Tag: inspections

House inspection

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I had my annual house inspection yesterday. This is required for all rental property within Riverdale to make sure that landlords are not forcing their tenants to live in slums, I suppose. I have a terrific landlord so there was no question of that with my house.

I am always amused at what they “find” and don’t find from year to year. Last year I was required to get a fire extinguisher. This year, it was never checked. Last year, the two smoke detectors I have were adequate. This year, they want me to add a third.

I will say, however, that the woman who did the inspection was very nice and punctual. They only do inspections until 5 PM, but because of my schedule, she agreed to come by right at 5 PM and do the inspection then (when she should have been on her way home from work). It was very kind of her to do that and I really appreciated it. Even so, I had to rush home from work. I gave a presentation at 3 PM that got started late, naturally, and that went longer than I had planned.

But I made it.

Variations on a routine

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The new routine I have during the week went pretty well for the most part. I had to make some adjustments, but I think I did pretty good overall. Since my schedule is different on Saturdays, I’ve discovered I have to be a little more flexible and be able to adjust and improvise when necessary. This morning is a case in point:

I woke up about 7:30, had my breakfast, and then spent half an hour or so preparing some stuff that I had to mail out today. One of the items included my science fiction poem, “Schrodinger’s Intersection”, which is now on its way to ASIMOV’S. I took these items to the post office around 9 AM, and then headed over to the gym in Greenbelt for my upper body (arms and shoulders) workout. I finished that workout around 10:30, and then headed over to the haircut place, which is in the same shopping center as the gym, in order to get a hair cut. Miraculously (for a Saturday morning), they were able to take me right away, without my having to wait.

Once my hair cut was done, it was close to 11 AM. Now, given that I ate breakfast at about 8 AM, my morning snack was due at about 11 AM. During the week, I pack my morning and afternoon snacks with my lunch, but here I was out running errands. Next on my list was to get my emissions test done on my car, so I ran into Subway and got a turkey and cheese deli sandwich and some water, and then headed off to the emissions inspection center. While waiting in line there, I ate my morning snack. It took half an hour to get my paperwork indicating that my car had passed its inspection and after that I headed home.

Where I am now.

The rest of my day will be a little off as far as meals go. Lunch at around 2 PM, afternoon snack at around 5 PM, dinner at around 8 PM. But the good news is that I’m sticking to the plan and it feels pretty good. (The workout went well this morning too, but more on that in a separate post.)

Now I’m off for a badly needed shower.

These are the days

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It’s been crazy today, as evident by the fact that it’s now almost 2:30 and this is my first entry of the day. It has mostly to do with work.

I have three projects on which I am working. One is scheduled to roll out on Monday. Another in about 5 weeks. The last I’m acting more as an advisor than anything else. Anyway, last night, the decision was made at a high level to postpone the project due to rollout in 5 weeks and I have been asked to lead a different, but very high profile project. So today is a day of learning for me.

I was supposed to work from home today because the house was being inspected. That took all of 4 minutes and when it was over (at 10:04 AM) I decided to come into the office. I’ll be here a little later than usual. I have a meeting that doesn’t even start until 5 PM. So it’s one of those days.

At least the Yanks won last night and the Red Sox lost, so that once again the Yanks are 3 games up on Boston.