May 2004 Archives

So I went to bed at 10:45 last night thinking that I would sleep in until about 9:00 or 10:00. Alas, no, I was wide awake at 6:40 this morning and after my coughing fit, couldn't get back to sleep. My ear drum is still popped, but it's now making some crunching sounds when I swallow—which is progress, I think. Anyhow, after a shower and breakfast I decided it was too early to do laundry, so I started putting the masking tape up in preparation for painting the living/entertainment room. My digital camera was handy, so I snapped a couple photos in process.

Here's what it looked like after I taped it up.

Here's a shot of the Pepto-Bismol pink colored primer. Since I'm painting the room a deep red, the guy at Home Depot said I needed to prime the walls with a tinted primer so the red would only require two or three coats, instead of six or seven if I were painting directly on white.

I was planning on going to Buffalo but given how foggy I've felt in the mornings and how much I'm still coughing in the evening, right up until bedtime, I'm scrapping my travel plans and staying in Boston. The thought of driving with my head feeling this foggy and a popped right ear drum that severely limits my hearing is too much to handle.

I picked up the exhaust vent for the washer/dryer unit and a couple of cans of paint at Home Depot tonight, and after sleeping in tomorrow, I'll catch up on laundry backlog and take a stab at painting my living/entertainment room.

Other than that, I'll be taking it very easy this weekend. If I have the ambition, I'll post some photos of the painting project.

My new PC desk was finally delivered today. I was prepared to work from home all day, but the Staples delivery crew showed up at 10:45 this morning and carried the monsterous box with my new desk up the stairs like it was an air mattress. It was in the back bedroom awaiting assembly by 11:00 and I was able to go to work.

This evening my buddy Wade showed up with a stacked washer/dryer unit in the back of his SUV. This was a generous gift from my friend Amy, who had lent it to Wade and his wife when they moved into their new house a few years ago. Wade has since bought standard washer and dryer units, so he had offered this one to me.

It took us about an hour and with all the grunting and banging around of the unit's metal sides as we pushed and pulled it up the stairs, my new neighbors might have been thinking that the sounds eminating from the hallway were either the sounds of someone passing kidney stones during a thunderstorm, or two guys moving a washer/dryer unit up a narrow stairwell. Regardless of what they thought was the source of the sounds, they probably did what most reasonable people would do in this situation: lock the doors and double-check the ammunition supply.

At 9:15 this morning I got a call from Staples customer service rep saying that they could deliver my desk between 12 and 3, which is when I told them I'd be home waiting for the furniture pre-measure. Since my right ear drum had popped last night and throbbed with a 101 degree fever late last night, I made calling my doctor's office for an emergency appointment a priority. I got one for 11:30, kind of close to my pre-measure and the desk delivery, but it was either that or make a trip to the ER after the deliveries. I didn't think my ear drum could wait and I didn't want another night of throbbing ear pain and a fever.

Finally: a couple of photos I took with my digital camera as I toured my new apartment the day I took possession of the keys.

Here's the front room, which I'll be using for a painting/creative studio. I'll likely move the ragged oriental rug into the back bedroom:
Here's the dining room which I'll be using as a living/entertainment room. This is where the new couch and chair will go after I paint the room.

Over the weekend I ordered a new computer cart from Staples, and a sofa/arm chair combo from a local furniture store. The computer cart, shown below, was, according to the sales clerk, scheduled for delivery today between 5 and 8 p.m.

The delivery truck never showed. I called at 6:45 and found out that the sales clerk was wrong—delivery is between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Regardless, they did not show up or leave a note saying that they did while I wasn't home. Frustrating, but oh well. The support rep I spoke to said they will call me tomorrow to reschedule the delivery time. Hopefully they will be able to provide a two- or three-hour window in which to expect them so I don't have to miss the entire day of work.

I'm happy to report that I'm moved into the new apartment and now have a home phone number, cable service, and DSL. Yeah! I'll post some photos of the new place in a few days.

My cell bill was way out of control last month because of the move and new job activities. Please call me on my new home number if you want to reach me.

More tomorrow.

I did manage to rewire the wireless cable-to-TV/sound system last night and it works fine now. I had the sound going through the VCR before going to the stereo and that caused a noticeable volume drop. I also solved the telephone interference problem by replacing the phone. Different frequencies for each device and they're all happy. Hopefully it isn't screwing up any of my neighbors' phones.

