Construction is coming along nicely, and that’s a good thing. We’ve been slowed down a bit behind where I was hoping to be, and it will not be ready for Christmas like I had originally hoped. It should, however, be done before New Year’s, so that’s something. I’ll put up more pictures as they become available.

Alright, everyone. Settle down. It appears to be resolved. We do not have to cut into the existing duct work, and it seems that we will have the permits in our hands this afternoon. Just a bit of hassle, but all is well…

Bad news struck this morning when I got a phone call from my contractor. What he said on the phone was that the building inspector need “some clarification.” When he got here, he explained to me that the inspector was being difficult. This does not come as a huge surprise to me. Allow me a slight digression in order to explain…

Back in May, when we were trying to set up for Ali’s show in the new high school, I had something of a run-in with the inspector. I never actually met him, but he was able to give me a hard time, anyway. You see, the building wasn’t finished, yet. The school administrators insisted on having the show in the new theater, anyway, even though they did not have a CO for the rest of the building. They managed to convince the township to give them a temporary CO for just the theater, but that was pending an inspection. Now, at this time, the installed sound system was not finished, so it fell to me to put in a temporary system for this show, something that I do on a regular basis in venues all over this state as well as many others. In order to make this temporary system operational, it was necessary to run cables across the floor. Extension cords, signal cables, and so forth. These cables are always taped down, much as they are in venues all across the world. The inspector, however, made this impossible. He insisted that no cables could be run across the floor. All of the cables would have to be put up in the air. Despite the fact that they would be taped down, despite the fact that it was temporary, he would not give the temporary CO unless those cables were off the floor.

Okay, got the background? Now, my contractor gets here and tells me that the inspector is insisting that he provide them with a drawing of not just the room we are doing, but the ENTIRE basement. Okay, fine. That’s annoying and it’s a hassle, but it’s not the end of the world. Then he drops the bomb. He tells me that the inspector is also insisting that we tie that room into the existing heating and air conditioning vents. We only have to do this for air return, but we have to do it. When we made the original plans, I decided not to do any cutting into the existing duct work for several reasons. First, the system that’s in the house was designed to cover the two floors of the house that it’s covering. Adding another room into the system can cause it to become unbalanced and screw up the heating and cooling for the rest of the house. Secondly, this house is new, which means it has a warranty. Cutting into the duct work would void the warranty on the HVAC system. So we decided to install a seperate system for that room. But that’s not good enough for the inspector. He is insisting that we need to be connected to the main system for air return. Now, beyond what is mentioned above, this means we’ve got to get someone in to actually do that work, and I really don’t know how long that’s going to take. The work itself won’t take long at all, but getting someone here could be difficult. I had decided that if we were going to do any work on that system, I was going to have it done by the people who installed it in the first place. That way, despite voiding the warranty, at least if I had a problem with it, I could go back to the people who installed it. But those people are obviously very busy, as there are still many houses being built around here, not to mention any other work they have. So who knows when they’ll be able to get here? It’s possible that the entire project could be pushed into January because of this.

I expected the inspector to be a bit of a pain in the ass, but I never imagined that it would be this annoying. I figured, it’s a small room in the basement, how much trouble could he cause? How wrong I was…

The battle is well and truly joined, my friends…

For all you Harry Potter fans:

Unbelievable. Many of you live in New Jersey, so you’ll understand when I say that it basically didn’t snow at all last night. Here where we live there’s BARELY a dusting on the ground. Ali got up, got Cindi dressed, and proceeded to take her to school, since she hadn’t heard anything otherwise. When she got to Cindi’s school, she was informed that they had a two hour delayed opening. We hadn’t been informed and Ali hadn’t heard anything on the radio, but apparently it was so. So Ali called me, brought Cindi home, switched cars with me, and headed off to school, leaving me to take Cindi to school at some point, if I can, which I may not be able to because I have to be here in the house. What I can’t figure out is….what did they delay for in the first place? It didn’t even snow! Is it going to be like this all winter long? Because if it is, she might have to switch schools or something.

I gotta tell you just how impressed I am with the US Postal Service. On 11/19, I sent a check to the following address:

Starlite Productions
2 Keystone Avenue
Suite 500
Cherry Hill, NJ 08003

This is exactly how the address was printed on the check, and it was put into an envelope with a window with that exact address showing through.

On Saturday, I received an envelope from the New Jersey FSPC. It was addressed to Reid Sound at our old address and had been forwarded to our new address. I don’t know what the New Jersey FSPC is, so I opened this envelope with a certain amount of curiousity. It turns out that they are the New Jersey Family Support Payment Center, the people who collect Child Support payments. The return address on the envelope is as follows:

New Jersey FSPC
P.O. Box 55416
Trenton, New Jersey 08638

The address printed on their letterhead is:

New Jersey Family Support Payment Center
PO Box 4880
Trenton, NJ 08638

Inside this envelope was my check. The one sent to the address up top. Somehow, this check had arrived at the NJFSPC. When they tried to cash it, they of course could not because it was not made out to them. This is, apparently, called a Misdirect. They were kind enough to return the check to the address listed on it, which happened to be our old address.

Now, I ask you….does that first address look at all like the other two? Are the zip codes similar? Does the PO Box number match the Suite number at all? Are they in the same city? Why on earth would the check have ended up at that office??? Really, thank you US Postal Service. In the words of our president, another man who is doing quite well in my estimation, “You’re doing a heck of a job.”

I’m considering cancelling Christmas. I spent several hours outside today working on the lights. I only did one side of the banister, which took a few hours, and then looked at it and decided it looked terrible. Ali made a suggestion for the other side of the banister, and I decided that I would try that when I got back from my load-out. So later in the day I went and spent a few more hours outside trying that. I was wrapping a strand of 500 white lights aroud the banister for well over a half hour, when suddenly the MIDDLE of the strand went out. I tried replacing bulbs, checking for loose bulbs, but nothing seemed to work. I put the strand down, and suddenly the end of it went out. So I proceeded to cut the entire strand apart to make it easier to take it off of the banister, thereby undoing everything that I had done in the previous almost hour. I’m annoyed and frustrated. I still have to do the one side of the banister, and then assuming that I like what I did, I have to completely re-do the other side. I’m almost considering just doing the second half of the banister the way I did the first half, even though I’m not crazy about it, just to get it finished. But I can’t. I’m angry and I’m cold. I’ll try again tomorrow, but I’ve already spent almost 5 hours outside working on this today and I can’t take it anymore.

By request: