Samba, Aye Carumba!

I just had my work Christmas party recently and wanted to post some photos. We had it this year at Samba Room, a Latin themed restaurant.

My date was, Heather, one of our office admins whose boyfriend happened to be out of town that weekend.

After dinner I had to show off my mad salsa dancing skills (Coincidentally, a friend invited me to salsa lessons the week before). I only have photos of me dancing with Ingrid, another coworker, but she wasn't the only one. ;)

Overall, it was a good time. You can even see Heather dancing with Gabe, our IT guy, in one of the photos.

Some Corny Fun

I didn't know that you could find such a thing in Florida, but just north of Orlando was a corn maze this fall. It was actually quite fun and takes several hours to make your way through it.

There is actually more to it than just trying to find the exit. There are stations that you are trying to find that have answers to questions on your guide/map. Your map is actually coded so that you can't read it unless you find the special map reading stations where you can slide your map under the decoder and figure out where you need to go next.

As you can see by looking at the map, the theme was space exploration and the maze is actually an astronaut, a spaceship and the earth all combined.

I went with a friend from church, Kelly, who is the person who invited our bible study group. She's the blond looking back in the photo.

I also decided to try some of the corn, but it turned out to not be that good. A few ears even had worms. :(

When Hell Freezes Over!

It's been a while since my last post. I've been quite busy with all sorts of drama; one of the most annoying ones being the replacement of my refrigerator. Let me preface this by saying that if you are shopping for a house and find one with a built-in refrigerator that is not brand new, RUN! Unless of course you have lots of money to sink into that financial black hole called a house.

The story begins as a simple water leak in the lines that supply water to the ice maker and door dispenser. So I called a repair guy who was referred to me by a friend. He shows up the next morning, takes one look at the fridge and leaves (I'm not making this up!). The best answer I could get from him before he hastily left was that GE Monograms (my fridge brand) are completely different than your ordinary fridge. Based on another recommendation I call Sears Appliance Repair (whose website claims they repair GE Monograms) and get an appointment for a few days later. Once that guy shows up he pretty much repeats what the first guy told me and says that my best choice is to call GE directly, but he'll see what he can do. He manages to replace a bunch of the line and stop the leak but claims that the damaged line extends into the wall and needs to be repaired by a plumber and it could start leaking again at any time. He also tells me that this fridge would cost around $5000 to replace (Say what?!) and that this one is pretty old. Sure enough, it only lasted a few days so I called a plumber I found in an ad. He shows up the next day looks at the fridge and makes up some story about how he needs some special tool and high tails it out of there never to be heard from again.

By this point it's been a couple weeks and I'm just sick of this fridge. On my way back from a physical therapy session that same day the plumber left me high but certainly not dry, I decided to stop at Appliance Direct (infamous in Orlando for awful TV commercials). After looking at some fridges and then going home to measure the size of the opening I realize that this nightmare fridge is a completely non-standard size and that a normal fridge would stick out like a sore thumb into the middle of my kitchen. The sales person informs me that I need a "counter depth" fridge aka not cheap. Somewhere in the conversation I mentioned that I had a GE Monogram and she told me that they had a scratch and dent one in the back. I look at it and it only has some minor damage and is marked down to around $1600 from the original $6000 price tag. Considering that this is the only thing that will fit in the opening and not look like total garbage I jumped on it the got an open box stainless steel dishwasher (to match the new fridge) at the same time since the delivery charge was the same and I needed a new one too.

If it were only that simple! Appliance Direct would not deliver it because they said that GE Monograms are too heavy and easily damage kitchen tiles, etc... because of their weight. However, the did recommend a delivery company who would deliver it but of course for more money. I finally got a hold of the delivery guy (business must be good because he doesn't seem desperate for work based on how well he returns phone calls) and he delivers it a few days later. Upon removing the old fridge, we discover that the whole back wall is soaked and growing mildew from all the water that had been leaking. I also needed to call a plumber to connect this new fridge and replace the leaky water line. I got a referral for a different plumber and he was in and out of there in no time (of course it helped that the fridge was already removed). The delivery guys left the old fridge out by the curb and I called the garbage company to some pick it up. The next day the garbage company calls me back to let me know that the fridge is too heavy for them to load into the truck at that I'm on my own. Wondering when this problem fridge would get out of my life, I formulated a plan to get together a few coworkers and take it to the dump ourselves (because clearly the local garbage men didn't want to ruin their manicures) but someone hauled it off by the time I got home (that is about the only thing that took care of itself).

With the old fridge finally gone I had to figure out how the get the new one had to be "installed". The water and electrical have to be in the exact locations or else the fridge won't be flush with the cabinets for that built-in look. The previous installers just cut open the drywall and ran the water and electric and then stapled HVAC tape over it. This of course allowed water to seep into the wall from the leak. After letting the drywall become "dry" again, I began the joyous process of taping, patching, and sealing the large opening they left while moving the water and electric to the correct positions for the new fridge. This took about three weeks because I only had a day or two here an there. Finally, just before thanksgiving I was able to get two coats of paint on the wall.

Once I returned from visiting friends and family is South Florida, one of my roommates helped me push the fridge back into position. It took a couple days and some figuring out to get it adjusted (we had to pull it back out once) and flush with the cabinets but it is now done. I don't want to see or hear of another fridge problem for as long as I live in this house!