the fun of furniture making

May 14, 2004 by Eric Richardson

I put up a picture today showing a bit of what my desk currently looks like. Last August D4 and I went about building ourselves a set of full-sized bunk beds and a 8' long table for a desk. The beds actually came out really well, and just the other day we cut the legs in half to make them into separate beds as we go our own ways.

The desk, though, was troubled. We never did get all the wobble out of it, even through two iterations of the legs. I've now got it in the new apartment, and there was no way I was rigging it back how it was.

And so I ended up with my current solution, which may be temporary or may be permanent. On the right I've got an SGI Personal IRIS, which has the solid metal framing to withstand much more than the weight of a desk and monitors. On the left is my desktop, an old PII 400 in a Gateway 2000 full tower that originally shipped as a PPro 200. To bring both up to a height of 26 1/4" I'm using a bunch of books that would otherwise have sat on my shelves. The Deeds of Frederick Barbarosa have never been so useful.

ah food

May 13, 2004 by Eric Richardson

On the way back from lunch today I wasn't paying attention and walked straight past the front door to my building. Yeah, I'm still new here.

I was feeling boring and hungry, so I just wandered over to the Subway on Hill/Fifth to get something to eat. This also sent me straight past the BofA ATMs on Hill between 5th and 6th, which was convenient. Across the street there is Pershing Square, a park that now sits on top of a parking garage and sometimes doubles as a concert venue. And around Christmas time it's the site of LA's downtown ice rink, something I didn't make it to this past holiday season but definitely plan to next year.

man the periscope!

May 13, 2004 by Eric Richardson

They were doing a fire alarm test in the new building just now. I swear it felt like I was back in the Commodore 64 days playing Silent Service and I just gave the signal to dive. Better turn off the diesels, we're going under...

Hmmm, I didn't realize until I was looking for a link for Silent Service that it was done by Sid Meier of Civilization fame.

getting closer

May 12, 2004 by Eric Richardson

Internet's now working! I'm writing this via my Speakeasy DSL from the floor of the new apartment. The floor because we haven't actually gotten to the setting up furniture stage, just the moving the pieces into place one. I forgot to bring over the screws that go to my bed, so for tonight I'm sleeping on the mattress on the floor.

It won't matter, though, I'm going to be out like a light. Today flat out wore me out moreso than I can remember in a long long time. My legs are done. My knees hurt. My arms have random scratches.

A neighbor invited us over to hang out tonight, so we got a chance to (after showering) sit, cool down, and have some really good food. We already got invited to another "get-together" next weekend. I went two whole years never really knowing anyone I lived around at City Park, and I haven't even slept a night yet and already know people here.

wow. that was hard.

May 12, 2004 by Eric Richardson

8:30am, I get up, get dressed, and Magilla and I head over to the U-Haul center that's conveniently just like a mile away. We're getting a 17' truck for $29.95. Plus $5 handling fee to reserve it. Plus $14 for their insurance. Plus $10 for an appliance dolly. Plus mileage.

So really not at all the $29.95 they advertise. But that's ok. I knew that going in. So we've got a truck, and we've got it until 4pm.

We get back here around 9:30. It's street cleaning day, so my side of the street is off-limits until 11. We park at a meter just a little bit away, but not at all bad. Normally my side of the street would have been pretty empty on street-cleaning day, with maybe 4 or 5 cars with tickets. Today, though, probably 20. That was kind of weird.

Magilla had a 10:30 interview downtown for an internship, so he heads off for that and D4 and I start taking things apart. That takes a while. 10:50 or so everything's disassembled, and we take a couple pieces of bed downstairs and move the truck in front of the building. Loading begins in earnest. It takes forever. Magilla gets back around 11:30 and starts helping. It still takes forever.

12:55, truck is finally loaded and we're on the road. Not to downtown, but to Covina, a good half hour away. We need to pick up two couches from Magilla's house and saw in half the 4x4's that were the legs for the bunk beds D4 and I made in the fall.

1:30 or so we pull into Magilla's driveway. His Dad has gotten us pizza, and we're starving, so we eat that. We then load up the couches, and Magilla goes to look for the electric saw. He doesn't find it. We end up sawing through those 4x4's the old-fashioned way.

2:40 we're on the road again, but again not to Downtown. This time we have to go to Whittier and drop off D4's bed, dresser, etc, at his brother's house.

At this point I'm getting nervous. The truck's due back at 4, remember, and there's no chance we'll make that. I call U-Haul, and they give me until 5.

3:00, get to Whittier and unload D4's stuff.

3:30, back on the road. The 605 to the 60.

4:00, pull into downtown. Problem is, you can't park downtown at 4. 4-6 on Spring is no parking, no stopping, no even thinking about it. Driving up Main at 4:01 we saw tow-trucks cruising to take cars sitting on the street a minute too long.

There are two parking lots next to Premiere Towers, one on each side. We ask the first one if we can park there to unload. He wants $6, and isn't real nice about it. Between us we have $4 in cash. The next lot lets us park for the normal after 4pm car rate, $4. We park, open up the back, and get busy. We're talking a 17' U-Haul full of mattresses, couches, bed parts, a dresser, and a refrigerator, and that truck's still due back in an hour.

