Twice Warmed

Good Lord.

2016 is finally over, and while everyone is sick of "OMG-2016-is-the-worst" comments - it's hard to get past what a crap year it has been.

The GOP selected a narcissistic con man as their nominee, the nation voted for Hillary, and the de-facto gerrymandering of the electoral college selected Trump as our next president. Which is not to say the victory is illegitimate, it is just the exclamation point following the phrase "the Electoral College is a f*&king mess." A margin of less than 100,000 in 5 states is enough to give the election to a candidate who lost the popular vote by just under three million votes.

But you knew that already.

The GOP will get rewarded for sitting on their hands while Scalia's seat went unfilled. An absolute disgrace from any angle - and the incoming president will have the ability to fill up their cabinet and the lower federal bench free of any filibuster. Great job, everyone.

And the tweeter in chief regularly trolls the planet with some new act of foolishness, sent from their smartphone.

It just makes you ill.

And - to read the headlines - pretty much every celebrity died in 2016. I was surprised how affected I was by the death of Carrie Fisher. That just got to me as so unfair, she was roaring into her own - fearlessly giving the finger to pretty much anyone she wanted.

And Pulse, and the Bastile Day attack, and...

Jesus, what the hell, anyway?

Work flattened me the past few months. Product Actual is on the hook for a great many things, and they are watching the sand run out of the glass. I'd been struggling to get my Ru beta participants to validate the data - and not having much luck.

Literally the last day before Christmas break, Hockey1 and I discovered multiple issues with the Ru datasets. We will have 1 week to define the problem for development and dev will have one week to fix it, or we will miss the release window. I went out the door scheduling meetings for Data and Thespian on the day we all get back - like we'll remember who we are after vacation...

Ugh.

But soaking up vacation has been good. Mom came up, stayed with Jen up until Christmas, then was with us until New Year's Eve. E's sister and her husband came to stay with us for a few glorious days. After the rush of Christmas, we all had some quality hang out time. I whipped through the first four books of The Expanse, and forgot what day it was. A lot of good food was made and consumed, the dog was loving the company.

Good times.

New Year's Eve - the boy has exhausted his video game eyes and wants to have a friend over - I'm dropping Mom off at the airport, E's sister and her husband are heading home, and the furnace is cycling oddly in the morning.

I go down to look at the furnace, but really - what the hell am I even looking for? Nevermind what I would be able to do if I saw something. It passes, and the day goes on. Mom's off to Charlotte, E and the dog are off to scent training, and little e is off to an overnight.

The boy and his bud play a cool evolution game that we keep getting the rules wrong for - but ultimately have a good time. The Boy hammers us using a rule we got wrong, then we set up a replay with the correct rule and he buries us all yet again. I'm a bit glad to see him displaying some tactical aptitude, but sad to see his friend get crushed at their new game.

Mid game, there's a clunk and a sizzle and suddenly the house smells of ozone.

This, I know immediately, is not a good thing. But again, rushing downstairs just confirms that the parts of the furnace that make one kind of noise (the burners) are noising along properly - and the parts that make the other kind of noise (the blower) are not.

Watching the thermostat on the Nest, it is telling me that the temp is set to 68 and the measured temp in the room is 70 - which is utter bullsh!t. I have two other thermometers within three feet of the nest and both are reading 64. Twenty minutes later, the Nest is telling me the room is 71 degrees.

It is absolutely not that temperature.

I hit the kill switch on the furnace, wait a few minutes, then power it up again. Then I restart the Nest. When it comes back, it has regained its sanity and now is telling me the house is at 64 degrees. Better, but the furnace still isn't doing anything about that.

The boy's friend heads home and we get ourselves set for bed. I consider calling an HVAC pro, but

-it's New Year's Effing Eve...

It's 21 degrees out, the house will hold heat until the morning, and there's no way on earth this gets better tonight.

Also, I'm getting a sore throat. Nice.

I get into bed and tell the Nest to just run the fan. The Nest shows it's trying, but absolutely nothing happens. We're hosed.

In the morning, I'm full blown sick, and the house is at 61 degrees. I test dialing the Nest up to 68 and watch the controls respond, I can hear the furnace burn - but no air is moving.

Time to bite the bullet.

I call an HVAC service. On New Year's Day. The answering service takes my number, and tells me a technician will call me.

An hour later, they do. They take the usual steps to inform me that I've asked for service during a holiday that is also a Sunday, so I've pretty much boned myself every way I can. Surcharge on the base fee, and any work is at a 25% higher rate.

Awesome.

I tell the guy to come anyway, because I figure if this requires ordering a part, I want to start the order today, not two days from now when the holiday and its Monday alternate are past.

HVAC dude shows up, is brusque, and announces that my furnace is full of "all the wrong parts."
I remember having it serviced by our remodelers who shorted it out and had to fix it - I would believe they totally screwed up-

"You see, all these parts are for a two stage furnace, and this here," HVAC guy pats my dead furnace "is a single stage furnace, pure and simple."

HVAC guy is wrong. First thing we had done on the house after we moved in was to replace the motor on the furnace because it wasn't shifting from stage one to stage two. I know this.

I say this.

HVAC guy is all, "Oh, now I see the [floonium particle/tachyon particle] that means its a two stage."

Which now has me full of confidence in this man, but I afford them the respect of a professional. "I'll get out of your way, let me know if you need anything."

Ten minutes later, HVAC guy comes up and (I swear, I could hear this speech in my mind before they said it). "You need a new blower, but I don't have it on my truck. I could see if we could get it, but it won't be before Thursday, on account of tomorrow being the observed holiday. Cost is about a thousand bucks, and we're at the point where you might prefer to put that thousand towards a new furnace."

Which would run..?

"About $3,500 installed. I could have a sales person here later today to discuss the details. We might have you up and running in a day or two. I can get you some space heaters."

And at this point, I've had it with HVAC guy. He might be a pro, and he's right that my furnace is old, and I should consider replacing it - but it's a 95 percent efficient furnace with a broken part. I am not jumping into the $3,500 pool today, even if he's right.

I tell him I need to sort out what I want to do with E, and he whips out his paperwork and charges me $170. I pay and sign and he's gone before I realize that he's given me a quote for the repairs, but I don't know if he's checking to see when they could get this part. And other than "Blower" I have no detail on what part is needed. Is it the motor, the module, the fan? All of it?

I call the company back and ask them to check on both of those details: when they can have the part, and what part it is. Unlikely that anyone else local would have the part, but I'd like to have the option to ask other providers. I've paid my money, I'd like to get something tangible other than a bill.

They never call back.

So, I go out back, haul in the old board from E's old flower beds - and saw each in half. E's going to get little E back from her overnight, I ask her to hit any store that is open from some firewood.

And then we fire up the wood stove.

Twenty one degrees in the morning, but its warming a bit. House is just under sixty. A few minutes later, we have a roaring fire. Hour after that, the family room is 68 degrees.

Hour after that, the first floor is 68 degrees.

It ain't great, but its doable. We'll hang in until we have better HVAC choices, and until we get a shot at the repair - but we will go primitive if we have to. We are not smoke jumping into $3,500 worth of anything. Wood is cheap.

Always liked that stove anyway. There's something about making a fire, keeping it going.

So, 2016 sucked, and it's last stab at me has me gunk-sick and wrung out, pitching logs through the side door of a wood stove to heat the house...

Over the stove door, there is a single word:


Yeah.

The past year was a sh!tshow...but it's over. And the pouting time is over, too.

Sh!t's gotta get done.