memnus | Entries tagged with living spaces

I was laid low by a stomach flu last week. Spent about twelve hours wishing for death, another twelve terrified of water, and the next twenty-four cringing at the thought of solid food. So, so grateful to quartzpebble for staying home to take me to the doctor. I have no idea where I picked this up, but I don't seem to have passed it along, so yay?
At work I've been writing code way outside of my comfort zone: kernel code that reads and writes directly from the silicon. This is a strange new experience, and kinda terrifying. On the plus side, it's GPL code, so I'll be able to point to it from anywhere and say LOOK I DID THAT.
Qualcomm is changing its name to "Qualcomm Technologies Incorporated". Or maybe it's Qualcomm CDMA Technologies that's changing its name. I've never been clear on all the weird divisions within the company, except that it has something to do with compartmentalizing IP.
I've been going to a Crossfit gym for the last six months, and the difference since then is pretty remarkable. Then again, I'm also starting to wonder if some exercises actually start to hurt less, or if you just stop interpreting those signals as pain.
Lori has two new kittens this week - Ellie, four months old, and Kilo Jack, two months. They're still getting used to the house and to us, and are beyond super adorable. Kilo in particular is half the time a bundle of pouncy energy and half the time just wants to sleep on you.

click

Current Location: The Madhouse

We found a place in Capitol Hill, around 12th and Denny. It's a second-story apartment that tried and failed to be a condo, with relatively small common spaces and a front door with no stairs. (We tell it it's a patio to make it feel better, as we go in and out the back.) Which brings me to my next point.

The new place has a mini combo washer/dryer unit and not much storage. We currently own a washing machine and natural-gas-powered dryer. They were bought new two years ago and are still working as well as they ought to be, which is perfectly. We're also considering the numbers on how feasible it'd be to buy a house next year, so will probably want them back. Would anyone in Seattle be interested in renting them for a while? Alternately, anyone in San Diego want to buy them?

click

ETA: We're also now accepting cardboard box donations.

Sometimes the future comes at you a lot faster than you expect. Frances and I are moving to Seattle. At first we'd thought it would be in August sometime, but then we took a look at some schedules and ran some numbers.

We'll be moving in the second week of June.

Those with calendars in sight, or an innate sense of it currently being the first week of May, will note that's about five weeks away. This is terrifyingly short for a lot of reasons, but at least seems to be the right amount of time to look for rentals and arrange movers.

Most immediately, we're flying up this weekend to look at apartments. Until then, we're trawling Craigslist trying to build up a list of places to take a look at. We need a place on bus routes, both to UW for Frances and to downtown for me. At first glance that means Fremont, Wallingford, Greenlake, Eastlake, and Capitol Hill, all of which have places within our price range, but there are things we can't tell from the maps. Any Seattle locals have any advice on areas we should avoid? How do different latitudes in Capitol Hill compare? Any other areas we might be overlooking?

click

[Poll #1417382]Duke it out in the comments. Try to change each other's minds. Try to make up our minds. This is a public post, so get other people involved. Pull no punches (except at each other's privacy).

Bring it on.

click

Current Mood: loved
Current Location: Madhouse-at-Camelot
Current Music: Heather Alexander - March of Cambreadth

I was going to refresh the Craigslist post, but decided, screw it. People are going to be using search anyway. Some friends are gathering stuff up for a fundraiser yard sale, so everything I had left went over there. So now I've got nothing left but full boxes, empty boxes, and piles of junk that need to go into boxes. I think that all gets to wait until Tuesday, except maybe my closet, which is a simple thing. Well, there's the simple way which is leave things on their hangers and just drop them in the bins; or the space-efficient way, which is to actually fold things and then decide what to do with hangers. We'll see if I do either.

My desk and bookshelf both fit into my car, together. Just ... wow.
click

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: Madhouse Office
Current Music: The All-American Rejects - Move Along

Depressing symptom of Utah #whoknows: Ever tried buying condoms in a Utah grocery store? Any other state, they're generally stuck innocuously between the tampons and the baby food, giving shoppers all their reproductive options in one place. But around here - at least at Smith's, the one store I'm familiar with - they're brought out to the pharmacy section of the store. Ok, makes sense I guess. But it's worse than that. They're kept in a glass case, generally right under the prescription counter, the kind you generally need to flag down an employee to get into. Once, I saw a sign on the case declaring it to be unlocked, but that doesn't change the fact that you have to single yourself out to get to them - and that scared kids are going to be that much less likely to use them. Worse, if you go in after pharmacy hours, the gate that blocks off the prescription counter (which DOES get locked) blocks off the condom case as well! That emergency midnight condom run might as well be foiled. Ok, yes, you can go across the street to Walgreen's, but there's no self-checkout there. A teenager buying condoms still has to look someone in the eye and, if not verbally so, say "I'm headed off to have sex soon." Combine that with an unhealthy dose of cultural shame about that fact, and you have plenty for LDS Family Services to do.

In today's news, Big Brother is watching Second Life (BBC News). Do they really think that ter'rists are going to set up a Bomb-Making Island? What, exactly, constitutes "suspicious behavior and actions in the virtual world"? What virtual world or MMO actually has the backend available to do that kind of data mining?

I only wish this were in the Onion: U.S. Military makes purchasing decision on value of product instead of lobbyists; Congress vows to find out what went wrong. I sincerly hope that someone in the DoD has the balls to stand up for this decision. Ok, first I hope there was an honest decision process behind it. Since I can't be pissed that it had to be a decision in the first place, I have to start somewhere... right?

click

Current Mood: confused
Current Location: Madhouse Office
Current Music: Barenaked Ladies - Maybe Katie (Acoustic)

Apparently while I was gone, we received a letter from out rental company. Keep in mind I'm copying this letter for letter...

