this morning that it has been shipped (really? only just now?) and should arrive in October.
Of course, if I could order what I needed online, I'm good to go. Unlike Steve, whose card number got stolen and needed a new card, mine is just needing a new physical card, same number. I used it two days ago to order a replacement Kindle after Paul finally read my email messages and/or listened to my voice mails begging him to check a few places to see if it was still sitting in any of them. It wasn't. So now I have a new one, delivered today.
Of course I can't use it.
First there was the issue of getting it connected to wi-fi. It stuck on the screen with the tab telling you to connect to wi-fi. I got the tab to go black, but it would pop right back to white, telling me I needed to connect with wi-fi. Half an hour later, once I finally figured out how to connect with an actual human through Amazon who could talk me through it. Turns out shutting it off and restarting got me to the next screen. Then I had problems entering the password correctly. Back when, we got really cutesy with what it is, and it took me umpteen tries to get through the changing screens of lower and uppercase letters, numbers and symbols. Once I finally thought I had it entered correctly, nope. Uh-uh. Rich stepped in, typed it in in about 5 seconds, perhaps 6, and I had a wi-fi connection. Now they needed my Amazon password to sync up to my old kindle. Again, I'd gotten a little too cutesy with how I listed my password on my list of different passwords for everybody in the universe who needs me to provide one. I kept coming up with no, not this either. Lucky they don't cut you off after 3 tries like my bank would. Amazon logs me in with my password displayed as a series of dots. I had to count them - try that sometime! - to figure out just what would fit that space so my confusing clue made sense. Then it tells me it's downloaded my 1587 or so books, and runs me through a set of screens to "show me" how to navigate the Kindle. Rather, how to buy more stuff and services from Amazon. Nope, not in this lifetime.
Still one problem, of course. Or at least one I know about at this point. My old kindle organized my books first by dividing into unread or read, the read ones having been sent to archives, saved as a link for minimized storage and easy retrieval, so long as there's a wi-fi one can connect to. Within each section they were filed alphabetically by author. All was text, no pictures. Just how I know to communicate. This new one shows me about 6 pictures per page of stuff they somehow think I want to read right now, might I choose one to start with? NO NO NO NO NEVER! I want to see lists of titles, not pictures. This isn't a comic book. Your dang pictures don't have any kind of readable text so I can have any hope of knowing what I might be choosing. I have no way of sorting out the twelve hundred something books I've already read and might want to go back to if I've gotten more in the same series by the same author and really enjoyed them. Or check in a minute whether I already bought a book now sold as a single when it was part of a 1-2-3 starter set. Or 4-5-6. Or however many. Or vice versa. To top it off, no matter how I tap or slide of whatever on what I'm calling the comic book screen, I can't get even a book I'm not interested in right how to open!
Steve has one of these newer Kindles. However, he's taken his frustration with no oven/Texas toast/whatever with him to bed, along with his Kindle, to read and calm down, to sleep, perchance to dream.... I have to wait to ask him how he navigates to where he can set up the device to bypass the comics page and get to a real table of contents. I can't even navigate away from that page no matter what I try to do. So I'm here, blowing off steam. The Kindle is turned off, getting itself a 100% charge. And for some stupid reason, even though I shut it off, it's doing the screen saver thing. So I guess I can't even do that!
Anybody wonder why I hate new technology?
No comments:
Post a Comment