Rain and Another Change/Excellent AC Repair/Dog Dominance

HURRICANES AND WEATHER
On Wednesday, thunderstorms in New Mexico and from Texas to the eastern Great Lakes to the east coast and southward to the Gulf. Hot and steamy for most of these areas. Nice and cool with highs in the 50s and 60s for the northeast and northern plains and parts of the west coast. Very pleasant with highs in the 70s for the Rockies, northwest and central plains.

On Wednesday, Houston will be muggy but a bit cooler with more clouds and some showers and thunderstorms. Drier air arrives on Thursday and although afternoons will still be warm to hot, the lower humidity will make conditions much more tolerable. Look for some showers to return on Sunday.

SPANISH WORD OF THE DAY
Let's do dog or perro, pronounced PAIR-row and roll those rr's. This is not to be confused with pero (which means but--that's the conjuction not the bottom). If you roll the r more than a little, whomever you are talking to will think you are calling them a dog. So, be careful about that!

There is one perro in our award winning DVD, Let's Learn Spanish with Frank & Paco. He is our neighbor's Bichon Frisé named Max. There are also 46 kid which makes the DVD especially appealing to youngsters. They don't even realize they are learning. Order your copy from www.frankandpaco.com/. You can also order from http://www.venturaes.com/, http://www.dololanguages.com/, http://www.carlexonline.com,www.thecuriousmindstore.com/, http://www.amazon.com/,http://www.bestbuy.com/, and http://www.barnesandnoble.com/. Volume 2 is almost ready for release and Volume 3 will follow soon thereafter!!! For our English as a Second Language (ESL) version, got to http://www.frankypaco.com/.

AND MORE
We took care of some of our neighbors' dogs from Thursday through Monday evening. I have to tell you, I learned a lot. There were two dogs. And on the first evening, it was obvious that all they wanted was for their masters to come home. Although they wagged their tails and barked a friendly greeting, they soon were looking past us to the door so that they would not miss their masters coming home. One perched herself on top of the couch so she could see as far as possible. The other one parked herself by the door to the garage (where the owners normally enter the home). As the days passed, they became more and more depressed. One of them ate only a half of a bowl of food the entire time. They would usually eat when we were there. On the last day, I noticed that the most depressed one began to take ownership of me. When I showed attention to the other dog, she got very mad at the other dog and gave it what for. I thought maybe she is thinking the masters aren't going to return and she had better claim her stake on me. Fortunately, the masters did return. Haven't been for a visit since that happened. Wonder what kind of reception Sarah and I would get. Well, we should did enjoy giving them some loving.

Last week, we had our bad a/c coil replaced. By the way, Gordy was very pleased with Martin, owner of Critical Air Residential Air Conditioning & Heating 281-468-4250. He was recommended to us by a friend. Well, first of all, Gordy was attending to Megan while she was having outpatient surgery (don't worry--she's okay...just a foot thing) and he wasn't able to be there when I interrogated poor Martin. Well that patient man spent an hour with me going over every possible scenario I could come up with (purchase wise). When I opted just to replace the coil, he did not give me a hard time and for $1800 even, he did the following:

Installed a 4 ton evaporator coil along with a new plenum, transition plus access door, secondary pan and float switch. Installed a new liquid line drier. Vacuumed and charged the unit. This also includes 1st year parts and labor warranty on coil and 5 year total parts. Now, he had a minor outpatient surgery the day before our installation and yet, the day of, he came out and was overseeing the entire thing. I told him I was going to tell on him to his doctor.

So, as you may have surmised, we did not replace our ac compressor which is still working. Instead, today I purchased a home warranty through American Home Shield (which a friend told me about). http://www.ahswarranty.com/ I have no idea if it will be any good. But, I just couldn't stomach buying a new compressor when our's is still working.

For about $500/year just about everything in our house is covered. They didn't have to come out and inspect and I've got the contract that says so. The age of the home does not matter. Everything just has to be working. I'll let you know how it all turns out when we actually have to get something repaired. Oh yeah...there is a $60 charge for each initial service call. But there are no other charges after that. I wish I had known about this before replacing the built-in microwave 4 times, the oven once, the dishwasher once, and the garbage disposal once (not to mention a few repairs on our clothes washer). All of these items would have been covered. There is no limit on the number of claims per year.

So, with all of that in mind, don't forget to take our poll about home warranties.

Now, I'm considering a warranty for my Honda Accord which has about 112K on it. We've replaced the timing belt, but you never know when the transmission, a/c, or brakes might go. I hear there are warranties going up to 250,000 miles. Will let you know what I find out.

Have a wonderful Wednesday!
Cecilia Sinclair
Wonder Weather Woman