More condo renovation

I went back to Florida to do some more condo renovation. On this trip, we accomplished the following:

• Installed new front door, including interior and exterior trim
• Installed matching hardware to exterior kitchen door so that single key can be used for dead bolt/doorknob to both the kitchen door and front door
• Installed new bathroom door including nickel door hardware matching nickel towel bar installed last year
• Installed new hand shower in matching nickel motif
• Extended pull cords to ceiling fans
• Fixed outlet which was no longer working
• Installed GFCI outlet in kitchen
• Built stacking shelves so she can store clothes inside of armoire
• Fixed toilet (again)
• Put together laundry drying rack
• Organized space under bathroom sink
• Moved desk so that dining table can be in original position
• Moved bulletin board near new desk position
• Moved cabinet unit built earlier this year (on 2nd renovation trip) into closet for more clothes storage
• Installed energy efficient spiral light bulbs
• Bought phone with separate base and cordless handset w/ caller ID which also works in case of power outage (very important considering Wilma experience last year)
• Regripped 3-wood
• Changed golf spikes (old ones were on very tight)

Front door

Before...

After...

Notice that with the style of the old door, it made it difficult to distinguish between the front door and the kitchen door (adjacent to the front door). Now it is easier to distinguish.

Bathroom door

Before...

After...

The following are things still to be done at some time in the future:

• Work on making front door easier to open and close
• Finish threshold for back sliding door
• Fix lights in bathroom and kitchen
• Build shelf for microwave
• Better storage for bathroom and kitchen
• Hang paintings/pictures
  

And other future possible renovations:

• Paint shoe molding
• Replace bi-fold doors
• Home theater
• New bathroom vanity and mirror
• Install curved shower curtain or shower door
  
• Install new bathroom doors
• Install toilet paper holder
• Try to eliminate extra (original) cable
• Hook up coax cable to guest room
• Hook up speaker wires
  
• New dishwasher
• New kitchen door (ack!)
• New front door or reinstall front door since there were some problems with the installation (ack!)

(“Ack!” means I will need to get through my therapy first before considering these projects.)

Holiday cheer!

This is hilarious... You can turn yourself into a dancing elf.

Some tips if you want to create your own:

• If you want to record your own message (which you have to do or else your own version, despite the test results will not have any message in it), the phone number provided to record your message is busy quite frequently.
• When you record your message, it will automatically put your voice into an elf-like voice.
• It will not work if you have Lotus Notes set up as your defaut e-mail program. Within IE, you can use Tools -> Internet Options -> Programs to set up a different browser. You need to send a mail in order to find out the URL to send.

PS. And I don't know why my mouth doesn't move even though I recorded a message and the test showed my mouth moving.

Whooops!

I have not updated this blog since August. I can't believe it was August when we bought the new car for Kyoko. Anyway, with any luck, I'll update the blog and the pictures on Flickr by, ummmm, mid January?

Second marriage

OK, it's not really a second marriage, but we finally took Japanese-style wedding pictures in Japan. I am not sure why it took us so long to come up with the idea but we finally did it.








On this trip, we practically did not even get a chance to leave Shiga prefecture. In fact, this may have been our first trip to Japan where we did not even go to Tokyo. Kyoko had some administrative affairs to handle, like renewing her passport and her driver's license, so that took up quite a bit of our time. In the US, these tasks can be easier to do because we can often do these by mail. However, in Japan, you have to go in person, and often, you have to also return to pick up the new document.

Farewell 200SX

 
Of course this means that we needed to sell our old car. Since this is the car which Kyoko got when she first moved to the US, there is sentimental value. We hope they find a good home for the car. If not, we may have to buy it back! 

New car

After the unsatisfying experience with CarMax, we felt the odds were slim to find a Celica that we wanted. By the way, looking for a new Celica started when we found out that Toyota stopped production of Celicas and that 2005 was the last year of the Celica. The original plan was to wait 2-3 years before buying a new car, but since Kyoko did not really see any other car that she liked, a Celica would be the best opportunity to buy a car that she really, really liked. In the future, she may find another car she likes but that car may not be affordable.