4:40. At this point the pace is feverish. We're loading everything into the lobby, trying to empty the truck as fast as possible. The truck still needs gas before it's returned.

4:55, Magilla pulls out of the parking lot with the U-Haul, leaving me and D4 to take all the stuff upstairs and into the room. We're already dead tired.

5:40, D4 and I finally finish. We can hardly move. We both fall asleep on couches.

Magilla ends up back to the U-Haul place a bit after 5, but they don't care. Mileage ends up costing $56 (at $.8/mile), so the whole thing runs around $110.

But it's done. And that's what matters.

Less fun is all the littler stuff that still needs to go, and all the cleaning this apartment needs before we turn it back in.

learn new things every day

May 11, 2004 by Eric Richardson

You learn all kinds of crazy things taking a computer apart. My machine had been up for 64 days, but tonight I shut it down in anticipation of its big move downtown. Tilting it forward, I learned some things:

• My floppy drive was not screwed in or connected to any cables.

• I had a hard drive sitting on a static bag on top of the cdrom drive.

At one point I'm sure I knew both of those things. Tonight, though, they were all new to me.

not in this town you won't...

May 11, 2004 by Eric Richardson

Kobe Bryant can never leave the Los Angeles Lakers. Kobe Bryant can never find another Shaq. This is where Kobe is the man. Yeah, Shaq's the man too. LA's big enough for two teams, so the Lakers are big enough for two stars.

2-2. Next game's Thursday at 5.

Kathy and I headed downtown tonight, driving by Staples Center around 7:35 and seeing all the people with tickets finding their way inside. We didn't have tickets, so we headed for a sports bar. We parked at my apartment and then headed west on sixth. First we tried the Grand Ave. Sports Bar, in the Biltmore Hotel. It was packed. We couldn't find a single open seat.

So we took to the road again.

We ended up at the Bonaventure, taking seats at the Bonaventure Brewing Co. They normally close at 9, but they kept things open late for the people watching the game on their 6 or so tvs. After the crowd at Grand Ave, it was great. Plenty of open seats at the bar, $4 pints, and a really good stout brewed in-house.

Kathy's sandals were bothering her feet, so we took a cab back to the apartment. That pretty much evened out the $5 or so we saved parking at my place, but you can't beat the flexibility of just walking around downtown to find a place.

counting down

May 11, 2004 by Eric Richardson

I've been reading pretty much non-stop over the last few days to try and catch up for my final in Religions of Asia. I made it through most of the assigned reading for the semester, but I really don't know how much any of that is going to help me. We'll find out in 55 minutes, though.

The good side is that no matter what all of this will be behind me by 4pm, or probably sooner.

Then I get to focus exclusively on moving for a day. Beds need to be disassembled, a refrigerator needs to be emptied, and a whole lot of random things are going to need to find their way downtown.

On a positive note, I just got an email this morning saying that DSL should be in place in the new apartment tomorrow. That should mean no significant disruption in service as I move, which is very nice.

again the move

May 10, 2004 by Eric Richardson

All this moving business has to be done soon, since Saturday is the last day of our lease here at City Park. Today I finally got around to reserving a truck from U-Haul for Wednesday. From this apartment we'll be taking the fridge, a couple mattresses, bed frames, desk, etc, and then we get to make the fun drive out to Covina to pick up a pair of couches from Magilla's parents.

Where the fridge is there I will be also, so Wednesday also marks the day I'll really make the move into the new place.

I'm excited.

First, though, I need to learn all there is to know about religions of asia before 2pm tomorrow. I've also made it through India, next come China and Japan.

not just imagination

May 09, 2004 by Eric Richardson

Last night, while writing my concert recap, I thought I felt a bit of an earthquake. My trusty quake map didn't show anything, though, so I chalked it up to me imagining things.

Turns out it was indeed an earthquake, just up near Santa Barbara.

(noticed on doc's site)

footsteps

May 09, 2004 by Eric Richardson

I keep hearing sounds tonight, like someone walking around up above me. Being on the top floor, that puts them on the roof, which City Park this year put off limits. They threaten a big fine if you're caught up there, and for the most part I think that's stopped people who in the past would go up there to lay out, read, etc. Typically neither of those are night activities, and the security guard does make his rounds, even if these days they're a little less frequent. He has to spend most of the night sitting in the parking area, keeping an eye on the gate that has been stuck open for the last three or four days.

An elevator's also not working. That broke yesterday.

I'm glad to be leaving here.

18 days

May 09, 2004 by Eric Richardson

Middle of last month I mentioned that a pair of pigeons (well, I said "pidgeons") was building a next on our balcony. They did so, and promptly laid eggs. Aside from not knowing how to spell, I also didn't know anything about, for instance, how long pigeon eggs take to hatch. Today I finally looked that up, and according to this page the answer is 18 days. "18 days," I asked myself, "shouldn't that make it about right now?"

The answer, yes. I just walked out to the balcony and noticed some movement under the mother pigeon. Sure enough there are baby pigeons under there.