The holiday season is just around the corner and I am very much looking forward to it. I went out and bought a nice electric fireplace recently which was kind of a small investment all together. But the timing is perfect and it will be a great thing for this upcoming holiday season. I will be able to decorate it nicely and bring all of the festive joy into my home around the electric fireplace. Electric fireplaces are not cheap by any means, but I went for it because I really wanted a fireplace in my home. I grew up having a fireplace. It was one of the original authentic fireplaces. Back then there was no electric fireplaces or gas fireplaces. But today I am glad that electric fireplaces exist because I would never be able to afford to get a real authentic fireplace due to all the stuff that is involved. There would be construction and fireplace set up to pay for, and that is several thousands of dollars! I am not a rich person. If I were rich I may have done that and gone for the real deal type fireplace. But since I am not, the electric fireplace was the perfect solution to have no fireplace in my home. It will really make the holiday season come alive once it is all decorated. And the great thing about the electric fireplace is that the outside of it is heat resistant, so I can put all kinds of decorations on it and not worry about them burning up!
A real treat
My birthday just passed and I was so happy with the gift my good friend got me.
I have a little hobby room in my basement. And I have needed to get some kind of air conditioning down there because there are no air vents. I had a portable space heater already which keeps the place warm. But I did not have a portable air conditioning system. And what did my friend buy me? A brand new portable air conditioning system! The portable air conditioning system was the most perfect birthday gift from my friend. He knew that I wanted and needed a portable air conditioning system down there and because of this he surprised me with this wonderful birthday gift. I do not know what to say other than thank you so much. I will have to take my friend and his wife out to a nice dinner or something. I know it was a birthday gift but the thing with it was is that the price of the portable air conditioning system is not something that he would normally spend on a gift for a friend. So it was really extra special all together. My friend is the greatest. That is all I can say on it. But now when the summer comes I will be able to have my portable air conditioning system in the hobby room downstairs. And it will make the indoor comfort actually happen. That indoor comfort had been missing in the summer time months of the year.
A better offer
I have been working for the same heating and air conditioning company for about 5 years now and it has been ok. Though I wish I was getting paid more money. Well, finally I had an offer from another heating and air conditioning company that is a competitor of the one I have been working for. And I decided to take the job with them and quit my current job because their offer is much better. I am going to be making almost double what I was making at the other heating and air conditioning company. I did give the HVAC company I was with a chance to match their offer before I quit, but they just wouldn’t do it. They called my bluff and I showed them I was serious by quitting. They were not expecting that! Oh well, it is their loss because they were too cheap to pay me what I am worth as the seasoned heating and air conditioning specialist that I am. The new heating and air conditioning company will appreciate my work more and show it by giving me the pay that I should have been getting from day 1 at the other heating and air conditioning company. As long as things go smooth and they do not take advantage of me, I will be sticking with this heating and air conditioning company until it is time for me to retire. Which is many years in the future. I so far love the new heating and cooling company and they treat and pay everyone great!
The nature of my HVAC work is secret
When I first moved into this neighborhood I thought that Max seemed like a really nice guy.
He was a bit of a grumpy dude, but he was quick with a joke.
Over time I have come to realize that Max is a mean, bitter old man with too much time on his hands. He claims to be a part of the Neighborhood Watch, but I have asked around and there is no Neighborhood Watch! This is just something Max tells people to justify snooping around. Last weekend it came to a head and I told Max if he came on my property again I would knock his block off. I am a tech engineer for a local HVAC company. You might not have heard of this before, but I don’t go out and perform HVAC inspections or tune-ups. This is a tech company that focuses on the HVAC industry, which means we try to take existing products and find ways to improve them. I have a workshop in my garage where I take things like space heaters and dehumidifiers and reverse engineer them, to find new innovations. Max keeps trying to weasel his way into my workshop, and he doesn’t understand that my HVAC work is proprietary. That means the HVAC tech company owns my work and my creations, and I cannot discuss them with anyone. Max is not just trespassing, he is snooping where he doesn’t belong, which is why I threatened to knock him out if he came back. I’m sort of hoping he does come back, just so I can follow through!
Part of a small but growing HVAC company
I work at a small local business, where the crew is like a big extended family.
The pay may not always be the best, but the boss takes care of his team, and we all have fun working together.
One day the company will expand and grow, at which point all of us will make more money. For now we all work hard and have faith in our boss. In return, the boss has faith in all of us. One of the little ways we make work fun is to host an annual holiday banquet for all of the HVAC employees and their families In the past it was a picnic at the park, but this year the HVAC company posted record profits, so not only did everyone get a nice holiday bonus, but we got a swanky banquet! It was a catered affair, and all of the HVAC employees brought their families and spouses. The boss even sprung for live music and had a Mariachi band playing! In all my years with the HVAC company we have never had a party like this, and it seems like a portent of better things to come. All of the HVAC employees have stock options, and one of the announcements at the party was how those shares were about to mature. I am not just an HVAC tech I own a small piece of this business, and one day it will be my retirement fund! I am looking forward to some big things in the next few years, but in the meantime I just love my HVAC coworkers.
The gift card really came in handy
I hate gift cards. Really, I hate them. Why not just give someone cash for a gift? Cash is the best possible gift, because you can spend it wherever you like, or just save it to use later. A lot of things I enjoy spending my money on do not come from legit stores, they come from private dealers. Yes, I am talking about weed, there’s no reason to be cheeky about it. I love smoking marijuana, and when I get a holiday gift of cash, that is how I choose to spend it. My brother didn’t give me cash, he gave me a gift card for a local HVAC supply company. What the heck am I supposed to do with this, I thought. It turns out that I had a lot more options than I believed, because this HVAC company not only provided services but sold refurbished equipment as well. For the amount of my gift card, I could afford to get any number of very cool space heaters or air purifiers. There was even a fake fireplace that connected to a natural gas mane for a constant supply of flames! Since I don’t have natural gas at my house I had to pass on the fake fireplace, but I really liked how it looked. Instead I found a small, portable air conditioner that would really come in handy during the humid summer months. During the dog days of summer even the power of my central air conditioner can come up short, so now I have a back-up source of cooling for when it gets too hot.
Doing HVAC jobs around the military base
When Mike got deployed, I had a whole lot of time on my hands.
Military life is not the most exciting thing in the world when you are a military spouse.
I lived on the base, hanging around with the other wives and husbands whose spouses were also deployed. We played a lot of cards and other games, but still had a lot of spare time on our hands. It was my bestie June that came up with the idea of starting a small business on the base. June already had her HVAC certification, but she said I could work as her assistant if I needed a way to pass the time and make a little money. June had a contract with the base to handle minor air conditioning and heating repairs for the military spouses and families. There were several hundred residences on the base, and all of them needed minor HVAC work done at some point. Mostly we handled general HVAC inspections and tune-ups, with some air filter replacements and coolant refills as well. All I did was drive the van and carry the tools, while June handled all of the real HVAC work. June kept asking me if I wanted to get my own HVAC certification and start making more money, but I always declined. I enjoyed this work mostly because I got to talk to a lot of people, and drive around the base, but I didn’t want to study HVAC repair as a career. Besides, when Mike returns home we will be transferring to a new base.