The Great Fort Myers House
Closing Quest!
April 2006
Thursday 20 April 2006
Day 4
I have to say, it's nice to have a window with palm trees outside of it to work from!
I LOVE MY NEW HOUSE! The backsplash is
more awesome than anything I had imagined. I love my colors, even the counters
- I think they're just yellow enough, thankyouverymuch. I LOVE MY
BATHROOM! It's so big, I'm almost wishing they had taken some of that
space and given it to
the dining area... almost!
I LOVE MY NEW HOUSE! Some of the cabinets have dings in them, and one of the
mirrors in the master bedroom is scratched. Those will be replaced tomorrow -
there's the same materials on site for another home, apparently, so I get those,
being as my closing date is closer.
I asked about the towel bars and the TP holder. Guess what? I didn't pay for
any! Apparently, when I said I didn't want the FUGLY soap dish thingie that
they build into the tile, the woman deducted the ENTIRE bathroom accessory
package. So my customer care dude is gonna hook me up with the tile peeps and
have them install it at a discount. It was a misunderstanding. I definitely
thought I was saying no to just the FUGLY soap dish, nothing was said about
towel bars and TP holders. I think Alan was even there for that conversation,
but I don't remember if it was before or after he showed up.
I am having computer issues. My work laptop catches the internet connection
just fine, but the personal laptop is a problem. I probably have security set
too high in the browsers, and I don't feel like fucking with it tonight (what
does that say, that my personal laptop is more of a fortress than my work
laptop? ) The way it works in this hotel is that when you open your browser,
no matter what "home" is set to, there's an auto redirect to the Holiday Inn
page where you have to click "I Accept" to their terms of usage, before they let
you go anywhere else. Well, the redirect works on the work computer, but not on
mine.
Anyhow, since I can't get no satisfaction with my own computer, and therefore
cannot upload the pics to my site (I use MS Website For Idiots), I'm going to
open a toss-away flickr account or something to post the pics I took.
Did I mention that I LOVE MY NEW HOUSE?
+++++
So that was yesterday. Today was just work, work, work, 30 minute walk on
beach, work, work, work, hour and a half walk on beach. Oh and I called the
electric company and the phone company today and got hooked up. I also hired a
mover. Tomorrow, work, work, work, and make my auto train ressies, call the
town about trash pickup, and also the cable company for TV/Internet. Oh, and
call the plantation shutter peeps and see if they can meet me at the house next
week after closing to take measurements.
Saturday: lunch and shelling with DaisyDebbie and her brood, followed by dinner
with Da Boyz
Sunday: dunno, but I know I will end up doing some work, cause I'm on a
deadline for Monday morning....
As for pictures - well, there's no photo editing stuff on the work laptop, and
the pics are huge. Flickr only lets you upload X-mb per month, so that's going
to go pretty quickly.... I might mess with the other laptop tonight and see if I
can get it going. But first, I need to shower cause I've been to the beach!
posted to a different board -
Today was just work,
work, work, 30 minute walk on beach, work, work, work, hour and a half walk on
beach. Oh and I called the electric company and the phone company today and got
hooked up. I also hired a mover. Tomorrow, work, work, work, and make my auto
train ressies, call the town about trash pickup, and also the cable company for
TV/Internet. Oh, and call the plantation shutter peeps and see if they can meet
me at the house next week after closing to take measurements.
I did go to the Tarpon Bay beach this evening, and I found the paid parking lot,
just where y'all said it would be!
Imagine that? Anyhow, there be shells on that there beach, but The Nanny is
still doing her thing, and it was high tide, so the breakers were crashing on
them. This made it lots of work to get some good things, and there were a few
groups of folks on the beach doing the random scoop method to find stuff.
Which got me to thinking, as I watched one group work. One guy would go to the
breaker/Nanny line with a big net, randomly scoop, and come up the beach to
dump, where there were three more people picking over the pile he was making.
And it was a pretty big pile! So now I'm wondering if, when there are piles on
the beach, some of them weren't man-made. Things that make you go, "hmmmm.....".
Lots of cockles, bigger than earlier in the week. Also, a HUMONGOUS apple murex
just danced right between my feet, and then tried to skedaddle away, but I was
quick with the net... she shoots, she scores! (raucous cheering from the crowd).
I did not know that apple murex grew this large. It's as big as a door knob!
Many of the cockles I picked up were found along the "wailing wall" - I guess
it's a leftover from beach renourishment. On this beach, there is sort of a wall
of sand, about a foot to a foot and a half in spots tall. Probably, there hasn't
been a good enough storm to knock it down yet, so the waves only go so far up
the beach here. Mother Sea seemed all about taking back everything she threw up
onto the beach this evening, but occassionally, for whatever reason, she left
some of her children trapped up against this wall, where they scream and cry and
wail. "Tink *~*~* !!! TIIIIIIINK *~*~* !!!", they cry. "Pick me! Ooooo, ooooo,
over here! Pick me, pick meeeeeee!"
The Nanny may be diminishing, but she still has a few tricks up her sleeve to
thwart the intrepid shell seeker. One, she seems to be responsible for the
murkiness of the breaker line - certainly, there can't have been any lake
releases into the Caloosahatchee lately, seeing as we are in drought conditions
down here, so we cannot blame that. I think maybe as she decomposes, she turns
the water cloudy. So between The Nanny herself, and the cloudiness, it is doubly
difficult to see.
Second trick - she buries a tendril or two in the sand, with just a bit poking
up, and her color is similar to the whorls on a lightening whelk. So you get all
excited and go racing over there to do the toe-over thing, only to find her
laughing at you. "Neener, neener!", she exclaims
The Nanny lives to piss us off
Well, I'm off to the showers now.
later -
There's one thing I
do NOT like about the Holiday Inn, and that's the water in the shower.
It takes FOREVER to adjust the temperature, no matter what time of day you are
showering. Too hot? Turn it some to cold, nothing happens. Turn some more,
nothing happens. And then, all of a sudden BRRRRRR! It's too cold. Same thing in
reverse. I'm talking about several MINUTES between the time to turn it to cold
and the time you get TOO cold.
Also, the water pressure stinks. It takes forever to rinse your hair. Between
these two factors, entirely too much water is being wasted, waiting for it to
adjust the temperature and trying to rinse out your hair. I've talked to some
other guests, and it looks like this is the way it is in the hotel - or at
least, on the 2nd floor.
Other than that, (and the desk-internet connection situation which I described
Tuesday), I am very comfortable here.