Family

Need a new A/C

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

*sigh*

I have 2 central A/C units on my house, one for the upstairs one for the downstairs. It was evident something was wrong with the upstairs A/C unit because things weren’t very cool and were rather humid. Had an HVAC guy out today. Put in 2 pounds of R-22 and detected a leak in the evap coil. *sigh*  It’ll probably cost me $1500 or so to replace the coil (parts and labor). But the real kicker is that these types of systems are about to be phased out due to the Clean Air Act of 1990. Need to get a Puron-based system.

So… that’s the thing. Do I save some money now and gamble for later? Or do I just dive in now and replace the whole system?

I really don’t want to spend a ton of money right now, but I just know that in the long run this system has to be replaced anyway. It comes down to whose problem will it be. If the system lasts long enough then I sell the house, not my problem BUT could it become a sticking point on house sale? On that note, having a new system could help with the house sale down the line (one less cost for the buyer).

Some months ago a circuit board had to be replaced on that same unit (ignition problems with the gas heater). So it feels to me like the system is on the way out. It feels like I should just bite the bullet and buy a new system.

*sigh* That’s a lot of money I didn’t want to spend.

So to that end, if any reader has advice on buying a home central heating/cooling setup, please share in the comments. I’ve never had to buy one of these before and I want to get the right system for my needs (want to learn how to determine that). Yes I want to spend as little as possible. 😉  But I do want to ensure quality and long-term cost savings.

Some points I’ve already picked up:

  • City of Austin does have some rebates for installing new systems, so that should knock a few hundred off the price.
  • There apparently is now a federal tax break that I can get for such things.
  • A quick Google search turned up this forum and thread. Looks like a place to start research.
  • The tech that was out said Bryant/Carrier are basically the same and are probably the best, especially since they’ve been doing the Puron systems longer than anyone. Second would probably be Lennox (if I remember correctly). Trane is good, but they only just started making Puron systems apparently.
  • Tech suggested getting a 10 year P&L warranty. That doesn’t sound like a bad deal, depending what all is involved. I usually don’t go for such extended warranties (they’re usually money in their pocket and out of mine) but heck, when I look at what I spent 7 months already on this one unit, I spent more than the quoted P&L warranty price so….. yeah.
    • I purchased Sears Master Protection Agreements on various major appliances I purchased there, and those paid for themselves if for nothing else in having Sears techs come out once a year for a service checkup.

Anyway, time to start reading. Please give me any suggestions you may have. I’m all ears.

Parenthood rambling

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

My old friend Matt has some rambling about parenthood. His kids just experienced some pretty crappy things here and here, and like any good Dad it really got to him.

He makes a good point, about being consistent:

The biggest piece of advice I can share about being a father is this. Be friends with your partner, always put up a united front, don’t contradict each other, and have a PLAN. So many problems are caused because Spouse 1 thinks B is okay, and Spouse 2 thinks they must be smoking crack because 1 should know that 2 doesn’t think that and so on and then the fight happens in front of the kids, etc.

I certainly agree that consistency is key. Kids like stability. While they may push the boundaries, they actually do prefer limits and bounds, and they only push because they are trying to find them. Once they find them, they may continue to push to try to see if that really is where the bounds are or maybe they just hit you on a particular day. This is where being consistent comes in. If you (and your spouse) are consistent in where the boundaries are drawn, eventually kiddo will learn where the line is and won’t cross it… at least for now. Yes they may try to push it again at some other time, especially as they are growing up and changing. As well, the boundaries have to change at some point because the bounds for a 2-year old are not the same as for a 12-year old; that gets to be particularly challenging when you’re raising a few kids spread apart in ages and the youngest sees how the oldest “gets away with more” and it’s just another bit of toughness, but you have to deal with it — they can’t be treated the same in all things in all ways.

I would, however, like to take it further than consistency. I mean, being consistently crappy isn’t that ideal either. Matt recounts:

I was at the store tonight and the guy behind me was just letting his 3-5 yr old son scream his bloody head off.  And just smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

I recall one day at Chick-Fil-A. The entire restaurant got to meet “Alexandra”.

“Alexandra, stop running around.”

“Alexandra, you need to stop running around… come back here… Alexandra, you need to come back here now. Alexandra? Alexandra!”

“OK, if you don’t come back here and sit still you’re not going to get your toy. Did you hear me? Alexandra, Mommy said if you don’t come back here now you’re not getting your toy. I mean it.”

“OK, if you’re not going to behave we’re going to leave. Alexandra? I told you. OK, I’m going to count to three then we’re going to leave. One… Two…. Alexandra, if I get to three we’re going to leave. Alexandra… Three. OK, we’re leaving, good bye.”

“Alexandra, I told you that we were leaving. OK, thank you for agreeing to behave.”

About 5 seconds go by.

“Alexandra, you need to sit down. I told you….”

And it went on something like this for who knows how long. I am not remembering it verbatim, but that’s basically how it went on, and on, and on, with Mommy calling to Alexandra, threatening, threatening more, not following through with the threats, begging, pleading, and so on. I don’t fault the child, I fault the parent. Yes, this parent was consistent — consistently crappy — and that’s why I say pure consistency isn’t enough. What needs to also be there are firm boundaries. If you make a threat, you must follow through with it (so don’t make one unless you can and will follow-through). And dare I use the word, but you also need discipline; you read that right, YOU need discipline. If you have discipline, it will become imparted upon the child. Part of that discipline? Acting like the parent. You should not be begging and pleading with your child. If your child is acting like a little shit, you need to put them in their place immediately, not asking them to behave, you need to make them behave. I see way too much these days of parents asking and begging and pleading with children, which says the parent is not in control but rather the child is. That’s bass-ackwards folks. Be the parent, be the adult.

So Matt’s got a good point and consistency is key. I just take it a bit futher (and I think Matt would as well).

The Mac is dead. Long live the Mac!

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

So the next version of Mac OS X (10.6 “Snow Leopard”) is going to be Intel-only. That means those with the older PowerPC-based Macs are now left behind.

This is fine and good. The way Apple needs to move forward, they need to do it with the Intel chips. The old PowerPC chips just aren’t going to cut it any further, so it’s good for Apple to cut the losses.

I do wonder tho. In the keynote speech today Apple said after installing Snow Leopard that you’d regain a lot of disk space. My guess? The lack of the PowerPC portions of the executables. Makes sense to not bother shipping them any more.

These days for me to support PowerPC isn’t really a big deal. I work in higher level languages (C, C++, Objective-C, Objective-C++, Python, etc.) and I don’t have a lot of endian issues to deal with any more (e.g. we store things in neutral ways, like XML or plist-binary formats). So to deal with PowerPC is merely flipping the switch on the compiler to do ppc codegen. 

But it does mean that I need to buy a new iMac for the family. The old G5 one is certainly a relic now. I’ve always said with tech stuff that you should wait until the last minute to buy… wait until you absolutely must have it and can’t live without it any more for whatever reason, then buy and buy the best you can. Since there’s always something new and better on the horizon (and you know even better is just behind that, ad nauseam), that’s about the best you can do. I’ve put off the iMac purchase for as long as I could, and while I’m not rushing to The Apple Store to buy a new one, I know it’s coming.

Goodbye, Mufasa

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

As noted yesterday, Mufasa — orange cat — was not doing well.

After I woke up this morning, I’m walking to the kitchen. I see Mufasa lying on the floor of the dining room. I check on him and realize that he died overnight.

He is now at peace.

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