Modern Geekery

I flew to Chicago today and my flight was late enough that I was able to have a nice breakfast with the family before leaving for the airport. As I was sitting at the table, drinking my tea, the doorbell rang. The nice fellow from Progress Energy at the door informed us that he was there to cut off the power. After my initial “do what?” reaction, we dug out the last bill and took a look at it. I’d paid it online and the amount didn’t match what the guy’s disconnection notice said. I pointed out to him that the account numbers did not match and that he must therefore have the wrong house.

When he got around to asking our names, he discovered that they didn’t match the one on the account he was supposed to terminate. We pointed out that the folks next door had just moved in and that we’d gotten a misdirected bill for them a few weeks back. We’d dutifully set it back out for the mail carrier and thought nothing more of it. It is alsoimportant to note that our own power bill, then one we’d just paid, had been for a short pay cycle.

It turns out that the folks next door had applied for a connection using our address by accident, realized it, and then re-applied with the right address. Progress Energy decided to simply cancel our account and transfer the service at our house to the guy next door. I was astounded to discover that they would do this without even the most cursory phone call to make sure that we wanted our service disconnected.

After discussing the situation with the company, we’re confident that we’ve got our side of the situation straightened out. They’ve opened a new account for us and made sure that we’d have uninterrupted service. I feel sorry for the poor guys next door. They had almost assuredly been paying their bill – the one that actually was for their address. But when I left, it looked like their power had been cut and the outstanding bill will almost certainly be applied against their credit report. Mainly though, this appears to be a total failure by Progress Energy to sanity check their billing and account processes.

Between the garden and our CSA share this year, we have been just overflowing with fresh vegetables. One thing that we have been getting in our CSA basket that has been just phenomenal are the mustard greens. Crisp, light, and sinus-clearingly spicy, they have wound up on my sandwiches and in my salads. Today, I built a salad around the mustard. I added sugar snap peas, also from the CSA basket, and some of the foliage from the fresh fennel I bought at the farmers market this morning. (My own fennel isn’t big enough yet.) Add to that some nasturtium leaves and a nasturtium flower from my garden and some shaved daikon radish, from the farmer’s market. The overall effect was deliciously sweet and spicy and with a touch of acid from some apple cider vinegar in an oil/vinegar emulsion, a great salad for dinner tonight. The rest of dinner was also largely local. A pasta dish with Russian kale from the CSA and locally raised pork sausage, with white beans and a carrot-kohlrabi bake, with carrots from the CSA and kohlrabi from our garden.

I’m leaving Monday for Chicago again. We’ve decided to lease an apartment up there for the summer, since sublets are fairly cheap now. One of my teammates will be relocating for 2 months, which will mean a lot more work will get done in the lab in Chicago. It will present a logistical hurdle, one that we’ll certainly overcome. For the amount we’re saving, both in total dollars and in dollars per man-hour, it’s a win-win situation.