No, progress on the house hasn’t stopped, we are still moving full steam ahead. We moved in on Friday as a matter of fact. We’re been out of touch because we still dont have internet set up at the new house. Right now I feel like once I get home I am suddenly in a black hole. Our house has become a pit in which we are suddenly cut off from the world, and our time and energy is sucked away, and am paralyzed because I can’t do anything else but work on the house. It was a little sobering to realize that I really can’t live without internet.
After some back and forth, we had decided to go with DSL. Even though it’s slower, it’s so much cheaper than Comcast, who I feel like they sucker you with their introductory rates, and their customer service sucks. We’ve been happy with the customer service at AT&T so far, and they’ve been very accommodating after we canceled (when I learned that we would have to install the DSL ourselves, and I thought we could get a better deal somewhere else) and then promptly reinstated our service 1/2 hour later when we realized how much Comcast was charging.
However, we are still facing the challenge of the self-install. The set-up package arrived yesterday and I’m going to try to get it running tonight. Although I am a pretty tech savvy person, these things never go smoothly, and I know that there will be some problem. Problem number one will certainly be that we demo-ed all of the walls that had phone jacks in them, so there are currently no phone lines anywhere in the house. After that we’ll see how I do following all of the technical bruhaha.
If I can get the internet going tonight, tomorrow the cable people are going to fix our initial install (right now we only receive local channels, cinemax, and about 50 home shopping channels. Anyone needing to buy gemstones, I’ve seen a deal or two for you!), by Friday we should be up and connected to the world again. I hope I haven’t missed much.
It started raining Friday, around when the cable guy showed up and just never stopped. We ended up bribing the cable man with a 6 pack of beer to climb up onto the wet roof and install the dish (they are supposed to wait until it’s dry out.) It was either there, or on top of the garage, with a cable running over the yard to the house (ugh). I think if the world starts ending, alcohol could easily become the new currency. It is definitely becoming a luxury item in our house, and we have had positive results with the trash man as well ever since we gave him a 6 pack after he refused to take our trash away two weeks ago.
Anyway, the rain just continued and went on and on. Sunday morning, we woke up, with things starting as usual–vegging on the couch watching CBS Sunday Morning and eating breakfast. Then Thor wandered down to the basement and ruined our peaceful morning.
Two-thirds of basement was flooded. In some places there was an inch of standing water. The water was seeping in through the walls on all sides. After the continual oppressive rain of the past three days, I guess our basement never stood a chance. What a way to discover the basement is not water-proofed at all. We then spent an hour trying to salvage all of our tools and boxes of sopping wet wedding presents which we have yet to open since we’ve had no place for them until now, and pull all of the wood trim out of the water so it doesn’t get warped.
We didn’t have to pump the basement out, all of the water just seeped back into the floor. I’m not sure whether this is a good thing or not. On the one hand, we didn’t have to really clean the water out of the basement. On the other hand, it just continues to enforce the porous nature of this space.
All in all, we are grateful, though. There were a lot of people who suffered a lot worse this weekend. My grandfather who lives in Galveston has probably lost his home (we won’t know for a few more weeks yet), and it will probably be 3 more weeks until my aunt and uncle who live in Houston have power again. So a little water in the basement we can deal with
