Friday, February 14, 2003

alley constructionThe fine gentlemen of Steve's Excavating and Paving Service are bricking up the alley next to our house. The streets in our "historic" neighborhood are lined with red Augusta Block bricks, and so too must be the alley. I'm not sure why they tore up the alley in the first place, but its nice to see that the work will soon be done and we'll have access to the parking spot behind our house. Click the picture for a larger version.

All of the remaining junk over at the apartment is now packed up. I know the details of moving make for terribly exciting reading, but that's about all we have going right now. Sad but true. I did finally throw away the keyboard, mouse, and carry case for my old Mac Plus, which is currently sitting in storage. Some day I'll haul it out again and return it to a place of prominence, to remind me of the dark, primitive computing places I have been. In its day, though, that Mac was definitely the happening box. Nowadays I could fit its entire (external) hard disk in the amount of RAM it takes to check the weather. Never mind me, I'm just rambling.

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Thursday, February 13, 2003

Electricity, eeeee-lectricity

This morning began with a bang as something exploded a few blocks away, followed by a whimper as we realized that whatever it was took our power with it. Talk about waking up on the wrong side of the bed. According to Florida Pow -- uh, Progress Energy, 98 customers were without electricity this morning, and still are as I type.

Meanwhile, today's the day that power should be disconnected at the old apartment. Only a few odds and ends left there now; last night we cleaned out the fridge and hauled home some more stuff. We're hoping to finish up tonight so we can dedicate the weekend to a yard sale and a last pass at cleaning the old place. Then it'll be sayonara, 18th Avenue North.

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Wednesday, February 12, 2003

Our water pressure troubles in the shower were solved this past weekend by Tim and Teresa, who kindly donated a family heirloom: this Sloan Valve Company Act-O-Matic showerhead. Following my limited plumbing instincts and AmyMo's advice ("remove that water saver thingy," which in the case of the Act-O-Matic turned out to be a simple washer), I installed the showerhead and voilá, our shower's water pressure increased threefold. As Christina says, "Now there's nothing to miss about the old apartment."

So many kudos to the Fritz family for their gracious contribution to our lives. Oh, hey, did I mention they gave us a couch too?

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Tuesday, February 11, 2003

Utilities SNAFUs, round -- uh, four or five, I think.

Christina is spending the day at home, doing computer-related stuff that can best be done away from the distractions of the office. I went home for lunch (the joys of the five-minute commute), and our meal of leftovers was interrupted by a clomping noise on the side of the house, followed by the sound of the uninterruptable power supply (UPS) beeping in the living room. Our power was off.

We confronted the poor guy in the Florida Power -- excuse, me, "Progress Energy" -- truck. Fortunately, a few minutes' conversation and a quick consult of his work order revealed that he was actually supposed to be cutting off the garage apartment, 1408 1/2. How exactly that tenant plans to live without power -- and apparently it was initiated by him, not by his failure to pay his bills -- is beyond me, but our landlady did say he was eccentric.

Last night our cable modem wasn't working, an apparent glitch on Time Warner's part, but a quick phone call got it working again. I can only hope that our utilities troubles are over. Y'know, until the next thing.

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Monday, February 10, 2003

It's not "voh-NAHJ," it's "VON-idge"

The Tivo/Vonage experiment is not going to plan, which brought my living room wiring plans to a screeching halt. I can make the calls (which must happen twice monthly for Tivo to function) from Tim's place, but apparently I can't program it to work with the new cable box and service until I get this problem fixed. Vonage claims that the two will work together by the end of March, but I'm wondering whether I shouldn't just transfer the Verizon account to the new house until then. The idea that it will take fifty-five bucks to do so makes me see red, though. As I type, I'm on hold with Vonage (I like the vo-NAHJ pronunciation better) to find out if there are any catches to this "we'll fix it" promise.

The moving went well, and most of the stuff from the apartment is now in the house. There are a few closet shelves left that need to be cleared, packed, and brought over, but that should be a matter of an evening or two at the apartment. Power goes off over there on Thursday, so we'll be doing as much as we can before then.

Then comes the process of turning a house full of boxes into a home. Christina likened it to one of those sliding number puzzles -- to get the study organized, we'll have to fill up the available space in the living room, then shift things back so we can work on the kitchen, etc etc. Eventually we should have those numbers lined up correctly, though. I've been thinking about how to organize the kitchen and hey, The Container Store is a fun place to surf for ideas.

I'm a bit brain-fuzzy this morning from a late night visit to the emergency room with a friend who needed a lift to Bayfront Hospital, but the time spent warming a vinyl chair gave me a chance to think about the fact that I have relatively little about which to complain: I haven't recently lost a pet, a relative, or a job, as some of my friends have done in the past week or so. I'm not exactly riding high on their misery, but it does put my own daily hassles into perspective, which is what we all need now and again.

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