It continues to be very cold -- it got down to minus 14 one night and one day had a high of 3.
Here's a typical day's snowfall....this was from morning until noon on just one day...the picnic table on our office's back porch (the light is not daylight but a porch light):
When Jack Frost Visits during the night, one's windshield doesn't necessarily all freeze up. Sometimes there are just beautiful little snowflakes all over it to greet you:
The bad....
My goods did actually, finally, arrive...the second day AFTER I started work. I had to leave to meet the delivery folks. Now, my things were loaded onto a big freight truck. There was no way they could get down to where I live (over the river and through the woods kinds of roads). It took them from 11 am (when I came home from work) until 2 pm to decide this while the rig sat up on the highway with its blinkers flashing. I finally had to drive the driver 30 minutes away to rent a smaller U-Haul truck so they could make shuttle runs with my stuff.
Now, bear in mind, it was a high of 10 degrees and these two guys were in sweatshirts and had nothing warmer with them.
We found a restaurant along the highway that would allow us to park their truck. It took them four trips and they didn't finish until well after midnight! Of course, the temperatures kept dropping....it was a flat ZERO degrees by the time they did the last load. I felt so sorry for them that I took them out and treated for a meal and an hour break. My neighbor told us about a great little pub place downtown so we all went and had fish and chips, and they had chowder, a specialty of that pub.
The bad.... 1) These guys didn't know they were coming to Maine at all. In fact, they'd never been given my address and didn't know where they were headed until 7 days before they arrived and had called me as they headed for New Jersey. 2) No one told them I had stairs up and down and that they would be delivering loads to all levels. 3) No one told them how cold it was here. 4) There were no extra people to help off load as there were loading at the other end, so they really were overburdened.
The very bad.... Many of my things arrived broken or damaged!!!! My mattress set, which I was told would be boxed, was just shoved into the bulkhead of the truck. This damaged the memory foam and cover. My dressers that were still very good, got chipped or had drawers broken. My counter stools had all the finish rubbed off the edges. My collectors cabinet had the glass broken. The hide-a-bed is missing a foot. Both computer tables are broken. Many containers were cracked or broken. Boxes were smashed. And finally, my formerly beautiful leather couch now has a small tear and some scratches on it, as well as, stitching that is coming undone on the leather. Check it out:
Now, these fellows tell me that this is how things came off the truck. Not having seen them load the U-Haul, I can't say. I can tell you there were times they less than optimally handled my things -- my washer went down the basement stairs face down on the glass door as it was too heavy for the two of them. They did not have use of a hand truck or back belts. They said none of those items had been left on their truck for them. Toward the end, they decided there was no way my freezer would make it in. I don't know if they'd just given up or it truly was too wide for the door. It is presently taking a break in my landlord's garage and he tells me when spring comes, he will try and get some friends to help get it through the bulkhead (root cellar) doors. The entire thing was a nightmare!
As they were leaving, at midnight, I was asked to sign the paperwork that acknowledged I had received everything. Then I was told the shipment was COD and he was to collect $8104 from me. Ha ha ha ha ha.
First of all, I did NOT receive everything. A number of goods are missing. Secondly, they did not confirm inventory tags against the list as they offloaded. Finally, we'd never had a COD agreement! I wrote all over the bills of lading that inventory was not counted or confirmed, I listed immediate visible damages and that payment was refused as COD was never the term! I was NOT a happy camper.
The not so bad.... The rest of the week, administration let me work half days to try and get some boxes unpacked. They generously paid me anyway, knowing I would be good for making up the time working from home.
The hilariously bad...Nevertheless, it has been crazy! No box they packed is labeled with accurate contents. For example, a box was labeled "kitchen spices." Well, it did have a can of cinnamon someone threw in on the top of all the paper apparently at the last minute. Unfortunately, the remainder of the contents was gardening supplies that had been on my deck. Another box marked "lamps" had no lamps, but did have one lightbulb. A box marked "garage" had a flower pot on top, but underneath it were all my DVDs and Blu-Ray player. It may be years before I can account for everything!!!! So, as it is, I am unpacking everything to at least touch it and know what is in the box unless it is something the girls and I packed.
They used soooo much paper (as I'd witnessed myself). The first day of unpacking, I came out of it with five dishpack size boxes of just paper. Now, there were actual items in the boxes, but please tell me why you would use four large sheets of paper to wrap one small spice jar? But then use nothing at all to wrap a large bottle of olive oil? Or use nothing to wrap my piece of wave glass art (it was stuffed in a box and thank goodness, did not break...) but wrap a toilet paper holder with so many sheets and tape that you didn't know what you were opening??? Please tell me why you would pack a desktop computer, monitor and printer, but then fail to include any of their related cords in the box? I have no idea where they are...
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