The Fleecing of the Burgers, Part I

This is the first in a series of posts that will track how the Burger family bleeds money due to corporate greed, our ineptitude, laziness or naïveté. There are some things that are worth the time and effort to pursue, and some that are not.

About an hour ago, I climbed down from our roof, which was leaking this afternoon, after a couple feet of snow followed by 1/2-3/4 inch of rain last night. Most of the snow had melted, and it wasn't all that deep on the roof to start with, so there was a maximum of about 3 inches of snow/ice/water up there. OK, so what? Why the hell was I up on the roof, and what does this have to do with the fleecing of the Burgers? Well, this is a new roof. A very expensive, flat, rubber roof with fancy copper flashing and drip-edge flashing. A new roof that was installed less than a month ago, and which started leaking this afternoon, after all of the rain last night.

As I was up there, watching the beautiful sunset view, I felt a little like Par Ingalls (must use the r sound to bridge two vowels when in Massachusetts.) One false move with a 15-pound load of ice chunks, and whoop! I fall 12-35 feet to my hospitalization-death, depending on which side of the house I fall off. Luckily, the edges of the roof are slanted up at the edge, to allow water to flow toward the roof drain. So I would plant my front (left) foot, placing most of my weight there, and shove with my shovel arm from about 3-4 feet away from the edge. I was on the roof for a good hour and a half, and got it all shoveled off (with a plastic shovel, of course.)

OK, boo hoo hoo, my new roof leaks. And it was expensive. So what does this have to do with the fleecing of the Burgers? The fleecing in this case comes from the initial lowball estimate from the contractor, and the subsequent tacking on of the copper drip-edge flashing. Originally we thought we would be able to use the original flashing, but oh, no, it's not wide enough, we'll never be able to save it. OK, ouch (a 23% increase in the original quote)! But save the old copper for me. OK. Where's the old copper? Oh one of the guys took it. All right, what ever, man, just finish the job already!

It turned out that on the lower of our two rooves, there was nothing between the roof decking and our playroom "carpet" (just that Berber stuff that everyone who wants to throw down carpet when selling a house installs.) So when the workers took up the old tar and gravel roof, large amounts of ground up tar (a.k.a. soot) fell down between the cracks in the roof decking into our house. Lovely. The guy asked me if I wanted him to clean it. Yeah sure, go ahead, tromp in here with your boots, and do a half-assed job. Yeah, that would be great. So we vacuumed many times, and even brought in a carpet cleaning service. We had guests for Thanksgiving, and then had a big party the following weekend. Not that anyone would have noticed, but at least we did our best.

So am I going to sue this guy, or get him to pay for the carpet cleaning? No. Why? Because, (a) I want him to fix the damn roof; and (b) it would take more time out of my life, and I would rather waste time writing about it than waste time arguing and taking days off to go to small claims court.

Speaking of which, our delicious Christmas Eve dinner of fondue and champagne interrupted this post, and now it's time to go watch IAWL with the family. Merry Christmas!

Next up: Verizon Fios.

Welcome back to Poker Stars

Thank FSM that I'm back on Poker Stars. I made a deposit on Full Tilt Poker, and earned a bonus, but was only able to work off about 1/3 of it before it expired. That's mostly because I only play one table at a time, and I play at the lowest possible stakes (.05/.10 NLHE). After the FTP bonus expired, I moved back to Poker Starts for my cash games, and I'm finding them much easier than the FTP games. Sure, there are still lots of bad players on FTP, but there are also a ton of bot-like players 8-tabling at the lowest limit tables. I started out this go-round on Stars at the .05/.10 tables, but the bonus is structured so that no fractional points are given. So I moved up to the .10/.25 tables, where there are many more hands that rake the minimum .40 for scoring a bonus point. I have been kicking ass at those tables. There are few tricky players, and lots of very loose calling stations. I had one guy call 4 of my bets, for his whole stack, while he was holding pocket 4s (I had an overpair.) I made lots of money off of that guy. Of course, it has not all been roses, but in general, I like Stars much better.

I've been reading Ed Miller's blog for a while now, and it has been helpful. I'm concentrating a little more on opponents' stack sizes, and on hand reading rather than hand hoping (putting my opponent on a hand that is dominated by my hand instead of on a range of hands.) I think the experience of playing the tougher FTP tables has helped.

