10202012

You read on all of these financial sites that you should regularly call and see what they can do for you in terms of the rate you are being charged. This is supposedly true for both entertainment utilities — cable and such — as well as premiums for various insurance. Saturday night my family is out and I’m trying to avoid grading papers so I decide it’s the perfect time to check on my car insurance. No matter what happens with Progressive, my rates seem to continue to go up. I get older and my driving record remains good and my premiums increase. In the past when I’ve called, they’ve told me that insurance keeps going up.

I call GEICO and within five minutes I’ve cut my premium (six months, paying it all up front) from $1250 to $450. I cannot understand how this is possible. I was so shocked I asked the agent to go line by line through the policy; apparently it’s possible. My question is how long were the Progressive folks sitting in an office thrilled that they’d screwed my family over because I was too lazy to call and see if they’d reduce my premiums.

Electric roughed into the kitchen:

We had serious adventures with the electric. The first electrician cut all of the knob and tube, which left a massive job for the second electrician. One of the remaining problems is below (a cracked power line that runs from PECO into our house):

On the bottom photograph you can see where someone used to electric tape to deal with these cracks.

I want to buy something.

There are very few stores left and I’m usually confronted with salespeople who may or may not be trustworthy. It’s hard to believe their motivation would be anything except trying to sell you something, particularly with big ticket items where it would be unlikely you’d ever return.

The internet has a wealth of information. As the years go by, filtering good information from bad is nearly impossible. (See Louis CK on customer reviews on Amazon). Unless it’s a small site clearly run by careful amateurs — see most of the model train sites — I’d hesitate to accept any information as legitimate. And…a couple of opinions aren’t evidence.

I’m at the point where I’m totally dependent on Consumer Reports. If their testing and/or methods are called into question, I’ll be doomed.

View from Dining Room

View from mud room

A good week’s work: tear the roof off the mf’er, post wall, rebuild, wedge under existing bay!

The crew tells me that they pulled more than ten tons of material from the house. More than 20,000 pounds of stuff!

Kitchen
The old exterior door turned kitchen window:

View from dining room into kitchen, pre and post-

Ghost of renovations past:
“hey man, just jam all those wires back up in there.” (why the electric box looks like the first draft of a ninth-grader’s essay)
“Don’t worry that I broke your gas shut off. You can always shut it off at the main.”

Second Floor