A Boring Tuesday Night

Nothing too exciting going on here in Chennai on a Tuesday night. Don't know if that is good or if that is bad. S left tonight to go on his business trip. He was supposed to leave tomorrow night, but as is the case with his job, things changed, and he had to fly out tonight. He'll be gone the rest of the week.

Well so far this week, I have got 1 3/4 of my 3 problems in the house resolved. The display screen on our elliptical exercise machine went haywire over the weekend. Since we bought it here in September, it is still under warranty. The company sent a technician out right away, which in and of itself is a truly amazing thing to happen here in India. The thing that really impressed me though is that he was actually forward thinking and brought a replacement computer board for the display screen with him. He anticipated that this was more than likely the problem. This sort of thing just doesn't happen here all that often, so I really appreciated this company's great customer service. (Now, I don't have any good excuses not to work out!)

The normal sequence of events here is that the repairperson (actually it's normally two or three people) would come and look at the problem (probably after not showing up when they were originally suppose to). Then there is always a big conversation about the problem between them and either my driver or security guard. Often times after that, there is then a phone call placed back to someone at their company to discuss the problem. After all of the talking, it never fails that the problem cannot be resolved at this time. Either someone else is needed or a part is needed or something. Then there is normally another phone call to our landlord to explain the situation to him, and then the phone is handed over to me to speak to our landlord (lucky for me that we have an awesome landlord who speaks great English) who will explain everything to me. It can never be easy here with this type of stuff.

This was such the case with the air conditioner that is broke in our kitchen. To make a long story short, two guys showed up today at noon. Basically the above scenario took place with our head security guard involved. Numerous trips in and out of the house to look at the unit part in the house and the compressor part that is on the outside of the house to determine what the problem was. After one hour of this, our head guard handed me a cell phone and of course it was the landlord. The part needed for the A/C is not available for 2 or 3 days (which in India time probably means at least a week). At least I wasn't told that I was making the problem up. This happened to me with these same A/C people on the same A/C unit about a month ago. Of course the problem is worse now, but I fully know that there was an issue a month ago, but that they just wouldn't listen to me (big disadvantage being female here). So this is why I said that half of the problem is fixed. Now I just have to wait for them to show back up with the replacement part...hopefully before it gets really HOT here!

The other quarter of a problem that has been resolved is with our satellite TV. One of the receivers won't pick up a signal. Well I guess the landlord has talked to the satellite company, and now I have to call the help line because they think it can be resolved over the phone. Ugh! I'm dreading this call! It's one thing to be in the U.S. and call a help line knowing that you are probably getting a call center that is in India. At least these people have been trained (somewhat) to deal with Americans. I think it is going to be a whole other story calling a help line in India and reaching a call center here that is trained to deal with Indians and not Americans. I think I'll put this off until tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Besides that, it is pretty boring around here. I'm honestly just killing time writing this blog. At 11 pm on Tuesday nights, House is on TV. Thankfully since one of our satellite receivers is still working, I can watch. S and I are addicted to House. We never watched this program in the U.S. or in China, but when we were moving from China, one of my friends recommended that I get Season One to watch. Well I was instantly hooked. S on the other hand wasn't until we got back from IL this January and started watching the DVD set because there was nothing else on. We have now watched all of the episodes of Season One at least two if not three times. I have also been able to catch most of the episodes of Season Two and Season Three on TV here. I believe the U.S. is in Season Four...and probably getting ready for new episodes now that the writers' strike is over with.

So anyway, I torture myself every Tuesday night staying up until the new episode of House that I haven't seen is on at 11 pm. Then it seems that every Wednesday morning I have to be out of the house early for some reason. That's when I feel the full effects of getting old and not being able to stay up until midnight. Wait, whom am I kidding? I've never been able to stay up until midnight! I'm totally a morning person and a person who likes her 8 plus hours of sleep every night. With S gone, I should be able to sleep in in the morning. Yeah right! Who am I kidding again? Although I like my sleep, I'm also one who has never had to set an alarm clock to wake up. I wake up pretty much the same time every morning. Here in India, that time is between 6:15 and 6:30 every single morning. Yeah, yeah, I know...what the heck am I doing getting up that early when I don't have a job, and I don't have any kids? It's called the sun comes up too darn early here. I guess because of Chennai being located so close to the equator, there is pretty much 12 to 13 hours of daylight here year round. The sun pretty much comes up at 6 am and sets at 6 pm every single day here.

Well enough of my ramblings for one night. By the time I spell check, proofread, and post this, it will be 11 pm. So good night everyone!