There were other 2005 Celicas for sale, but they generally had over 20,000 miles and more like 25,000 miles. This one had 17,000 miles but did not have a price listed for it. I thought it was not a good sign, but I thought it would be worth a try to inquire about the car. As it turns out, the price was much higher than we were considering, but I made a counter offer (based on Kelly Blue Book) and he accepted.

The car was being sold at Advantage Auto in Tyler. We worked with Michael Meeves (pronouncd like may-ves) who is the Internet Sales Manager. Unlike the CarMax experience, he was always very responsive to my questions by e-mail. We drove out to Tyler and the car was in immaculate condition, just as he stated. I had put together a list of things to check, and everything seemed to be in good working order. We took the car for a test drive, and it handled very well and the ride was very smooth. Previously, we had test driven a 2002 Celica at CarMax, just to make sure we liked the car, and the ride was definitely rougher on that car.

Anyway, we ended up buying the car! Even though the drive to Tyler is quite a longish drive, it was worth every mile. Working with Michael Meeves was a very positive experience, and I would not hesitate to buy another car from Advantage Auto. They seem to specialize in high quality used cars.

And by the way, View Point Bank gave me an extremely good loan for a used car. I was wondering if she had mistakenly given me the rate for a new car until she asked to verify that the car had less than 60,000 miles on it.

Unsatisfying experience at CarMax

We were trying to buy a car at CarMax, but had a very unsatisfying experience. We don't plan to try to buy cars from them again. Usually, sales people want to give you reasons why you should buy the car. Especially with car sales, I think this is my first experience I've had where they came up with reasons why I can't buy the car. It's not really that they were intentionally rude or anything like that, just that our experience does not give us a lot of confidence about their competence. It also does not give us any positive feelings about their view of customer satisfaction.
It all started on August 3, when I found a yellow Celica for Kyoko. It was located at one of their other stores, so I inquired about the Celica. They said it can be transferred for a price as part of their sales process. I then noticed on the website that it mentioned that Toyota-certified used vehicles cannot be transferred from that particular store. Since Celica is a Toyota car, I wanted to make sure this would not cause any problems for us, but I did not hear back from him. In fact, after the initial contact, of about the 3+ mails I sent to him, I only got one response. Since the first step for transferring a vehicle is to go to the local CarMax dealer and we were planning on doing it by the weekend, I did not worry about not getting a reply. We actually headed to the dealer on August 4. We test drove an older model Celica which they had at the store and decided we wanted to get the newer one transferred. As part of the transfer process, we get to ask 5 questions about the car which are sent electronically to the other store. Based on the responses from the other store (takes about15 minutes), we get to decide whether we want to go ahead with the transfer since the transfer cost is non-refundable. As an example, we asked about the exterior and interior condition of the car. We asked our questions, was satisfied with the response, and asked for the transfer. We also assumed that if the car would not be transferrable, the other store would have said so. When trying to get the car transferred though, we were told that the other store did not have the title and could not initiate the transfer yet. The next day, I heard the title was sent to Dallas, so that it would only be a matter of how to get the transfer going. On Monday, I heard that the title might have to be sent back to the other store so they could transfer the title and the car. On Tuesday, I heard that the title was not transferred to Dallas, so it was still at the other store. On Wednesday, 6 days after I inquired, I finally heard that this car was a Toyota-certified used car. Apparently, Toyota has a policy that these cars can only be sold at Toyota dealerships, which would exclude CarMax. I told them that since I was interested in the car, as long as the car was not misrepresented, I would be willing to buy the car remotely. On Thursday, they said buying the car remotely was not possible. I was told that they would try to see if there is anything they could do to sell the car to me. On Friday, I was told there was nothing that could be done.

While it's true that I'm sure that this car will eventually sell, as far as I know, in the car sales business, there is no disadvantage to selling the car quickly. This means your staff and sales people are free to sell other cars. It seems to me that the policy for Toyota certified used cars is to help protect the integrity of Toyota certification of used cars, not for hindering the sales process. And finally, noone ever actually asked me if I would be willing to go to the other store to purchase it, which I would.

