House For Sale - Day 16

Today's the day that we pick out the granite slabs for the new countertop in our new home. One can't just go out and pick out granite slabs. One must make an appointment to view said slabs. One must be put on hold for over 30 minutes while one is attempting to make an appointment to view said slabs. I get to view said slabs at 10 AM this morning...with Bret. There are untold colors and textures and thicknesses etc. for these slabs along with different varieties of stone. I went with granite. Madura Gold. I need two slabs, 2 cm. thick. I had to tell them my name, my development name, my model, my lot number, the builder's name, the fabricator's name, the number of slabs I'd need, and how thick they needed to be, and the type of granite. Good thing that I've gone through this before. The fabricator called me and told me to call the slab people to make an appointment to pick out slab. OK. I knew that there would be more involved with this that just making an appointment so I prepared myself by grilling the fabricator about the above details. If I hadn't had all this information on hand when I called to make my appointment, I'm sure I would still be sitting on repeated 30 minute holds. Why the fabricator couldn't have called the slab people to set everything up except the actual time and date of the appointment, I'll never know. I think it's a sign of our times. Poor service. And now they're outsourcing these service jobs to foriegn countries? Can you imagine setting up appointments to view slabs via some person in India? Don't laugh. I ended up talking to someone in India to fix a morgage company error and I could only understand every other word that he spoke. I don't think he understood a thing I was saying either but the error was eventually fixed...I think.

I picked out my slab. Finally. Nothing is ever simple. I don't concider myself a picky person (no...really, I'm not picky) but I did end up having to drive clear across town to a second warehouse which was smaller then the first warehouse in order to finally find two granite slabs that I was willing to pay for using the amount of money that I'm paying the builder for these slabs. I was able to find one slab at the first warehouse but they only had the one that looked right in my "color". The other warehouse, though smaller, had more of a choice. Go figure. I suppose Corian would have been easier to select but I do love the look, the feel and the maintanance of granite. It's amazing all the different colors and patterns that nature can provide. If I have to do this again (build another house) I'm going to go directly to the slab warehouses when I have to pick out granite. Those little 5"x7" samples they show you really don't give you any kind of idea of what this stuff looks like up close and personal in the form of a 700 pound slab.

Today's Little Bit of Trivia

The first year in which the U.S. national debt exceeded $1 Billion was 1863...and that's all I have to say about that.