I have had the patience of a Sith Lord in exile, but finally, all my appliances, including my insanely expensive Vermont Castings barbeque, are finally working.

The manager at Calgary Home Appliance was kind enough to send over a replacement unit after only 3 failed repair attempts. The delivery guys who brought it in told me there was a BBQ cover inside the unit for me (it was all wrapped up and I couldn't check.

"If it's not in there, just call the store and they'll have one for you."

After I unwrapped it, I was overcome with complete not-surprise at the total lack of BBQ cover contained inside the grill.

I have to return a quick-connect doohickey to the store anyhow, so I'll update you on whether I get my cover or not.

The good news is that all the burners light, crossover, and heat up perfectly. In fact, with them all on high the thing gets so hot that it doesn't register on the thermometer (that's over 600°F)!

My favourite BBQ trick it to leave all the burners on high for a few minutes after I'm done cooking. This chars any food bits stuck to the grill and makes scraping it clean dead easy.

Now all I need is my furniture, and I can have my housewarming party! Watch for your invitations in early November, 2009!

When we last left our intrepid new homeowner, he was considering having gas installed in the kitchen. Let's join the adventure in progress....

The builder says $3,500 to run gas to the kitchen. I am skeptical. I call a private gas fitter who confirms that this is probably more than double what it should cost. I can't get the private guy in until the builder is finished, at which point I will need to OK the work with the Condo Board, which isn't even established yet (and may not be for months).

Sigh.

Always looking for the silver lining, I went back to the appliance dealer. I found a nice gas BBQ for my balcony: $879. I looked at the price tag on the stove included with my basic appliance package: $879.

"Hey," I said to the dealer. "I have a crazy idea." I explained my situation, and he agreed to swap the BBQ for the stove, so that I can wait until the whole kitchen-gas thing gets resolved before I make my stove decision.

Cool. I love BBQ cooking. I just have to figure out how to make cookies in there.

I've bitten the bullet, and purchased a "cozy" condo of my own. In this context, "cozy" means "don't swing your arms when you're moving around." I get possession near the end of the month, and am caught up in all kinds of wonderful legal minutiae.

For example, it's a new building, but I bought the unit from the person who put up the deposit before construction started. If the building doesn't get "registered" with the city by the time I take possession, I have to pay the previous owner interest on the full value of the unit as "rent," since the mortgage company can't release the funds until the owner can transfer the "title," which requires registry with the city. Get it? Me neither. And this is very, very bad, since interest on the cost of the condo is insanely, blow-your-brains-out expensive.

Today I went shopping for my appliances; I'm upgrading to a fridge with an ice maker and water in the door, since there is a water hookup piped in. I'm upgrading to a front-loading washing machine. I'm keeping the standard microwave, and I upgraded the dishwasher, but the real drama is the stove. I want a gas stove and cooktop, but there's no gas hookup in the kitchen. The cost to install it? $3,500. Thirty-five hundred dollars. Plus GST. To drill through some concrete and run a gas line 10 feet. In my opinion,
this is just a "nuisance" charge, meaning that they really don't want to bother with this, but if I'll pay a crazy price, it'll be worth their while. That's the state of labour in Calgary today.

Regardless, the shopping was lots of fun, and I got the washing machine on sale, and my upgraded dishwasher is a better model that's on sale for less than the standard machine. Small victories.

The conclusion I've come to about the difference between owning and renting is this: anytime you make a purchasing decision as an owner, it seems like there's an extra zero on the end of the total. Weird.