Sometimes you just need to scream!!!
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RIP - VTEnviro
His Memory Eternal
But you're Batman...
Yeah, New England states are small enough where it makes sense to get licensed around, but I was in a similar situation in Vermont. I worked on the VT side, yet was less than a mile from NH. We'd obviously be idiots to pass up on business there, so most of us double dipped on the PEs.
Exception Collection
Civil P.E., Washington
Took a vacation trip to Seattle this weekend. We had fun - right up until our car died on the way to a (nice) restaurant, in the middle of traffic (at the Aurora & Thomas intersection.)
Got a tow truck; truck dropped the car off at a repair shop that's open Saturday (this was Fri night), then started driving us to the restaurant. We ended up being 1:15 late for our reservation - fortunately we'd called and let them know. On the way to drop us off, the tow truck developed non-emergency mechanical issues.
After dinner, the host at the restaurant called a cab. As we went out the front door, someone else grabbed our cab. So we sighed, went back in, and had the manager tell us that there's usually a few cabs about a half a block away... he showed us where, and we grabbed one.
As we get started, the cabbie tells us that his credit card machine is broken; do we have cash? I do, for purchases at places that may or may not take cards or checks. So we head back to the hotel, where I ask the staff for information regarding car rentals.
The hotel doesn't handle car rentals themselves, but they know of two places within walking distance (8 blocks or so on their map). I look at the map, and figure "eight blocks isn't bad, I do that when I walk to lunch most of the time". So I get up early the next day, and walk over to the car rental places.
First, it's up a hill and then back down the hill. Second, the blocks are bigger than they are in my hometown. Third, neither of the car rental places have extra cars. I know, I should've called ahead, but the hotel charges - significantly - for calls, and we have no cell phone.
I walk back to my hotel, and call Enterprise. They send someone over to pick us up. The guy gets there, and we end up sitting there waiting for a good twenty minutes for someone else to show up. Finally he shows up, and as he gets into the car he sits there glaring at us the entire ride, not saying a word.
We get the car, rent a GPS, and drive off... only to find that the GPS kit they gave us had everything except the GPS itself. So I loop around and pick it up.
By this time, it's late enough in the morning that we can't both meet a friend of mine at 1 and go to places that will take a while, like the zoo. So we go around town hitting a bunch of stores, then grab lunch with my friend. Afterwards, we head back to the hotel and put in a call to the repair shop... the car was looked at, they didn't have a part, they're getting it and hope to have it installed later that day. So we sigh, hit a few more small stores/interesting places in town, then pick up the car right before they close.
Except... now I have two cars, the Enterprise one and the repaired one. And the Enterprise office is now closed, so I can't drop the car off there... so I instead drive to SeaTac and drop the car off there. But not before making a wrong turn, because Enterprise's Car Return facility isn't at the Car Rental Returns place there. So I got grilled by airport security, because to leave the rental return area I had gone to I had to pass through a rental-company only area.
Finally get the car returned, and they extremely rudely point out that they don't have the staff to drive us back to Seattle proper to pick up the car, before calling a cab. We go out to get in the cab, and while my wife is walking to the cab, the manager comes bustling out and shoos him down the road because they "couldn't have him blocking the path of other vehicles"... even though I had seen one car pass by in 20-30 minutes, and nobody else was in the area, and the cab was parked behind a shuttle-bus that Enterprise used to get people back to the airport. Oh, and the manager told the cabbie to park in the disabled spot, which is illegal.
Finally get back to my car and realize that it's too late to hit either zoo. So we plan on going the next day. We buy tickets for the Underground tour - the adults only version - and after that ends we drive around looking for a few particular places, finally arriving at Beth's Cafe. It's a small diner, decent food, very filling, but they sat us right under the concert-grade speakers... and we couldn't hear or think the entire time we were there. And yes, the place was packed, so no moving.
Sunday, we leave the hotel late. By the time we get out, we've decided that neither of us can handle the zoos right then, so we look for other places to do things. We end up getting lost - 3 times - and finally get to Portland at 5 PM or so. We stop by the Powell's Technical store so I can flip through the SE & CA-exam prep books and maybe buy a few, but they're out of stock on all of them. So we grab food at a pizza place that would have been great... if it'd been larger and more comfortable.
As we leave the restaurant, the car develops a *new* issue - the engine was misfiring. So I struggle with it a bit, notice that it misfires more often when the A/C is running, and drive around downtown Portland w/o A/C.
