Trying to reach precisioncolors.com: where is Mikling ?

[pharmacist]

I'm glad he is back, just looking at the main directory of this forum and I can see him now online. Michael, I hope you are all right ? Did you received my mails and messages from this forum, ebay and my personal email address ?

 

[mikling]

Hi Folks

I was away and some of you know that it was not really a vacation at all. My wife roped me into completely renovating my mother in law's kitchen. That would have been easy had it been in North America but it was not. It was in the island of Trinidad and Tobago.

Here the houses are made of concrete and not that well made especially considering it was some 25-30 years old. The kitchen cupboards were completely termite infested and down there many put in a concrete countertop that used rebar directly inserted into the concrete walls. Why so strong? Heaven knows!

So all of this had to be torn down, removed and a new kitchen put in. Add to this the fact that in these islands back when the house was built, everyone imported bits and pieces of varying standards to be used during construction. So what you also have is british switch plates and switches and north american plug plates. The british switches seem to be too light for switching fluorescents as they simply do not last and are light. They are probably OK for small value incandescents but the inductive ballasts kill their switch contacts. If you live in North America, it's great to be able to walk into a hardware store where most items that one would need is on the shelf and everything basically fits together properly. Not so on these islands. While I was in the hardware store, a gentleman was trying to repair his water closet and essentially he had to replace it because he could not find a part that would fit. Another example, is trying to replace toilet seat but not being able to find seats that fit the bowl.

So the construction of the kitchen essentially totally exhausted me though it took nearly a month to do. Why?

HEAT AND HUMIDITY. I was doing in during the hottest part of the year and it totally exhausted me. If I said I was on vacation I lied. It was like hard labor. I did get some help from my nephew who was recently laid off. He was a young lad and had little experience in these things. I ended up having to redo some plumbing joints he helped me with, but he had more strength than me. This heat totally drains you out and I was also drinking water continuously. My wife had promised that her brothers would help in all of this but a general no show occurred. So I was left to make sure it all got finsihed properly myself.

The floors were made of terrazo which seemed to be colored concrete that was ground and polished. Now this grinding and polishing process was done utterly poorly back then as the floor was hills and valleys essentially every few feet.

Added to this was a raft of other repairs that are saved for me when I visit. She had a new water pump installed a few months earlier and the installer did not know how to adjust the pressure controls or check the air tanks for smooth operation and he also did not phyiscally install it properly.

Repaired her washing machine, that had been repaired previously but now only ran for 5 minutes.

Redid the plumbing in one bathroom.

I also replaced the vanities in two other bathrooms.

I had a cousin come by and help me cut out the hole for the sink. this ended up in the evening with the cut out piece falling down, snapping the pvc pipe prior to the shut off valve at its neck and having a ruish of water come out, My wife then rushed out to shut off the main, slipped and fell. What a night.

All in all I was totally exhausted when I returned... the kitchen was finished though.

When I got back, I had a large number of orders waiting to be shipped out. My first priority was to get these out as some had placed them for over three weeks and had been waiting. Some also did not notice that I had placed notices that I would be away and were wondering why the oders had not been shipped. Additionally some other issues had come up while I was away and needed working out.

This weekend I will be trying to totally catch up and be able to respond.

 

[stratman]

Mikling, you are THE MAN!

I got exhausted from reading your post.

Let it be known, from this day forward, real men buy their ink from PrecisionColors.



Happy to hear you are well and back in the world of air conditioning and plentiful matching parts.

 

[mikling]

FIRST

Thanks to all who had been concerned about my dissappearance. I am truly grateful for your kind thoughts and concerns. It so nice to know that people whom I had never personally met would be so concerned and remain eternally grateful for that. I really appreciate that!


Some would have also noticed that I acquired a new phone number. The service I was using simply was not enough for my needs. Yesterday, I acquired a Voip service and hope that this will work out well. New technology and all. Last year I was away for a couple months to help my sister and this year I ended up being a away a month. Alas, these were not times of vacation. Hopefully next time, I will be enjoying some time for R&R.

Thanks again all and especially for your understanding in my being away. I don't wish to turn this thread into a personal not but it seems the best way to thank all.

Mike

 

[websnail]

Glad to hear you're doing ok...

Now, if you're available to help with a small project of reinsulating a passageway in the UK where the hardware store does have everything feel free to contact me..

All the best.