OTHER TECH

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From the initial negotiations with Sweetie (for her okay to go ahead with what she knew would be an expensive, drawn-out, and frustrating experience) to the final installation, the whole job took, believe it or not, a year. I was slow and picky, and this could have been done in a quarter of the time if I had made all the decisions before we started and the work were being done in our primary house in East Hampton. Telluride time is not unlike island time. Weeks and months go by without an electrician coming to run the necessary wires to the screening room. Weeks and months go by before the HVAC guy can come to put in the manly air-recirculation system (now that the electrician has run him power) so I can smoke cigars in the screening room without any of the smell getting into the return vents to the rest of the house. The HVAC guy comes and announces he needs 220-volt service to his equipment, not 110. Weeks and months go by before the electrician comes back and rewires the air-recirculation system for 220 volts, instead of 110, as now requested. Weeks and months go by waiting for the HVAC guy to come back, because he's working on the air system for a hospital in neighboring Montrose. And when he does come back, more weeks and months go by because the HVAC guy forgot to tell the electrician that although the recirculator needed 220, the control for the recirculator, which was changed from 110 to 220, should have stayed at 110. Meanwhile, Sean can't install the wall of electronics in the screening room without the air conditioning working. And the circle of life continues.

Upon arrival in Telluride this past winter, with the installation completed, every evening I would e-mail a list of questions to Sean, and he would patiently answer them. I now understand the system, love it, and rarely leave the house to spend any time in the beauty of the San Juan Mountains that surround our spectacularly engineered home.