"Roof"-springa, or how some bad luck is better than others...

BLOT: (23 Aug 2010 - 12:15:47 PM)

"Roof"-springa, or how some bad luck is better than others...

Last week, I tweeted about our roof springing a leak. I forget the exact wording, not like it matters, but it went something like "Our ceiling decided we needed to share in the rain going on." I followed that with an update on the fact that the leak had gotten into the electrical systems in our walls and they had to shut down the power in the back half of our apartment. In fact, in order to lessen the damage, the maintenance man cut a fair sized (maybe 4" x 4") hole in our ceiling so that the water would gush through it in a controlled way rather than seek some other path to disperse. Well, it turns out that the Dog Days of Summer are partially to blame here. The great heat that has been going on has caused part of our roofing to warp and separate, which made some sort of large groove that allows water in. The loud noises, today, suggest they have been rebuilding our roof. I am not sure on the progress, though, but Saturday's storm* did not cause any further damage, so I think it is ok.

Sarah and I went out of town, so that I could go to classes. On the way down, a vibration that has been present in her car became worse and worse. Her car already had starting problems, most likely due to Dog Days' heat, again, and we had expected some degree of shaking because of an issue with a tire; but by the time we came back up on Sunday morning, it was shaking so hard to be undeniably a bad thing. We checked the tires later on Sunday, and all but one had started to split away from the inner tire. Had our trip been even thirty minutes longer, in that heat, there is a chance that it would have ended with one or more blow-outs. She is currently out in Grant getting her tires replaced, hopefully realigned, and her battery and other systems checked out since they had gotten so ill-responsive.

The final bit of bad luck? We got back on Sunday to find that our TV has died. No clue if it was due to the extra humidity in the apartment due to the leak, some sort of surge caused last week from the leak, or a lightning strike from the storm on Saturday. It has a very burnt smell, the one associated with dead picture tubes, so it might have just been its time.

All in all, though, for three bits of bad luck that at least touch up on the Dog Days, I have to say that the TV is the not-so-bad, the roof-springa is relatively ok (now...plus we have renter's insurance just in case crap comes to crap), and the car is the worst. Now, in a week or two with watching TV on our little scratchety box from the 80s that we had in our guest bedroom, maybe I'll change in my mind. That money spent on new tires might have helped by a nice little HDTV, you know...

* Being down at Gadsden on Saturday, I watched the storm through the Weather Channel's website. It is nerve wracking watching a bad storm come through knowing that a dice roll is all that stands between you and massive amounts of water damage if, say, the roof-leak decides to come out somewhere else.

TAGS: Me in 2010

BY WEEK: 2010, Week 34
BY MONTH: August 2010