Unexpected HVAC issue

I am in an extremely pessimistic (glass half empty) mood today, which is not my general tendency. To be totally honest, that isn't exactly true... I am pessimistic by nature, but I have been trying the last few years to train myself to be optimistic. For the most part I have been doing very well. When I got the ticket the Wednesday, I didn't freak out, and tell myself all kinds of horror stories about why this was bad. Instead, I told myself with my self imposed optimism, that since I have now gotten a ticket the police probably can't ticket me again.

Bowling update: As I mentioned yesterday, last night was our first night of bowling. When we arrived, our team (Retalix Strikers) was started in second place slot in our division. This position was based on our total team pin count from last year. We bowled against the team listed in first place within our division. Well, we haven't bowled since the end of last season which was this past May, and if you would have happened to have watched our games last night, you would have assumed we had never bowled in a league before. Needless to say we were a little rusty, and we lost the first two games without question. However, we did squeak out one win with the last game of the match, but for the night, we only took 2 out of 7 points.

FYI: A match is made up of three games, and the winning team of each game gets 2 points, and the team with the most pins over the three games gets an extra point. So each night a team can win up to 7 points.

It could have been worse, and if I wanted to look at things as an optimist, I would be saying we did a good job and that we were lucky to get two points! Yippee..! But the pessimist in me sees that the glass is less full than it is empty, and that we lost most of the points. So, the optimism training has failed me for today. After the game, as I was driving home, telling myself that I should be happy that we got two points in bowling, and that we still had 31 weeks to make up for the measly 5 points we lost last night, I got a phone call from my son, "Two". He informed me that the house was still very, very hot, because the central air conditioning was definitely not working. Earlier before bowling, I had him check the thermostat and the switch, and both appeared OK. So I told him to turn off the air conditioner (A/C), and open the windows. I only have a few windows in my side of the duplex building, so opening them didn't help very much. The building is only one story and has a flat roof, and there is very little attic air space, so on a sunny day like today the building turns into an oven. We ended up sleeping in a building that felt like a whole house sauna, even though the temperature outside was in the low 70's. This morning I called a local HVAC company to check out the A/C unit on my roof (no yard so the only place for the A/C unit is on the roof). He told me that the compressor on the unit was "seized up" and not working, and he could fix it with a new part that costs around $1,200 or so. He also said that since the unit was so old, it really wasn't worth spending the money on the repair, and I would be "throwing good money after bad. Besides", he said, "the price of a new unit is only a few bucks more". So what's a guy to do? Instead of getting a simple A/C repair, I told him to give me a quote on a new unit, and while he was at it to see if he could get me a quantity discount for two units so I could provide my tenant A/C as well. (I had promised my tenant when they moved in that I would have A/C in their apartment by next summer. I have felt bad for them the last two months, since I know how hot the inside of the building gets in the summer. ) Anyway, he called me about a half an hour later and said that he could install a new single A/C unit for my building, including labor (which includes lifting the A/C new unit to the roof) for approximately $2,100. He also said he would give me a discount of $400 if I did both units at the same time since it would be cheaper for him to do two at once because he would only need a lift one day instead of two, and only one crew. Yep, you guessed it, tomorrow I am going to be around $4,000 lighter in the wallet. Actually since the wallet is empty, the credit statements will actually be heavier. The day wasn't all bad news, there is good news. As a matter of fact the good news for today is two fold... It's Friday WOOHOO!! And I don't have to work for the next two days, and I got my car into the shop today, and it passed it's inspection without needing anything, which is I believe the first time that has ever happened to me! See, even when I am pessimistic, my optimism training kicks in and finds something good for the day. :-) Later Lou