Finally, we get home, go inside, and get 4 hours of sleep before I get up the next morning... and end up being close to two hours late to work, for a number of different reasons. Find out the car is misfiring because the mechanic didn't do the maintenance I'd asked him for last time there was major maintenance (didn't charge, just didn't do it... I like to do tuneups every 20k instead of 30k because I'm paranoid about the car, so it went 40k between tuneups instead)... find out that a strut is leaking, so that's an additional $700 or so.
And then I developed a burr on a front tooth filling, and had to go to the dentist today.
Scary thing is, this was my most relaxing vacation in a year or so.
Got a tow truck; truck dropped the car off at a repair shop that's open Saturday (this was Fri night), then started driving us to the restaurant. We ended up being 1:15 late for our reservation - fortunately we'd called and let them know. On the way to drop us off, the tow truck developed non-emergency mechanical issues.
After dinner, the host at the restaurant called a cab. As we went out the front door, someone else grabbed our cab. So we sighed, went back in, and had the manager tell us that there's usually a few cabs about a half a block away... he showed us where, and we grabbed one.
As we get started, the cabbie tells us that his credit card machine is broken; do we have cash? I do, for purchases at places that may or may not take cards or checks. So we head back to the hotel, where I ask the staff for information regarding car rentals.
The hotel doesn't handle car rentals themselves, but they know of two places within walking distance (8 blocks or so on their map). I look at the map, and figure "eight blocks isn't bad, I do that when I walk to lunch most of the time". So I get up early the next day, and walk over to the car rental places.
First, it's up a hill and then back down the hill. Second, the blocks are bigger than they are in my hometown. Third, neither of the car rental places have extra cars. I know, I should've called ahead, but the hotel charges - significantly - for calls, and we have no cell phone.
I walk back to my hotel, and call Enterprise. They send someone over to pick us up. The guy gets there, and we end up sitting there waiting for a good twenty minutes for someone else to show up. Finally he shows up, and as he gets into the car he sits there glaring at us the entire ride, not saying a word.
We get the car, rent a GPS, and drive off... only to find that the GPS kit they gave us had everything except the GPS itself. So I loop around and pick it up.
By this time, it's late enough in the morning that we can't both meet a friend of mine at 1 and go to places that will take a while, like the zoo. So we go around town hitting a bunch of stores, then grab lunch with my friend. Afterwards, we head back to the hotel and put in a call to the repair shop... the car was looked at, they didn't have a part, they're getting it and hope to have it installed later that day. So we sigh, hit a few more small stores/interesting places in town, then pick up the car right before they close.
Except... now I have two cars, the Enterprise one and the repaired one. And the Enterprise office is now closed, so I can't drop the car off there... so I instead drive to SeaTac and drop the car off there. But not before making a wrong turn, because Enterprise's Car Return facility isn't at the Car Rental Returns place there. So I got grilled by airport security, because to leave the rental return area I had gone to I had to pass through a rental-company only area.
Finally get the car returned, and they extremely rudely point out that they don't have the staff to drive us back to Seattle proper to pick up the car, before calling a cab. We go out to get in the cab, and while my wife is walking to the cab, the manager comes bustling out and shoos him down the road because they "couldn't have him blocking the path of other vehicles"... even though I had seen one car pass by in 20-30 minutes, and nobody else was in the area, and the cab was parked behind a shuttle-bus that Enterprise used to get people back to the airport. Oh, and the manager told the cabbie to park in the disabled spot, which is illegal.
Finally get back to my car and realize that it's too late to hit either zoo. So we plan on going the next day. We buy tickets for the Underground tour - the adults only version - and after that ends we drive around looking for a few particular places, finally arriving at Beth's Cafe. It's a small diner, decent food, very filling, but they sat us right under the concert-grade speakers... and we couldn't hear or think the entire time we were there. And yes, the place was packed, so no moving.
Sunday, we leave the hotel late. By the time we get out, we've decided that neither of us can handle the zoos right then, so we look for other places to do things. We end up getting lost - 3 times - and finally get to Portland at 5 PM or so. We stop by the Powell's Technical store so I can flip through the SE & CA-exam prep books and maybe buy a few, but they're out of stock on all of them. So we grab food at a pizza place that would have been great... if it'd been larger and more comfortable.
