So, I’ve had a fun expensive time of things lately. Some of it has just been the luck of the draw when dealing with a house that is 10 years old. No, it’s not an old house, but that is long enough for things to start breaking. I’ve had to replace the fill valve in one toilet because it would no longer shut off completely…and in the process, broke the overflow tube so now I need to replace the flush valve too, since it won’t seal.
I had to replace the sprinkler valve in the front yard, as well – it just developed a pinhole leak in the body of the valve that would just start spraying as soon as the valve got water pressure. It would actually flood part of the yard. That repair is “done”, except that I haven’t been able to get home during daylight to actually turn the water back on and make sure everything works.
Then things start getting expensive. The Mazdaspeed3 needs new brakes, and since it uses rotors roughly the size of pie plates and pads to match, that was $350 on parts alone. And that’s with a heavy discount. Haven’t had time to do that job yet but I should this weekend.
The big killer, though, is the kitchen. More accurately, the refrigerator and range. When we bought the place, it came with a stainless Frigidaire side-by-side fridge, a black dishwasher (I think it’s a Whirlpool? Honestly, I don’t remember), a stainless microwave (I think it’s another Frigidaire), and what I suspect was the original 1999 white Frigidaire range, with a coil cooktop. Well, that fridge had already seen one compressor replacement under warranty, but I didn’t think anything of it until Saturday night when we got home and the ice coming out of the dispenser was half melted away. Turns out it wasn’t even cold, and when you plugged it in, the compressor would buzz for a few seconds, then overheat and shut off. Some Googling confirmed that this was a textbook compressor failure, and is apparently very common on that model. The repair would be $600-$800, which simply isn’t worth it on a seven-year-old unit with a clearly flawed design.
So, we just let the wallet take a bit of a beating and got the Samsung 26 cubic foot french-door refrigerator. Lowes had it on sale for $1398 (they still do as of today, actually) and with a 10% coupon on top of that, it was such a nice buy that we went ahead and replaced the range too. This time we stuck with Frigidaire, since clearly that’s the only appliance in the house that made it a full decade. Lowes had a Frigidaire Gallery “platinum” (stainless-look, but easier to maintain) range with a glass cooktop for $698, and that same 10% coupon.
Definitely my most expensive weekend since buying the MS3, but now we’ve got an awesome fridge and a much nicer, much easier to clean range. It’s worth it.
Oh, and on top of all of this, my desktop computer is dead. I’ve tested every component other than the motherboard and CPU with known-good parts, and seeing as I can make it pass Memtest86+ (but not properly initialize the video card) I suspect it’s a southbridge issue. Time to deal with an RMA with Gigabyte.
On the topic of Sprint, Kate and I had been on what’s commonly known as the old SERO plan – a Sprint Employee Referral Offer service plan. It was awesomely cheap, $30/mo base price which included 500 anytime minutes, unlimited nights and weekends, unlimited text, and unlimited data. Either Sprint eventually got too many customers on this bandwagon or realized that it would become too unprofitable with the newer, more data-hungry phones, so all of Sprint’s ‘desirable’ smartphones (the Samsung Instinct line, the Palm Pre / Pixi, and all Android phones) are not availble on this plan; you have to move to the newer and much less discounted EPRP plan, or stick with a Windows Mobile phone.
I went the stick-with-WM route since I’m familiar with it, and the Touch Pro 2 is a really nice piece of hardware, even if it is pricey. But Kate’s Centro was finally at the end of its rope, and she hates WinMo (I don’t blame her) so the only option was to finally upgrade to a shared EPRP 1600 minute plan to get her a Palm Pre. That part was actually completely painless. To make this plan price-competitive with the old SERO plan, though, it needs to be split multiple ways, so we were going to put Kate’s sister on the plan too – she also really wants a Pre. The first rep, who activated the Pre and converted my plan, said we could do the Transfer of Liability on the phone but it would take five days to complete. Unfortunately, my sister-in-law wasn’t expecting the call, and they needed her to verify her own account.
A short time later, I got a hold of her, and tried to three-way call Sprint. Either the MightyROM I have on my phone broke it or I just fail, but I couldn’t make that work, so I just told her to stay by the phone and I’d have Sprint conference her in. I called in and, since it didn’t seem like an activation issue, I went for the “general support” section of their phone menu. The first rep I got verified some of my info, or at least attempted to for about half a second before giving up and passing me off to another rep, claiming her computer was going too slow. The second rep indignantly told me that I had called tech support and clearly I should have called activations. Would she transfer me? No, she gave me a phone number, which I called…and it was sales, not activations.
So I hung up and dialed their regular menu again, and made my way back to activations. This time I got someone who clearly just didn’t feel like doing any work… “You can’t do that on the phone” was all I could get out of her, despite the fact that both the original rep and the one who told me I needed to talk to activations had both told me it could be done, as did the Sprint store my sister-in-law had been at earlier in the day. She just became a broken record, and having dealt with that type before, I just hung up and tried again.
I call in, navigate through the menu yet again, and get someone else in activations – who literally took all of about three minutes to get my sister-in-law on the phone, confirm both of our identities, and complete the transfer of liability. Done, just like that, in probably less time than I had spent with the rep immediately prior who insisted I had been told wrong and that I had to go to a store.
Sprint, I love your cheap rate plans and your fast data service, and some of your reps are outstanding…but some of them are just awful. What’s the deal?