The cable guy came this morning and I made his life very easy. I decided to try a technology option to avoid running the cable around the perimeter of my bedroom and punching multiple holes in the horse-hair plaster walls. I picked up a 2.4 GHz video relay device from Radio Shack and hooked it up last night. The results were not great.

The video signal quality to the TV is fine, the remote control relay works flawlessly, but the sound quality is noticeably poorer than having a direct connection to the cable box. Tomorrow night I'll try a few different combinations of connections, but I'm not too optimistic.

I stayed home from work on Friday morning waiting for the phone installation tech to show up only to find out that they were turning it on remotely. Well, that didn't work. I plugged in my phone and an old Caller ID box I had to discover no dial tone and a message on the box saying "Hang up phone and check all cords." Annoying, yes, but at least I still had my cell phone.

My home telephone service will be turned on this Friday and, after several e-mails back-and-forth with the cable provider, I should have a service person showing up next Tuesday to connect me to the vast wasteland known as "cable TV in the summer." I think the most interesting challenge will be getting cable run from the bedrooms to the living and dining rooms which, for unknown reasons, have no cable outlets despite the service coming into the house on their side of the building.

Anyone have suggestions on to how to run coaxial cable from an outside wall through a room that has the horrific combination of having multiple doors on the perimeter and no carpets? I'm thinking one of those speed-bump style wire channels is in order...but then how to get it from the bedroom to the dining room without running the cable out the door and around the corner? Hmmph.

Almost forgot, I went to see the doctor this afternoon. She says it looks like muscle spasms, not anything long-term like slipped discs or worse. Just to be safe she sent me to the hospital for X-rays, but she won't have the results until tomorrow, so if anything shows up on them, she said she'll call me. She prescribed a strong muscle relaxant and said to postpone the unpacking until I'm feeling better. Considering that with this pain the most comfortable position for me is sitting, I'm not planning on doing anything ridiculously physical in the next few days. Hot bath, heating pad, and going to bed early all sound good to me...also sounds like I'm getting old. Damn, I didn't think that would happen so soon!

I ordered my new home phone service yesterday from Verizon, but because I'm going to training class next Monday through Thursday, I won't be able to take a half-day off of work to be home for the phone installers until next Friday, May 14th. Bummer. Subsequently, my DSL connection won't go live until the following week. It may be Memorial Day before I get back on the Internet from home!!! Oh well. :P

In the meantime, I'll be checking e-mail intermittently from work, but please, don't expect speedy responses. Call me on my cell phone if you would like to reach me in a timely manner.

I've now completed Day 2 of my new job and have to say I'm very happy with it. The people are very friendly, my boss seems to be both very smart and a genuinely nice person, the facilities and IT staff had me set up with my office (read "cube with a nice window"), and I survived my first two hour meeting by only losing consciousness three times, and most likely it wasn't for more than a few minutes.

Seriously though, it seems like a great place. I'm going to four days of training next week for the company's older product, then two days the following week for the new flagship product which is what I'll likely spend most of my time on. There's no shortage of doc work here, so it seems like whatever projects I tackle and finish will make a great impact for the customers and the company.

So, tongue firmly planted in cheek, I am digging in and holding out against hope that the honeymoon period here lasts for a while!

Through a series of miraculous works by a great group of friends, I am now officially moved into my new apartment. Last Thursday my friend Amy and her wonderful children, Nick, Natalie, and their begrudging sister, Rachel, helped me empty my stored stuff from their basement into a rental truck. Nick really did an outstanding job and I can't sing his praises loud enough. For a 15-year old to do that much work without so much as a whisper of complaint was wonderful.

Friday morning I drove the truck down to Waltham and was met by my brother, Pete (with 2.5-year old Rowan in tow), and my friends: Wade, Nancy, Amy (and kids), and eventually, Liz. The old saying, "Many hands make light work" held true in this case. Where Thursday's truck loading took us about 6.5 hours, Friday's unload, up three flights of stairs, was completed in less than 3.5 hours. Peter and Wade were the strongest backs in the group, complemented by Nick's slightly diminished zeal to finish up so he could go home and play Star Gate for a few precious, uninterrupted hours.