Aleen and Michael’s Blog

Aleen and I had our pre-delivery inspection (PDI) for the house today.  We were pretty excited as it means we are getting closer to closing.  My folks and my sister joined us and we went through the house from head to toe.

Aleen and I have been pretty good and have been to the house on a weekly basis ever since they started construction, so we had a good idea what to expect.  The PDI is indeed an interesting beast as you want to find as many problems as possible, but hate to do so as it’s your new house you are dissecting.

We found the common cosmetic things, but also some scratches in our windows and counter tops.  They also forgot one of our shutters on an outside window because they put the outside light to close to it, but in all the cases they were pretty good in marking it down and committing that it will be fixed at some point.

We’re pretty nit-picky, well Aleen will say that it’s just me but you know, I want to make sure it’s as perfect as can be.  So now, one more week of waiting and then finally, after nearly 12 months of waiting, we’ll get the keys to our brand new first home.

I’ve always wanted to send Aleen flowers, but she always gives me crap about how it’s a waste of money.  Anyhow, I finally found a good reason to do so today as Aleen was at home not feeling too well and I felt bad that I wasn’t in town to take care of her.

I looked online around lunch and noticed that FTD does same day deliveries of certain bouquets before 2pm, and knowing that she likes lilies I thought it would be a good idea to surprise her at home.  The process was quite easy and the selection was pretty good at FTD, I also could get Aeroplan miles so why not right?   I placed my order and was guaranteed same day delivery.

Aleen had mentioned that if she was feeling better she might step out to run some errands, so I even emailed her Dad mentioning to him to expect a delivery sometime today but not to tell her.

The hours passed and it was now 5pm but I hadn’t heard anything from Aleen.  If the delivery came I know for sure she would have loved it and right away called me.  I called FTD’s 1-800 number to ask for an update on my order.  The lady who answered was quite friendly and she put me on hold to contact one of the local florists where the order went to to get an update.  After a minute or two, she regretfully told me that there was a mix up with the order and the florist forgot to fulfill the order, but that they would send it out right away the next day.

I was actually quite disappointed when I heard this as like I said I always wanted to do this and for my first time experience, I can’t say I will use FTD again.  The lady gladly refunded my money as I cancelled the order, but that didn’t satisfy the disappointment.

I called Aleen after I found out the bad news and told her what my plan was, and as I thought she was excited over the idea, but was just as disappointed as me that the order was messed up.  Anyhow, I highly doubt I will be using FTD again.  A bit of a shame as I did think their site was very good for orders.

Even though I couldn’t send her the flowers physically, at least she can always have them virtually to look at below:

So on Sunday was the draw for the European Championships next year in Austria and Switzerland.  With the possibility of some real nasty groups, things turned out alright for Germany, who have hosts Austria, dark horse Croatia and border rival Poland in their group.

By far the toughest group will be Holland, Italy, France and Romania; three past champions fighting it out for the top two spots.

All the groups are:

Group A - Switzerland, Portugal, Turkey and Czech Rep.
Group B - Austria, Germany, Croatia and Poland
Group C - Holland, Italy, France and Romania
Group D - Greece, Sweden, Spain and Russia

The tournament starts June 7, 2008 and I can’t wait.  Full details of the tournament can be found here.