As we leave the restaurant, the car develops a *new* issue - the engine was misfiring. So I struggle with it a bit, notice that it misfires more often when the A/C is running, and drive around downtown Portland w/o A/C.
Finally, we get home, go inside, and get 4 hours of sleep before I get up the next morning... and end up being close to two hours late to work, for a number of different reasons. Find out the car is misfiring because the mechanic didn't do the maintenance I'd asked him for last time there was major maintenance (didn't charge, just didn't do it... I like to do tuneups every 20k instead of 30k because I'm paranoid about the car, so it went 40k between tuneups instead)... find out that a strut is leaking, so that's an additional $700 or so.
And then I developed a burr on a front tooth filling, and had to go to the dentist today.
Scary thing is, this was my most relaxing vacation in a year or so.
Exception Collection
Civil P.E., Washington
Fortunately, my office has 3 P.E.'s (including myself) with licenses in pretty much every western state except Alaska, Arizona and Montana. I'm going to go for the CA Civil license next April, then the Washington Structural license that fall, and then applying for comity with Oregon once I meet the 12-year experience-only requirement in Jan '13. I could have taken the SE this year, but I don't feel prepared enough yet.
RIP - VTEnviro
His Memory Eternal
I had similar issues with rental cars, and a couple cancelled flights, a couple weeks back when I went to Shenandoah National Park. Once I got there and got on the road, I had a great weekend. Similarly, on the way home, when I finally arrived back in my town, got my car from the bus lot, and begged the Petsmart to stay open late so I could retrieve my retrievers, life was good. The rest was a giant PIMA.
So, you're from that neck of the woods. Ever been to Olympic? My in-laws keep threatening to take me camping there, but the timing never works and I end up in WA in the winter mushing my way down Snoqualmie pass.
PS - I'd love to be a PE in Montana or Alaska. We need you to do an inspection in Juneau for 2 weeks, oh and as long as you're out west, there's that paving project in Glacier we need you to have a look at...
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Exception Collection
Civil P.E., Washington
Nah, never been to Olympic. Washington-wise I've only been to Seattle and Vancouver (WA, not BC).
I haven't done a lot of traveling - basically I-5 from southern Oregon to Seattle, the northern OR coast (Florence on up), Bend OR, Northern Oregon to Irrigon, and Las Vegas. I'm from Eugene - well, I've lived here almost my entire life, at least.
Edit: Oh yeah, and no bus/train. I'd driven up I-5 to get there, so the broken car was my car.
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Awesome job, home builders. What's that you say? Using wall anchors and screws to mount those cheap-ass towel racks in my bathroom is too labor intensive? Oh, it's much easier to just load up the back side of the towel rack with CONSTRUCTION ADHESIVE and stick it to the wall, so that when I need to replace them and paint the bathroom, I have to fix huge chunks of drywall? Sure, that'd be just fine, thanks.
Dexman PE PMP
Internationally PMP'n his PE-ness
Speaking of having a house built:
I got a call yesterday afternoon from the mortgage company saying they discovered a problem with our paperwork. We were going to roll-up the closing costs into the purchase price of the house so that we only have to bring our down payment to the closing table (basically increase the purchase price of the house and change the closing costs to a few hundred $). The first set of paperwork we filled out (back in January) did not show this, and we were told that they would update the paperwork once we got closer to reflect what we wanted to do. Beginning of July they bring us in to fill out the new set of papers that do have the closing costs rolled up, we sign them and from this point on we were basically done with paperwork until the closing.
Fast forward to yesterday. They are now saying they can't roll the closing costs in because they had already submitted the appraisal to the underwriters for review, and once the underwriters have it, they can't change the house price to include the closing costs unless there is a "change" to the house we are buying (ie added features). This means that one of 4 things need to happen: 1) We somehow pull $6500 out of our a$$ in the next 10 days, 2) the mortgage company writes off the closing costs and just eats their mistake, 3) the builder reduces the purchase price of the house by $6500 so the mortgage company can get paid, or 4) they add value to the house by adding something to the property (backyard fence, more landscaping, custom paint, etc).
I know #1 is not going to happen, and fairly sure #4 isn't going to happen either. What I'm expecting to happen is a combo of #2 & #3, where the builder reduces their price a little and the mortgage company writes off a portion of the costs.
My personal thoughts on this: closing costs are the administrative fees paid to the mortgage company to prepare and process the paperwork necessary to purchase a house. If they f-up the paperwork it's their problem to fix, not mine. I signed paperwork with the terms my wife and I are willing to purchase under. If they can't meet the terms that THEY CAME UP WITH, then they either need to get their end fixed or we find ourselves another lender.
