Tradie Endorsement: Thomson Plumbing
Several weeks ago I noticed that the hot water in the master bathroom was coming out orange. That bathroom has its own small hot water heater in the closet, so we figured it was probably that. Eventually I got around to calling some plumbers for quotes. First was Thomson Plumbing, which I found through the extremely scientific method of seeing their van parked on our street one day and writing down the phone number. Lee Thomson was super helpful, and he told me that if I could email him the details off the water heater, he could give me a quote on replacing it. He also suggested I attach a digital photo of the heater so he could verify there was enough space around it for the new one. I thought this was very cool, since I was expecting to have to pay for a service call. I emailed him the relevant info, and he wrote back the same day with his extremely reasonable quote. Then I called Chiswick Plumbing, who advertise everywhere and who always leave fridge magnets and bookmarks in our mailbox. They said they’d send a guy over to quote in person, but since he was already doing a job in the neighbourhood, they’d waive the callout fee. So he came in and had a look, and gave us a quote that was fully 50% more than Thomson Plumbing. That settled it. The guys from Thomson even offered to come out at 7am so we wouldn’t miss work. They came on Friday and installed our new heater, and they even replaced some tap washers for free. Later in the day, the Snook got a call from their office letting him know that our initial quote had been INCLUDING GST, so the grand total was actually even less than we thought. All in all, a completely excellent plumbing experience. I’ll be using Thomson plumbing in the future.

Last night was the first night in a week when I haven’t woken up at 2am for a coughing fit. It was bliss. I haven’t coughed much today at all. I think I’m on the mend. There’s no way that whooping cough test will be positive.

The new Fall-Winter line up of Queen Bee bags is available! I still use my Truckette I bought four years ago and that bag has gotten more compliments and started more conversations than any other accessory I own. I really like the large Rita “Sprout” in green-on-green…

Interesting AskMeFi question about colors that changed the world. I learned about international orange and Mountbatten pink.

Moon
Sweeeeet. I’ve been waiting ages for this movie (called the best hard science fiction film in recent years) to come out in Australia. I’ve just found out that Popcorn Taxi are hosting the first Australian screening along with a live satellite Q&A with the director afterwards. We’re booked in. If you’re thinking of going, DON’T READ ANYTHING ABOUT THE MOVIE. I’ve probably read too much already, but I’m making sure the Snook goes in unspoiled. You should too.

Happy birthday to Lyn! I’m sorry I had to miss the party on Sunday. Hopefully I’ll be well enough to celebrate with her at SnB Thursday night…

Check out DeskCam. I got new specs! My optometrist emailed last week to let me know I was due for a checkup, so the Snook and I both went in on Saturday. Turns out my left eye (which was already worse than my right) has gotten a little fuzzier yet. I’m not quite into double digits yet, but it’s getting there. So the Snook and I picked out some super cute, oval-shaped, thin wire frames. Dr. Alex took one look at them and shook his head. “You can’t do it,” he said. “Not with the thickness of your lenses.” CRAP. Curse my myopia! So we had to pick out big ol’ plastic frames. I decided that if I was going to be nerd, then I might as well go full on Poindexter. These look very similar to my old ones; just that they’re brown instead of black and the lenses are slightly larger. Right now I’m in that weird phase where the ground is shifting and I feel like I’m gonna puke.