Having left my front door unlocked, the outside and inside hallway light on, and the bathroom light on (déjà vu), I woke up at 8:00 to find Syd and his “helper,” who I believe was his daughter, well into the replacement of my water heater.
They worked for another almost two hours once I was up, and after a little while, I put on my set of Classic Soul Ballads — my 10-CD collection.
While settling the bill, Syd said, “Oh, and thanks for the music. Shanita said to me at one point, ‘That’s great music, and he can sing, too!'” LOL.
I love having a plumber that I can trust, and he’s always done great, reliable, reasonably-priced work for me over the years. The bill was $825, and I rounded it up to $900, and said, “Happy Holidays.”
I spent about an hour-and-a-half updating the calendar section on my personal website to accommodate 2007.
When I was done, I had trouble uploading the updated files to my website. There were some problems with the NCSU website earlier, and I attributed the problem to that.
Then, I tried to upload them using the FTP program on my desktop machine, where I received an error message that said that the directory I was trying to upload (two new directories of files) to was full.
I don’t know why the FTP program on my laptop didn’t tell me that. On it, it just finished with no error, but nothing was transferred, so I had no idea what was going on. In usability testing terms, this product design flaw is known as: Insufficient feedback to the user has taken place. I hate that.
I ran to the Hallmark shop at Avent Ferry and Gorman, which I found closed (at 6:30 on the Saturday before Christmas). I never have liked that place.
I ran to The Wine Merchant in the Ridgewood Shopping Center on Wade Avenue, and they, too, were closed. And I thought it was grueling to work in retail during the holidays. I guess that’s, “It really grueling to work in retail before 6PM during the holidays.” But I’m not bitter…
I was on the hunt for some Sonoma Cutrer, which I couldn’t remember the name of.
I had a fun and funny phone conversation with my friend Irene (iwc41) — the person responsible for me even having heard of this wine.
In a last ditch effort, I tried Whole Foods, who didn’t carry it, or Irene’s “next best” recommendation — the Jordan, so, at the recommendation of the wine steward in the store, I settled on a Sonoma Cutrer competitor at half the price.
Lesson learned: Don’t wait until the evening on the day before Christmas Eve to buy a gift.
It was “Underwear Night” at Flex, and for the dancers who participate, that usually means “boots and boxers.” However, since I wear tennis shoes instead of boots, it was just boxers night for me. I wore some red Santa boxers that I got as a gift last year.
Dancing was quite festive — we had lots of dancers and the crowd was pretty good. Brigner “let” us dance until 11:00.
Robert and I stayed just a little bit afterwards, and then headed home, since he has to work early in the morning, and I was happy to do so.