Dear Tenant or Tenant's

Hello this is your Property Manager K**** M. D*****.

At this time the Owner is having financial difficulty's and is facing foreclosure on all of his rental property's and the only solution is to place all of them on the market for sale.

Please assist us in selling these properties's by not destroying of be discourteous to potential buyers and keep the properties in which you rent clean and free of debris and junk.

This will serve as 24 hr written notice to enter the property at any and all reasonable time.

This is important to all concerned as if we find qualified buyers for his property's the lease's stay intact otherwise after forclosure all of your leases become VOID, and you will be EVICTED by the Sheriff, or BANK.

Again thank you for your patients in working with all concerned. If there is a problem, or you have questions please feel free to call me at (801) ***-****.

I don't even know where to start with this. Perhaps the THREE different ways of writing 'properties'? The hideous abuse of innocent commas, inverted and otherwise? The implication that we should be more scared of the BANK than the Sheriff? And I know Alex is an EMT, but what does this Property Manager have to do with her patients?

Meanwhile, after I moved out of the Capitol Hill apartment, management there turned the air conditioning on full blast... two weeks before the electric bill stops being in my name. Those two weeks used more electricity than any month I lived there. It'll take almost all of my security deposit to pay for it.

click

Current Mood: aggravated

Whoa, has it been two weeks since a post (three since an honest one)? Hi, I do still exist. I've been up to various things.

( Moving )

( Archery )

( School and happenings there )

( That book thing )

( Crack of other sorts )

I imagine I've missed a few things. Oh well.

click

The Madhouse is live. It turns out the modem was at the apartment office the whole time, and I was simply never told. I finally retrieved it and opened it up, and after some puzzling with filters, and a failure of automatic config and subsequent shift over to manual, I was live. Thankfully, switching the modem's access point from my desktop to the router proved trivial, and now I simply have a mess of cords on top of the microwave, being the only place things could sit close enough to the one (!!) DSL-wired phone jack. My master plan of everything at the desk, on power strips and surge protectors, fell through, so I'm in a bit of danger of lightning damage. I do have to suffer the indignity of having MSN for an ISP, but I think I'll live.

So, from here:

- Catch up on webcomics.

- Car to the shop. Oil change, working windshield wipers.

- OfficeMax or the like, I suppose, for a decent desk chair and to see if they also have the nice kind of hooks, for picking this unexpected cord off the floor. Also for a pad of paper to go at the desk, since my Google Notepad seems to have been swallowed up in my car somewhere.

- Groceries, again, this time remembering the damn milk.

- Back to trawling Craigslist for furniture.

click

Current Mood: drained
Current Location: The Madhouse
Current Music: (TEB 14) Third Eye Blind - God Of Wine

Well, things had been going so well. Then today happened.

I woke up and had a dial tone on the phone. Yay. But when I ran up to school to check email, the iron canopy bed frame (think lots of tying places) I'd been dawdling on was sold, and I'd missed a call about going to pick up a computer desk. Went home, checked a thrift store for furniture... got nothing useful... then picked up the desk, and in my pride, messed up my back getting it up to my apartment myself. (Not messed up too badly at least, it seems.) Got stuff set up on the desk, and my desktop re-Fedorafied (second reinstall), then sat around to wait for the DSL modem to arrive.

5:00, no sign. I call Qwest (who hasn't given me a tracking number on the damn thing) and they look it up themselves, and it's supposedly out for delivery. "It's usually by 7," I'm informed. Convenient that 7 is when Qwest call centers close.

7:00, still nothing. I've been doing laundry, and the dryer vents into the apartment for some stupid reason, so it's really warm and humid.

8:00, I escape to do groceries, and forget to buy more milk. By the time I've fixed and eaten dinner, with three days of leftovers and probably too much thyme, it's 10:00. And I'm pissed. I come back up to school to check mail, and it turns out the living room set I'd been told was available had in fact been sold.

So, I've got a bed with no frills - wheeled frame, box spring, and mattress. I've got a dresser. I've got a computer desk, but no chair except the box to my smaller monitor. I've got wireless, now, but no internet access behind it so it's not that useful.

I guess tomorrow I call up Qwest to ask the same damn question, then say no, I didn't actually get the modem if it says it's delivered, and I didn't get notified of a delivery, then ask for a tracking number and probably not get one.

Meanwhile, contact info is updated, at least.

click

Current Mood: pissed off
Current Location: MEB

Profile

Brian

April 2017

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
						1
2	3	4	5	6	7	8
9	10	11	12	13	14	15
16	17	18	19	20	21	22
23	24	25	26	27	28	29
30

Syndicate

Page Summary

(no subject)
Apartment search update (and appliances for sale or rent)
No sense half-assing things
Show no quarter!
No more furniture.
Cynical, cynical.
I'm not sure what to make of this.
Been quiet lately
Well, it's about damn time.
Rage, rage, rage.

Dr. Memnus Lagbane Soultooth the Mad

Lover, archer, nerd

Entries tagged with living spaces

(no subject)

Apartment search update (and appliances for sale or rent)

No sense half-assing things

Show no quarter!

No more furniture.

Cynical, cynical.

I'm not sure what to make of this.

Been quiet lately

Well, it's about damn time.

Rage, rage, rage.

Profile

April 2017

Syndicate

Page Summary

Active Entries

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags