Although we began the day religiously before 7:00 am (we planned to beat the Saturday morning rush at Publix), what followed was by some standards I am sure less than charitable. I ended picking a fight, well not exactly, more just confronting the obvious, with the estate agency, the condominium property management and the bicycle vendor. Like most people (though certainly there are exceptions) the Parties of the Second Part were initially at least not entirely receptive of my intelligence no doubt in part because it was a Saturday morning and either they hoped to have had more relieving tasks at hand or they were already swamped by other cantankerous customers (such as tourists and paying clients so often behave).

In the theory of stochastic processes in probability theory and statistics, a nuisance variable is a random variable that is fundamental to the probabilistic model, but that is of no particular interest in itself or is no longer of any interest: one such usage arises for the Chapman–Kolmogorov equation. For example, a model for a stochastic process may be defined conceptually using intermediate variables that are not observed in practice. If the problem is to derive the theoretical properties, such as the mean, variance and covariances of quantities that would be observed, then the intermediate variables are nuisance variables.

In fairness it was only the estate agency with which there was noticeable friction. In short we hadn’t received a copy of the contract we’d negotiated two days ago for the upcoming (2024) season. Unbelievably these things require a year or more in advance to fulfill as we have on occasion historically learned to our detriment. Turns out, after inordinate kerfuffle and innuendo, that the estate agency hadn’t sent the contract as they suggested they had, or the estate agent (apparently the manager herself) failed to send it to the correct email address (she had made a spelling error of my name, what she called a “typo”). Once this was corrected (she called me “smart” for knowing how to spell my own name), and after we received the contract, it was yet unauthenticated until signed electronically, which we then did, but after which we were unable to get a completed copy of the signed document because of a Pop Up Window blocker on the the web site.  This I eventually deciphered and managed to remove and got a copy of the document. I informed the estate agency accordingly. In the interim I had written to the estate agency to advise that upon my review of the contract they had sent, they mistakenly noted there was only one adult occupant (which did not include me) and the guest information and billing information was commensurately wanting.  All this process transpired over a period of about four hours or more as the estate agent and I alternately awaited emails that never arrived on my device because of the spelling error. Unknown to me my partner had received a copy of the contract (his email address was correct) while shopping at Publix (I was waiting in the car). Mid-afternoon today I received another email from the estate agency confirming my advice that I had received a copy of the signed contract, enquiring if there were anything further.  I was miffed because this latter email (now from a different estate agent, probably one who had taken over in the afternoon) effectively ignored the guest and billing errors I had earlier mentioned to the manager who obviously had either ignored my request to confirm having addressed the issues or palpably did not carry over the outstanding matters to the replacement contact for the agency.  So again I sent an email to the replacement agent, advising that the outstanding matters were delineated below (I sent her a copy of the original email I had sent to the manager). At this point I await a response from the agency, which by the way, I advised I would accept a return email as confirmation of inclusion of myself as one of the contractual guests without having to amend the entire initial contract which by now had been received and authenticated.

Whew! So much for the estate agency.

Contemporaneously earlier this morning my partner dealt with the condominium management who, contrary to what they had indicated three days earlier, had failed to produce the sticker for our car to automatically unlock the gate at the entrance of the compound when approaching. When the manager said it would take time for her to produce the sticker (for both the car and my bicycle) my partner said he would wait.  Which – no doubt to the annoyance of the manger – he did.  He got the stickers and those matters are now settled. We have subsequently completed the corollary documents required by the estate agency and the condominium management regarding ownership and insurance of our vehicle in addition to the official application to the condominium management for approval of our longterm lease.

Thank goodness we haven’t a boat to include in the paperwork!

I interrupted the tortuous mechanics of these matters by going for a 4 Km bicycle ride about Buttonwood Bay Club then reposing by the pool and swimming. The heat was remarkable!

Late in the day I decided I could no longer withstand the grinding revolutionary sound of my new tricycle crank shaft or rear bearings.  As usual I first tried to convince myself that I was being fussy (Heaven forbid!), or that it would somehow fix itself with the natural effluxion of time. But I did not convince myself. So I telephoned the cycle vendor. He was far less stressful to deal with than the others had been.  He acknowledged it probably was a bearing problem and that he would address it on the property early next week.  I told him there was no hurry but I felt it would be improper to ignore.