Bubblicious

Thursday and Friday night I bubbled out of poker tournaments. I don't think I played particularly well, especially in the Friday tournament. But playing well is not the point of that particular tournament -- Katitude's Blogger Donkament. The point is to blow off steam from a week's worth of work, kids, and real life. Or a year's worth. I made a laydown of QQ at one point when there was an all-in raise followed by a re-raise all-in. I had them both covered, and was definitely considering re-re-raising all-in. But I guess I must have left my balls in the minivan again. So I ended up finishing 4th, and the top three places paid, and the previous night in the Riverchasers tournament, I finished 6th with either 4 or 5 places paying. Oh well, at least I had fun.

The kids are bouncing off the walls with excitement about Christmas, and we took a ride around town looking at lights after eating dinner at Ixtapa Cantina, voted the Best Mexican Restaurant in the Greater Lexington area. That's because the only competition is breakfast burritos at the McDonalds in the highway rest stop. Anyway, it was a fun time, and the food there is pretty good. I left a nice tip, because "it's 'tis the season."

Winter Wonderland

It snew last Thursday, Saturday, and this Wednesday (I think.) Merry Christmas!

Steroid results

OK, 2 out of my 6 predicted previously unimplicated steroid guys (Clemens and Gagne) were on the list. I considered adding Pettitte, because he was such good buddies with Clemens, talked him out of retirement, etc., but I did not. So I guess Dan Duquette was vindicated after all -- Clemens really was in the twilight of his career after the 1996 season. He allegedly took steroids in at least two of his post-Red Sox Cy Young years (1998 and 2001). Mo Vaughn allegedly purchased HGH when he was down with an ankle injury. Mike (The Hypocrite) Stanton allegedly purchased HGH. I guess he learned to cheat in his little prayer group with Pettitte. Stanton makes me puke every time he opens his mouth, because he can't answer a question without praising his god. From one crutch to the next, eh Mike? I hope his wife divorces him. It will be interesting to see what Schilling has to say about Stanton. Schilling of course defended Lenny Dykstra through thick and thin. Curt, if you're going to be a senator, you're going to have to learn to throw people under the bus when necessary (you'll also have to leave Massachusetts.)

The fact that Theo Epstein apparently knew of the Dodgers' suspicions of steroid use makes the 2007 acquisition of Gagne even more of a bonehead move by Epstein:

When the Boston Red Sox were considering acquiring Gagné, a Red Sox official made specific inquiries about Gagné’s possible use of steroids. In a November 1, 2006 email to a Red Sox scout, general manager Theo Epstein asked, “Have you done any digging on Gagne? I know the Dodgers think he was a steroid guy. Maybe so. What do you hear on his medical?"

The scout, Mark Delpiano, responded,

Some digging on Gagne and steroids IS the issue. Has had a checkered medical past throughout career including minor leagues. Lacks the poise and commitment to stay healthy, maintain body and re invent self. What made him a tenacious closer was the max effort plus stuff . . . Mentality without the plus weapons and without steroid help probably creates a large risk in bounce back durability and ability to throw average while allowing the changeup to play as it once did . . . Personally, durability (or lack of) will follow Gagne . . .426

I guess they didn't give up a tremendous amount of talent (Kason Gabbard, David Murphy, Engel Beltre,) but still, they could have used those prospects in a deal this winter.

I wonder which hat Clemens WON'T be wearing into the Hall of Fame now?

Steroid prediction

I predict the following names will be on George Mitchell's list today:

Nolan Ryan
Roger Clemens
Pedro Martinez
Eric Gagne
Nomar Garciaparra
Brady Anderson


Not on the list:

Luis Gonzalez
Gabe Kapler
Randy Johnson
Alex Rodriguez
Ken Griffey, Jr.
Ricky Henderson

So saga

"I don't see what's so saga about her!" said the 8-year-old me. I was looking at the cover of Newsweek magazine, which had the famous picture of Patty Hearst holding a machine gun. And, as a matter of fact, I did see what was so saga about her. I don't remember it as being blue; I thought it had a black background, but maybe I'm confusing/combining this image with Carrie Fisher's cameo in the Blues Brothers movie, or with Sigourney Weaver in Aliens. I guess women holding machine guns/grenade launchers/flame throwers are just ... so ... saga. I'm not sure why I remember that incident after all these years. I remember my mother cracking up, and the image is/was burned into my brain. It's truly sad that as adults we cannot remember all of our thoughts and feelings as children. We look back on those days as idyllic and carefree, but at the time, we did not savor the moment. If any one of us were to travel back in time or become a kid again, we would be loving it. But that's only because we have a lifetime of experience outside the protective cocoon of our parents' care. The act of growing up and taking on responsibility for oneself gives one the perspective to realize that kids have it made. Unfortunately for the kids, they do not realize this until it is too late. Then they can only look back wistfully at those halcyon days and weep tears of joy/sorrow for innocence held and lost.