Anyway, based on this disappointing experience, I decided to call the general manager of the other dealership. I was hoping he would be able to try to be positive in selling me the car. Unfortunately, even after leaving two messages on his voicemail, he never returned my calls. I then also sent a feedback to CarMax custome relations and have not heard from them either.

While I'm sure for the general case, they do a good job of selling cars. However, if I were given the opportunity to buy two equivalent cars, one from CarMax and the other from another dealer which does not have any known customer issues (such as those registered with BBB), then I would go with the other dealer. If, for example, in this case, if there were two yellow Celicas available, and I had gone with CarMax and not found out until after about a week and a half that I could not buy the car, the other car might've been sold in the meantime.

Canada 2006

After an 8 year absence of visiting Canada together, we finally made it back for a long weekend. We were able to visit with Kyoko's Canadian mom, Rosemary, and her daughter Karen. Karen delayed her schedule for camp by one day to be able to visit with us. We were also able to see many of Kyoko's other friends from when Kyoko was an exchange student at Port Colborne High. We went to church service on Sunday, but since this was such a short trip (long weekend), it was disappointing we were not able to meet up with everyone. Hopefully next time!

Problems with Lowe's

This will be an ongoing saga... with any luck, to be resolved soon. However, I must start at the beginning.

We decided to order a storm door for the front. Because we had to order a custom storm door, all-in-all, it was almost $700.

We get the door installation scheduled... but guess what? The guy never shows up. Not only does he not show up, but we're never notified about the no-show. So Kyoko calls Lowe's THREE times. Each time, they say they will find out what's going on, but then they never call back. The next day, Kyoko calls again... Basically same story. Finally, I call customer service. Customer service leaves a message for the installation team. Finally, we get a call the next morning to get the installation re-scheduled.

It's the day of the reschedule.. and guess what? The guy doesn't show. So Kyoko calls the installer directly. We find out the installer has a flat tire and will be late. Uhhh, why is it that we have to call to find out what's going on?

Anyway, we get the door installed. Guess what? The door wasn't close properly. It looks even like the door is warped. The door hardware is crooked. We paid $700 for this?

We make it to Lowe's and we talked to the installation team lead. We tell him that we are unhappy with the installation. He says he'll get on it.

Two days later, nothing. I can Lowe's. After getting transferred about 5 times to the installation team, they finally figure noone is there. I talk with a manager at customer service. I tell him we are waiting for our door to be fixed. He pulls up our record and says "but the installer was called". Does that mean it's no longer their responsibility that they have an unhappy caller? I tell him to leave a message for the installation team lead.

A week passes, still nothing. I sent the following e-mail on the Lowe's web site:

I generally hate to complain. This means that something went wrong with some product or service I purchased.

I really hate having to complain TWICE about the same problem. If the store is already aware that I am unsatisfied with something, it irritates me that I have to remind them that they have not done anything yet.

So, it even irritates me more when I have to complain 3 times.

We spent almost $700 to get a custom-ordered storm door installed at our house. Let's forget the fact that the installer never showed up on the appointed date and that we were never notified. Let's forget the fact that we called Lowe's 3 times that day and was never given a return call about the status. Let's forget the fact that we had to call two additional times over the weekend to finally get a status.

We finally got the storm door installed. Then we noticed something very funny about it. It was either poorly installed or the door is warped. When the do or is closed, you can actually see the latching hardware on the inside of the door.

So last week on Tuesday, we went to the Lowe's store to complain. They said it would be taken care of. Complaint #1.

We did not hear anything for a couple of days. We expected at least a phone call to schedule an appointment for someone to come by. So last week on Thursday, we talked to a manager in customer service. He said the installer was already contacted as if it was no longer their problem. I said nothing has been done yet and we are very unhappy. He said he would have the installation team contact the installer again. Complaint #2.

Now, it is Wednesday of this week, and we still have not heard ANYTHING. So now I am writing this mail. Complaint #3.

Not only that, we are unhappy with the apparent quality of the door itself. The only reason we went with the Pella door instead of Larson was that the sales person was telling us that it would only take a couple of weeks to get the custom door from Pella.

All of our appliances to our 3 1/2 year old house came from Lowe's. All of the new appliances to our rental property came from Lowe's. All of the new flooring done last year at my mom's condo came from Lowe's. If this is the way Lowe's handles unsatisfied customers, I regret the fact that I have given my business to Lowe's.