I got a call yesterday afternoon from the mortgage company saying they discovered a problem with our paperwork. We were going to roll-up the closing costs into the purchase price of the house so that we only have to bring our down payment to the closing table (basically increase the purchase price of the house and change the closing costs to a few hundred $). The first set of paperwork we filled out (back in January) did not show this, and we were told that they would update the paperwork once we got closer to reflect what we wanted to do. Beginning of July they bring us in to fill out the new set of papers that do have the closing costs rolled up, we sign them and from this point on we were basically done with paperwork until the closing.
Fast forward to yesterday. They are now saying they can't roll the closing costs in because they had already submitted the appraisal to the underwriters for review, and once the underwriters have it, they can't change the house price to include the closing costs unless there is a "change" to the house we are buying (ie added features). This means that one of 4 things need to happen: 1) We somehow pull $6500 out of our a$$ in the next 10 days, 2) the mortgage company writes off the closing costs and just eats their mistake, 3) the builder reduces the purchase price of the house by $6500 so the mortgage company can get paid, or 4) they add value to the house by adding something to the property (backyard fence, more landscaping, custom paint, etc).
I know #1 is not going to happen, and fairly sure #4 isn't going to happen either. What I'm expecting to happen is a combo of #2 & #3, where the builder reduces their price a little and the mortgage company writes off a portion of the costs.
My personal thoughts on this: closing costs are the administrative fees paid to the mortgage company to prepare and process the paperwork necessary to purchase a house. If they f-up the paperwork it's their problem to fix, not mine. I signed paperwork with the terms my wife and I are willing to purchase under. If they can't meet the terms that THEY CAME UP WITH, then they either need to get their end fixed or we find ourselves another lender.
chaosiscash
Subcontractor
Dark Knight
Silent Guardian
Good luck Dex. Hope you can find a resolution that won't delay closing on your house.
It seems lenders always find a "problem" like this right at the last minute. But it's never something that a few extra dollars out of your pocket can't fix.
It seems lenders always find a "problem" like this right at the last minute. But it's never something that a few extra dollars out of your pocket can't fix.
Dexman PE PMP
Internationally PMP'n his PE-ness
If it was only a "few" dollars, it probably wouldn't be an issue, but there's not a snowballs chance that $6500 will suddenly materialize. Especially with the paperwork FHA requires to track the funds.
Dexman PE PMP
Internationally PMP'n his PE-ness
Update: The mortgage company called again last night to say they managed to get the origination fee waived ($3800), but they're still working on the rest. She said she was planning on calling the sales office today to see if they could do anything to help her out.
Amazed they even got that far!
Well, somehow, State Farm cut me a roof check. They quote $6800 to repair the roof. -$1500 to be paid out only if the first layer of roof is removed, -$1000 depreciation (WTF? I just bought the damn house), -$1000 deductible, and some misc. other crap ends up in a $3700 check. How the hell am I supposed to have the roof and gutters replaced for $3700?
Well, somehow, State Farm cut me a roof check. They quote $6800 to repair the roof. -$1500 to be paid out only if the first layer of roof is removed, -$1000 depreciation (WTF? I just bought the damn house), -$1000 deductible, and some misc. other crap ends up in a $3700 check. How the hell am I supposed to have the roof and gutters replaced for $3700?
Ble_PE
I need a beer.
I'm not sure about the money to be paid out if the 1st layer is replaced, but once you get a quote and send it to them, they will give you the depreciation back. I just went through all of this with SF.
snickerd3
Taking suggestions
Quote or receipt? We have SF too, so I need to see if Mr snick has sent in the quote yet
Ble_PE
I need a beer.
I just sent in the quote, but I think you're technically supposed to have a signed contract.
wilheldp_PE
PE, LEED AP, SPAM KING
I wouldn't have a roof replaced and leave a layer of shingles on it. I had 2 layers on my old house, and it just costs twice as much to remove them the next time if you leave them up there. Plus, you have an additional risk of roof failure under a heavy snow load if you have 2 layers of shingles.
snickerd3
Taking suggestions
we signed and sent the half the cost to lock in the materials price...they were scheduled to go up August 1. BUt it will still be 3-5 weeks before they will be out here...they want to do several in the area at the same time.
