I've seen your face before

And I visited the maintenance office again. This time I didn't identify what the problem was, in the hopes that being mildly difficult would make things more urgent. They remembered me, and my problem, and apologized again for the delays. To show they were serious about the problems in getting an appointment with the specialist who could find and fix the leak in my bedroom air conditioner, they let me talk to somebody over the phone who apparently knew me, but I'm even worse at phone voices than I am with faces, and I can't identify faces. Anyway, he promised to make an appointment and get back to me.

I went to my office and was surprised when they did call, about 12:30, to ask if I could be at my apartment at three o'clock. That was no inconvenience, and the person showed up only about ten minutes late. There was a small issue in that he didn't have the key to unlock the railing outside the air conditioner condensers -- they hang off the balcony -- but it turned out the ring of dust-covered keys I left on one of the kitchen cabinet shelves because I didn't know what it was for, was for that lock. It's good to know I have it, but there are maybe a dozen copies of the key on that ring, which seems excessive for the one railing lock.

Nevertheless, it turned out to be all a waste, since all the guy could do was recharge the coolant, which had been leaking out, and he warned me that there was a leak somewhere in the line which had to be fixed. Already three-quarters of what he'd put in had leaked out. Well, it's nice to know it hasn't fixed itself in five weeks. He offered to fill it up, for what good that would do, but I said there was no point wasting coolant like that. After a couple iterations of this he accepted it, and he said they'll call the specialist and get back to me with an appointment. It's nice to make such progress.

Trivia: While Mariner 10 experienced temperatures near the sun as high as 369 degrees Fahrenheit, its solar cells never got hotter than 239 degrees Fahrenheit. Source: Far Travellers: The Exploring Machines, Oran W Nicks. NASA SP-480.

Currently Reading: Fantasia Mathematica, Clifton Fadiman, Editor. It's a late-50s collection of mathematics-based fiction, which turns out surprisingly to have another story after ``-- And He Built A Crooked House'' and ``A Subway Named Moebius.'' Who knew?