{"id":323,"date":"2013-08-20T17:22:22","date_gmt":"2013-08-20T10:22:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/?p=323"},"modified":"2013-08-22T17:30:53","modified_gmt":"2013-08-22T10:30:53","slug":"monday-81913-the-day-of-the-spiderman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/?p=323","title":{"rendered":"Monday, 8\/19\/13, The Day of the Spiderman!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fun stuff today!\u00a0 I\u2019ve got a long list of \u201cfixes\u201d for our apartment.\u00a0 Lisa, our housing agent is back in town, and she\u2019s going to be helping with the language issues.\u00a0 She\u2019s sort of a liason between BISS, the owner of the apartment, and us.\u00a0 It can be a tough balancing act, as I find out today.<\/p>\n

I call her around 9:00.\u00a0 She has the cable guy here by 11:00, and he\u2019s gone by 11:15.\u00a0 Cable TV for English is four channels, CNN, Star Movies, HBO, and ESPN, and costs $5 monthly.\u00a0 Everything is working but nothing is showing on ESPN.\u00a0 I\u2019m curious to see if anything ever comes on.<\/p>\n

Lisa arrives at noon and checks out the rest of my list.\u00a0 Bathroom mirrors are \u201ctaped\u201d up, like they were glued up, held in place with tape, and the tape was never pulled off.\u00a0 Bathroom door handle pulls off, and several others are loose.\u00a0 She calls a apartment management, and they send someone over.\u00a0 He fixes the door handles, and checks out the mirrors, deciding it\u2019s safe to pull off the tape.\u00a0 Of course, there\u2019s nothing quite like \u201cold\u201d tape residue, so some fun lies ahead.<\/p>\n

One of our air-conditioners isn\u2019t cooling and needs freon.\u00a0 She contacts an AC guy.\u00a0 He arrives and can\u2019t figure out how to get to the unit to load the freon.\u00a0 There are no access panels anywhere.\u00a0 Lisa checks with UHN, and finds out that someone has to \u201cspiderman\u201d out on a ledge, recharge the freon, and climb back in.\u00a0 30 minutes later, the UHN specialist shows up with a long strap, a freon tank, and a long hose and gauges.\u00a0 He opens the window and screen, ties one end of the strap to his waist, and the other end to a rail inside the room, and climbs out.\u00a0 He slides toward the unit on an 8-inch ledge, ties himself to the unit with the slack, hooks up the charging unit, and lights up a cigarette, balanced outside the 25th<\/sup> floor.\u00a0 The freon recharge and acrobatics cost $50, paid by the apartment owner.\u00a0 That was some free entertainment!<\/p>\n

\"I<\/a>

I hope this knot holds!<\/p><\/div>\n

\"It's<\/a>

It’s a looooooooong ways down!<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Spiderman<\/a><\/p>\n

\"He<\/a>

He is exceedingly calm for 25 floors up!<\/p><\/div>\n

Front door lock specialist (our front door won\u2019t latch) is scheduled for 6:00.\u00a0 Around 4:30, Lisa shows up with the owner of the apartment, two-year old daughter, and the owner\u2019s father.\u00a0 We talk (some language difficulty).\u00a0 I end up showing them some family pictures, and playing my clarinet (I\u2019m killing 1 \u00bd hrs).\u00a0 I didn\u2019t get to my card tricks.\u00a0 Boy, did I miss an opportunity.<\/p>\n

The lock specialist tells everyone he can\u2019t fix the lock.\u00a0 The deadbolts have been bent (they hung up a few times, and I might have tried to force the door closed anyway), He wants to install a new one, which he just happens to have, and it\u2019s only $500.\u00a0 The owner isn\u2019t eager to pay that much, and I think there is some discussion (in Chinese) about my financial responsibility in this matter.\u00a0 The lock guy leaves, and we stand around trying to figure out the next step.\u00a0 The owner\u2019s father asks for my tools.\u00a0 I\u2019ve got screwdrivers, a small hammer, and some pliers.\u00a0 We pull off the lock plate and start hammering and trying to flatten out the parts I might have bent.\u00a0 By 8:30, the door is latching and everyone is able to leave, relieved that we\u2019ve solved the problem.\u00a0 The door doesn\u2019t latch quite as smoothly as it did before, but we can live with it.<\/p>\n

Judy had come in around 7:30 and moved into the bedroom to finish some schoolwork.\u00a0 She had a long day of classes followed by a visit to the Passport Office to turn in the necessary paperwork for her Multiple Entry Z Visa.\u00a0 She was bussed over after school and waited for two hours to get to the desk.\u00a0 She had number 1387, but they were serving 1242.\u00a0 Lots of sitting and twiddling of thumbs.<\/p>\n

\"Taking<\/a>

Taking a number at the Passport Office. At the time, they were serving #1242.<\/p><\/div>\n

She is ready to relax, but has several very pressing items to get in place for tomorrow.\u00a0 I can even help with some of the \u201cmanual labor\u201d.\u00a0 Finally, around midnight, we sack it in.\u00a0 We both finished our long lists.\u00a0 Maybe tomorrow will be easier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fun stuff today!\u00a0 I\u2019ve got a long list of \u201cfixes\u201d for our apartment.\u00a0 Lisa, our housing agent is back in town, and she\u2019s going to be helping with the language issues.\u00a0 She\u2019s sort of a liason between BISS, the owner … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=323"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":324,"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions\/324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}