I will wait a couple of days before I register a complaint with the BBB.

The next day, we get two calls. One from the installer and one from Lowe's (from the store). The guy from the store says that the installer has called and left many messages with us.

Now, this really irritates me. Based on what facts is he saying that. It would be different if he was the one who left messages, but he is not. And it is a fact that I have actually been working from home ever since we went in to complain and have been out of the house only twice during business hours during that time period. I have no proof that there is anything fault with our digital answering machine. I call Lowe's back. The person from the installation team apologizes for the other guy's behavior... and she asks if I would like to talk to the lead who is not in the office. I said yes, so I expect to talk with him tomorrow. It's at that time I'll decide whether or not to ask for them to take away the door so I can take my business elsewhere or not.

In the meantime, I did call the installer. The first available schedule is two weeks from now... So we have to wait two weeks for possible resolution.

So, it does not bother me that mistakes were made along the way... Somehow the door is faulty... Perhaps the installation was not done properly. People make mistakes. However, what is bad is the fact that:

• Lowe's apparently has no process for following up on customer complaints. They apparently "pass the buck".
• Lowe's customer service seems to be just lip service

And of course, that idiot's claim that the installer had called and left many messages is quite annoying.

I am sure that there are those in customer service who realizes... if I am having such an unhappy customer experience, I am probably not the only one... And how much potential business are they losing because of simply poor customer service...

Update: The installer did finally come by the straighten out the door. Overall, we are still not pleased with the door but at least the door (for the most part) closes properly. I am also not impressed with the fact that despite all our problems, noone from Lowe's has called afterwards to make sure the work was done to our satisfaction.

Update to update: We discovered that there was still something wrong with the installation. We went by Lowe's in early November... Finally at end of December, someone will come by and supposedly "fix" the installation (once more)...

Goodbye, Coppell!

We decided to close our PO Box in Coppell. With Kyoko becoming more busy with tutoring, she does not have time to go to Coppell to check the mail. We have gotten a new PO Box in Flower Mound. However, the main use of the PO Box is for our credit card and account statements to avoid identify theft.

Need more storage..!

This time, it's not in reference to computer storage but to refrigerator space. We've wondered what to do since it is not easy finding a place for a second refrigerator. Many people may have a second refrigerator or a freezer in their utility room, but we opted for a sink. This sink has come in very handy, but we still don't have a place. Other people place in the garage, but it is not practical for Kyoko to go in and out of the garage so frequently.

One option is to find a refrigerator drawer, but the capacity of those are not very much, at most 4-6 cubic feet, and in general, cost in the thousands. Compact refrigerators sometime seem too small, with the largest one being 6 cubic feet. However, we thought we would go out and look. The advantage with a compact refrigerator is that we could put it next to the counter, and the tallest of the compact refrigerators are about counter-height.

Many compact refrigerators also have tiny freezers for ice cube trays. However, if the compact refrigerator is not frost-free or automatic defrost, then you are having to defrost it on a regular basis. In addition, we don't need anything to hold extra ice cube trays.

We did find that Sanyo sells a compact refrigerator which does not come with a freezer/ice cube tray section. This means there is more room for refrigerator space plus no worries about defrosting. The refrigerator space is just 4.9 cubic feet.

This was sold at Best Buy, and we found that this style also supports "reversible door". No, it's not to allow the inside of the door to be used as the outside of the door, but to be able to open the door left-handed or right-handed.

After going to Best Buy, we went to Lowe's. They were supposed to have some compact refrigerators which were 6 cubic feet, but we didn't see any there. Of the ones we did see there, which had the combined ice cube tray holder, the Sanyo seemed much nicer. One nice feature about it is that the shelf in the door can hold gallon containers.

However, it only came in a platinum (door)/black (rest of refrigerator and inside) color, and Kyoko prefers light colors. This particular model seemed better quality, too, with glass for the shelves instead of wired shelves. We thought we could wrap or cover the body in some way. We thought of shelf lining, but we didn't see any at Lowe's which looked nice enough. At home, Kyoko had some shelf lining leftover which was white with flowers pattern. However, she only had enough for one side, but considering it will be against a counter, then we would only need to cover one side.

