Ready for summer

A couple weeks back, I finally got access to my deck. The first thing I did, of course, was get some plants.

Then I began looking for deck furniture. Unfortunately, that was more challenging. I was about a week or two late for most of the clearance sales. And I didn't think a snow blower would be an appropriate choice.

Then I got lucky. I checked on a store off Fairview in Seattle that was a bit out of the way. The only way I knew about it was that they had a giant chair on top of a nearby coffee shop.

I stumbled into David Smith & Company at just the right time. They were wrapping up their teak end of season sale and I picked up a table and four chairs at 50% off.

The next day and the rain and cold weather started.

Now I'm all set for summer. In 2009.

Life in the Garden Part 06: Discount Trees at Ikea

Ikea is almost awesome. Much of the furniture is designed in a way that I almost like. There's usually one thing I just don't like about much of their furniture, or one change that would make it just right. But it's not quite there. For example, very few of the Billy bookcase components are available in Black.

There are lots of other pieces I almost want but don't quite fit with what I like.

Regardless, I keep looking because 1) my GF like some of the stuff and 2) it's inexpensive.

Last night we went to Ikea because I my GF needed a new vase for her office. She didn't find anything she liked, though she came close (of course).

But I did finally find something I wanted.

In the garden section, they had trees on discount. I picked up a new Yucca plant and a Weeping Fig for just $6 each.

Here's the Yucca in it's new home.



That's three trees in one pot. Which means they were $2 each.

I've had good luck with this kind of plant. Here you can see it in the foreground. My Draceana is in the background.



I got that tree in the background 14 years ago from a friend when she graduated from college. It was about 2.5 feet tall. It's grown a bit since then. I wrote about it here. (BTW if you are are familiar with Dracaenas, I could use some advice about it's health and propagation)

The other $6 tree is a weeping fig. I believe it's a part of the ficus family. I imagine this one will be more challenging to keep healthy. These types of trees are known for not dealing well with stress and are likely to drop most of their leaves when confronted with a change in environment (like Pearl from Finding Nemo).

So if you have a Ficus, and it loses all its leaves, it might not be dead. They do that from time to time when they're not happy, but often they come back.

The top is full of healthy leaves and the bottom three quarters is mostly wood at this point.

You can seem my watering hose in the foreground. I need to find a better way to connect the hose to my kitchen sink, but that's a post for another day.

The trees now are well watered, in Miracle Gro soil, in indirect sun. What else can I do to keep them healthy?

Gnomes. Lot's of gnomes.

How to dispose of an air conditioner in Seattle

Over the weekend my GF decided to get rid of her old air conditioner. She replaced it a couple years ago with a more powerful, quieter, and probalby more energy efficient one. The old one sat on her deck for a few season and went through a couple floods.

Trying to sell it after that seemed like a bad idea.

And we didn't want anyone else in the apartment building to acquire it for free let the entire building burn down.

But you can't just throw an air conditioner down the trash chute. For one thing, it's heavy. For another, it doesn't fit through the opening. Finally, the sanitation department has a problem with people just leaving appliances in the trash.

What's the solution? In Seattle, we have to take such things to a recycing center.

King County lists a bunch of them on its website. We took her old air conditioner to Total Reclaim, which also collects TVs, monitors, computers, and all sorts of other things you aren't supposed to just throw out. They had pallets of that stuff.

It was a short drive down there, and the hours were fairly convenient.

And they were happy to take the old, noisy, dead, potentially dangerous air conditioner for $50. That's right, we had to pay $50 so they would accept the air conditioner for proper recycling and disposal.

It's a bit of sticker shock. I don't know if it's a ridiculous price, although it certainly feels that way. I suppose that's how much it costs when you consider the chemicals, labor, and energy involved. Still, it's frustrating.

But I guess it's better than dropping it off a ferry.

Who says furniture delivery sucks?

A few years ago I had my new bed delivered. The delivery people did not like their jobs. The did it, but you could tell they weren't happy. I had to remind them to take the pathetic, spring poke-y old twin mattress I was replacing, and in general they were slow.

I can't blame them too much. It was hot. The work was hard. And the new mattress was really heavy.

This morning I had a different experience.

My GF bought a new bed last week and it was scheduled to be delivered Saturday morning. Her old mattress didn't have any springs poking out of it, but she still wanted to replace it. It seems she thought her mattress shoul be flat instead of U-shaped. Go figure.

