Today’s blog headline is a reference to the days of sailing ships. When the winds were coming from the direction you wanted to sail, and were trying to blow you back where you came, instead of where you wanted to go, you sailed crosswise to the winds. You progressed sideways (say left), and a little bit forward, and then progressed the other sideways (say right), and a little bit forward. So you made progress to your destination by sailing many extra miles back and forth, but by doing so were able to sail against the prevailing winds to your goal.
Monday night here it was actual winds blowing that caused problems. Items got blown around the yard that I had to pick up on Tuesday morning.
It was also Tuesday morning that the city electrical inspector came by to check the electrical repairs on the house and, thankfully, approved them, so we can now have the electrical company restore power to our house.
Bu it was while showing the inspector where the meter box was on the house that I discovered that our external heat pump unit was all in pieces. At first I thought this was some excessive wind damage to the house. But then I noticed that one of our two external mini-split heat pumps was also missing. Not just blown apart, but totally missing — no pieces of its shattered remains existed. And closer examination of our main heat pump, confirmed by the city police officer, showed that it had been dismantled and vandalized by someone for its copper parts.
https://www.facebook.com/1230670987/videos/855841059760578
That afternoon, I stopped by my friend’s house to talk to him about the theft, and Jasini and I were greeted by a leering face in our car window asking who we were and why we were there, and telling us that was his residence. Since I knew it was my friend’s house, and I could see my friend standing on his front step, I told this person that I didn’t know him but I knew my friend and was going to visit him. By the time I got to the top of the front step I had three unknown people hounding and harrassing me, while my friend told them to just leave me alone. When I turned around to face them the one stuck his ball cap brim in my face, and my attempt to remove it led to them “self-defending” themselves, three against one, by pummelling me in the face and chest before running off like the cowards that they were.
https://www.facebook.com/1230670987/videos/544634995013523
After a police report and ambulance ride, I made it to my hours-long wait at the emergency room of North Kansas City Hospital. My friend and Jasini followed, my friend staying hours until he had to go home to address threats being made to him by my assailants.
We spent several hours waiting to be seen, the blood dripping periodically down my cheek, until they took me back, irrigated the wounds, and then glued the cuts closed. The physical damage, and the waiting, took a lot out of me, and I did very little on Wednesday, and was still trying to recover my energy on Thursday morning when the next headwind struck.
Jasini went to pick up a package at the house, and came back with a packet of papers left on our doorstep from the Dangerous Building division of the Kansas City, MO, government, giving us 30 days before they would condemn and demolish our property.
We took that to city hall, to our councilperson, who was not available, the council being in session when we got there. So we visited the dangerous buildings division, and had someone come out and berate us and talk down to us, and talk over us (until I finally talked over her), the only rude person we saw in city hall (everyone else was polite and helpful, ♫ the very model of a modern public servant ♫)
We were told we needed to get permits, which we were trying to do, that we needed to do continuous work. We asked what continuous means: “continuous means continuous”. I asked “24/7” and she merely repeated herself. The exchange ended with her asking if we had any other questions. To which I replied “No, and it is obvious that English isn’t your first language” (which I actually presume it was, but didn’t mean she was competent with it
We talked to city planning, where John Pajor gave us excellent guidance on what exactly the structural engineer we were going to hire needed to do for city satisfaction, and then we talked to Emily at the councilpersons’ offices (a “floater” aide that subs for anyone who is out, and was being about 3.5 people that day, yet had time to connect all the dots we were throwing at her, from city codes, to police cases). By the time we left city hall we still felt we had a lot to do, but not that we were doing it aimlessly or futilly.
While at City Hall we also exchanged e-mails with Bryan Lightfoot at the structural engineering firm, found out he was out sick, and he scheduled us to a meeting Friday with his supervisor to complete their understanding of what we would need. When I talked to his supervisor Thursday prior to the Friday meeting, he asked me to take certain pictures to help him understand the scope of the project.
It was while at the house taking those pictures that I found the missing mini-split heat pump. The thieves had carried it from one side of the house to the other, decided for whatever reason not to carry it further, and left it at the back of the driveway. Not that it did us much good. It would have been better had they taken that one, and left the main heat pump intact.
And so now, on Friday, we have met with the engineering firm, and scheduled a site assessment to be performed next week, the results of which will be to finalize the scope and cost of the full plan submission work needed for city code requirements. The cost may be at budget or a little more, but hopefully not over more than the electricians’ were under. But either way, it looks promising that they will be able to work within the timetable that we need…. to keep progressing against the headwinds.
At The Rainbow 