To transport it home, we could use our Mitsubishi Outlander, but we had to put the refrigerator on its side, so the sales guy told us to wait to plug it in for 12 hours.

The instructions for setting up the refrigerator were a little on the slim side. For example, it said we had to remove the door cap when switching which side the door opens, but it didn't say how to remove it. Finally, with a utility knife, we were able to get the cap to come out. Also, the legs were on so tight, it was difficult to get them undone. I couldn't find the vice-grip wrench off hand, so first I tried a monkey wrench, but that only seemed to damage the plastic legs. I then tried a screw driver, but managed to snap off part of the leg. Fortunately, at Lowe's, I had also bought some plastic epoxy, and we were able to glue it together. I was wondering if I accidently left the vice-grip wrench at my mom's, but it turns out I did bring it back. I found it and then was able to loosen the legs.

Ichiro... Guilty?

We just saw an interesting TV detective drama which Kyoko's mom recorded in Japan. It starred Ichiro (Suzuki), star baseball player from the Seattle Mariners. In the TV show, he played himself. It's not too unusual for famous celebrities to play themselves in a fictional drama... However, in this case, he was also the guilty party (murderer). It was interesting to see how the story would unfold and whether the detective would catch him. If I understood correctly, the story was actually written about a fictional baseball star with Ichiro in the starring role... but then Ichiro said that he wanted for the character in the movie to be himself.

Anyway, I don't want to spoil the ending for anyone who may see this show. (Of course, it is in Japanese, so I would recommend for you to brush up on your Japanese.)

PS. Japan won the inaugural World Baseball Classic. WBC is like baseball's version of the World Cup.

Furniture shopping...

Kyoko needed a more comfortable work area. We thought we may look for a chair which would work out well for her, so it should be adjustable. We were also wondering if we could find a desk, but it would have be a lower height than a standard desk so she can use her computer in a comfortable position. Anyway, I thought we could look for chairs at a furniture liquidiator since my mom and I had quite a bit of luck at a liquidator store in Florida. We went all the way to Bedford only to not be able to find the store, so we tried calling them and they didn't even appear to be open on Saturday.

So what to do in a situation like this...? Of course, go to the Original Pancake House!

During brunch, Kyoko mentioned that someone she knows went to IKEA. I thought that might be a good place to look for inexpensive furniture. Unfortunately, I couldn't remember where they are located. We drove around for a while in Plano, and finally stopped in CVS to ask. Oh, it's in Frisco..???

It was raining quite heavily this weekend. In fact, in Dallas, it rained over 7" during the weekend. Even with all the rain, IKEA was extremely crowded. (It rained "only" about 3" in Flower Mound.)

We were quite impressed with the prices. We did find a desk which which was a good candidate for Kyoko. The desk's height seemed a bit shorter than standard but in addition, it also had a keyboard tray which would be at a perfect position for Kyoko. And the desk was $39!!! Can you believe it? The picture makes the desk look very plain, but actually, the outer portions of the desk is covered with a protective plastic which makes the wood look nicer than just normal wood (or perhaps I should say MDF). Kyoko likes light colors, so this desk was perfect... And $39!!!

There are many who complain about the quality of IKEA products, but we were not deterred. In fact, we had put together some cabinets which we bought at Lowe's or Home Depot, and the quality of the desk was much better than the quality of the cabinets... And for $39!!! So in the end, we are very happy with our purchase. And with the money we saved, we can now afford another plasma TV..! OK, maybe not quite yet.

Omedetou, Arakawa-san!

We missed Shizuka Arakawa become the first Japanese figure skater to win a gold medal at the Olympics.

I could find a recording of Arakawa's performance on YouTube.

Someone also put a version which I am guessing is from Brazil and is in Portuguese and also posted a higher resolution one available for download from http://www.megaupload.com/?d=4CRUSRZ7. However, this one is in Chinese... So I ended up watching this one while listening to the first link. (At it took me the longest time to figure out that the download button was hiding behind that annoying ad.)

In the end, we realized it might be nicer to see the whole program with all the skaters. Thank God for Poopli and ReplayTV!



