This morning, I left the house in the capable hands of the electrician who was going to install four ceiling fans for us. I just got a call from him — there are parts missing from one box, so that one can’t be installed, and some sheetrock fell down from the ceiling in our bedroom when he removed the old fixture (apparently it had been burned by the old fixture, which doesn’t surprise me at all — the bulbs were very close to the ceiling), so he couldn’t install that fan, either. I guess it’s time to get the sheetrock guy back — the missing parts are already on order.

At least I have two working sets of car keys now; it only took the Saab dealer a few minutes to reprogram everything to match (I was, clearly, not the first customer not to be told to bring both keys in when there was a problem with one remote). And Saab has just started offering a key/transponder combination, which will let me get rid of the huge separate remote I currently have to use, so soon, we’ll have four keys to keep in sync.

Ah, well, what can you expect on a Monday?

Obviously, I should have expected even less — it’s now 8pm, and the electrician is still here, trying to get the power back in the living room (he said he must’ve nicked a wire earlier in the day).

We do have two of the four ceiling fans installed, which is good. But I am disappointed in the brightness of the light in the office; I had had two 60-watt incandescent bulbs, which we replaced with one 100-watt halogen bulb. Since halogen is supposed to be brighter than the same wattage of incandescent, I had expected to have to use the dimmer feature on the fan to avoid being blinded. Wrong. This is the dimmest 100-watt light I’ve ever seen! Luckily, we have some other lights in the room over one of the work surfaces, but it’s still surprisingly dim.

And I was able to reach the drywall guy, who will let me know tomorrow when he can come out and fix up the burnt sheetrock so we can continue this fun.

But in the cosmic scheme of things, or even just looking at things in local perspective, I can’t complain. My family and I are healthy; we’re gainfully employed; we’re not in a war zone; the weather is ok; these little annoyances at home are just that — little annoyances, and it won’t be long before they’ve been conquered (I always did like the idea of track lighting, so I guess I’ll enjoy trying it in the office).

This morning, my phone rang at 7:15. It was a market research firm hired by Hilton Hotels, asking me if I’d like to take part in a brief survey about business travel. I declined and decided to send a note to Hilton’s CEO instead:

Stephen F. Bollenbach
President and CEO
Hilton Hotels
9336 Civic Center Drive
Beverly Hills, California 90210

Dear Mr. Bollenbach:

It is 7:15am on a Sunday morning and I am at home. I have just hung up the phone on a call from a market research firm (I believe it was named “Mark Research”) asking me to take a “short survey on business travel on behalf of Hilton Hotels”. Please note the time again: 7:15 am on Sunday morning, and the place: at home. I am extremely unhappy and upset that Hilton thought that I would find it acceptable to call me at home at such a time.

I ask you to please ensure that my name and telephone number are removed from any outbound call lists maintained by Hilton or its contractors. I also ask that you work with your contractors so that they don’t call people at such hours – doing so is certainly not the best advertisement for a company which purports to be in the hospitality business.

My telephone numbers are [omitted]. My Hilton HHonors number is [omitted].

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

I haven’t mailed the note yet; any suggestions on making it more effective are welcome.