On a side note, unfortunately, Miki Ando did not land her quad. Perhaps it set the tone for her entire performance. She is the first woman to land a quad in competition. She's only 18 years old, so she'll have plenty of opportunity to do well. She is actually Japan's national champion. Fumie Suguri placed 4th in the Olympics, so they were a very strong team. There's even a younger skater who is supposed to be of the same caliber but was too young to compete per Japan's Olmypic rules.

Keep out!

Or for something more constructive.

Or if you want to try something more constructive, you can try playing 20 questions at http://www.20q.net.

Valentine's dinner at Amici's.

I'm married to Paris HIlton!

According to myheritage.com's face recognition program, Kyoko looks a little like Paris Hilton. And I thought Kyoko was just going to the grocery store when all that time she was partying at all hours of the night.

Actually, she has been told that she looks like an actress Satoko Oshima (大島 智子 or さとこ) and also told like she looks like the lead singer of Show-Ya, Keiko Terada (寺田恵子). However, it is a bit difficult with Kyoko's hair being shorter now. Perhaps someday, I'll work on a Photoshop image to see.

And who do I look like...? Well, besides Lucy Liu, the program said there is a resemblance to John Lennon.

More condo renovation

I just got back from Florida. I felt badly that I was not able to complete everything last time and since I did not know when I would have another chance to go to Florida, I thought I would go before my next trip to Vienna.

One of the major areas I wanted to accomplish was provide my mom with more storage. She did not have much storage to speak of for her clothes and so forth, especially since we got rid of some of her old furniture.

I had bought a ready-to-assemble cabinet from Lowe's last time, but I guess I was not ready to assemble it before I left... So I thought I would do it on this trip, plus get other furniture. She liked the furniture we got for her room at our house, which we bought at Eurway. Since we assembled it, it was cheaper and it looks pretty good. However, I was not able to find a similar store near Pompano Beach. I did find a Rooms-To-Go Clearance Center. We went there and found that they had some fairly inexpensive prices on some items, like dressers for less than $300... But many items were cheaper because they were damaged fairly significantly. Fortunately, I also found there was a liquidator store not too far away. We then went there, and we found quite a nice selection. We ended up buying:

• Dresser
  
• Armoire
• Two end tables with storage
• Coffee table with storage
• Cabinet which she can use for a pantry
• Credenza which she can use as a computer desk
• Office chair for her computer desk

We also found a nice dining table set, but she decided we didn't need to get it now. We then found there was a Japanese grocery store in Ft. Lauderdale, so we went there. A Japanese restaurant was also nearby but it was too late for lunch and too early for dinner. The Japanese grocery store actually had take out sushi and a little place to eat-in as well, so we had sushi.

After we got home, I noticed there was an error on the invoice. On the invoice, the sales person had put only one end table... She wrote down two on the piece of paper, but when transferring the information to the computer, she only wrote down one. Unfortunately they were already closed for the day and were not open on Sundays, and they were going to deliver on Monday! My mom also then decided she wanted to get the dining set. I was able to get a hold of someone Monday and we were able to take care of the transaction over the phone, which saved me a trip to the store!



As you can see, there is now carpet in the bedrooms. I also put away the wires which were hanging by tape on the walls. Unfortunately, for some reason, the wires to the guest bedroom are not working. Grrr, all that work for nothing. Anyway, other wires are working.

Last time I forgot to take pictures of the shoe molding I put in... Looks nice (but don't look too close because I still need to paint over finish nails and so forth.

Visitor at the window

We had a visitor at our window... Maybe we wanted to come in to watch Stuart Little 2!

Just lying out here in the sun. Isn't winter in Texas great?







...99 ...100 OK, ready or not, here I come!!

It's been very dry in Texas and Oklahoma, as evidenced by the grass wild fires.

Our plants have been suffering, too. I noticed after getting back from Vienna that the waxleaf ligustrum we have in front are brown. I've been watering daily a little. Also, the variegated euonymus look like they have suffered quite a bit. The indian hawthorne, junipers, and the buford holly look to be in better shape.

New Year!

2006... It's another year, whether we're ready or not!