She bought her new mattress at Macy's. The delivery people were actually awesome. The arrived at about 9:30, and were gone 5 minutes laters. They were pleasant and highly professional. The two of them brought in the new box spring and mattress quickly despite the weight. The peeled off the plastic bag protecting the mattress with perfect team work, and before I new it, wrapped up the old mattress in that same plastic and took that out of the apartment. The put down the new box sping, helped my GF spread out the bed skirt, quickly put the new mattress in place, and then they were gone.

It was really impressive and demonstrates that you don't have to spend thousands of dollars to get good service.

Chris and his delivery partner on route 104 in Seattle on Saturday morning did a great job and are a credit to Macy's.

Party in cube land

From the Kansas City Star

Office cubicle celebrates 40th anniversary

The cubicle celebrates its 40th birthday this month. A party is unlikely.

What’s to celebrate? The cubicle office system is one of the most derided realities of modern work life.

...More

This is an interesting article about the object that has come to symbolize everything that is wrong with white collar work. And yet, it is a significant improvement for workers over the alternative of huge open pens filled with nothing but rows of desks. The analysis in the article touches briefly on a number of these points.

Every now and then I think it might be nice to work in an office again. Then I spend a few days in one and come back to my senses.

Fridge in Seattle

Anyone need a small fridge?

I had a great dorm refrigerator when I was in college (1990). It was bigger than most -- 28" tall and about 17" across.

After college I hung onto it, because that's the kind of thing I do. It's moved with me through several states and apartments. For years, I used it as a night stand because it was the perfect height, and that meant I didn't need to buy a night stand.

But now it's time to part with it. I have don't really have room in my apartment for it. It has done Yeoman's service for me, but I'd rather have the floor space in my living room back.

It still works; I made ice cubes with it recently to check it out.

If you would like this fridge, I'm giving it away. The only cost is that you have to pick it up in First Hill (which is near downtown Seattle). Contact me through email at my name (Cromely) at gmail or through the comments here.

You can find more pictures of it here.

Frayed Wires

In previous years, neighbors complained that I make too much noise. Since I am often up late watching TV, I decided to get some headphones. I can enjoy full clarity of dialog and my overly sensitive neighbors can sleep.

In June of 2005, I switched to a set of wireless headphones so I could still walk around the apartment. There is a wire that connects the base unit to my stereo headphone jack and a power cord that connects it to, well, power. The head phones themselves (Panasonic RP-WF930T) were fairly comfortable and had decent sound quality.



Last night while adjusting something else, I looked at the cord connecting the base unit to my stereo. It had a few issues.












Even in places where it hasn't broken off yet, there are crack in the insulation.



Those of you with a background in electrical engineering are well aware the inside of a wire is not something you are supposed to see during typical household use.

What's weird about it is that the cable wasn't under any stress. There was plenty of slack in it, and it was hanging in the air -- not running across a floor or anything like that. I've seen insulation crumble like this before, but that typically involves wires that are decades old.

Of course the damaged wire is permanently attached to the base unit. The only way I can repair it is to get out that soldering iron. And to do that I first have to purchase a soldering iron.

So now when I move next month, I'll have to take the time to inspect all the cables in my apartment for unusual wear. That should probably also become one of my regular biennial tasks like adjusting my insurance limits or cleaning the bathroom.

So can anyone recommend a good set of wireless headphones that are not likely to burst into flame?

Down the Chute -- One Piece at a Time

I got it one piece at a time
And it didn't cost me a dime
You'll know it's me when I come through your town
I'm gonna ride around in style
I'm gonna drive everybody wild
'Cause I'll have the only one there is around.

I threw out my desk tonight. It went right down the trash chute.

I had a large O’sullivan L-shaped computer desk that I bought form Office Depot in winter of 2000. It survived from Mt Lake Terrace to Seattle in November of 2001 with minor injuries. One part broke in half, and another was weakened.

It should be noted, that it was a big, heavy piece of particle board furniture, and I moved it in a half-assembled state. I got great service from O’Sullivan. When I contacted them about the large, broken piece, I gave them the part number and they sent me a replacement with in a week, at no charge.

I used the desk for nearly 4 years until July, 2005, when I rearranged some furniture. I wasn’t sure it would survive another move, and I wanted something new, anyway. So I replaced it with a desk I build with Industrial Post Shelving.

But now I had this large desk to get rid of. I didn’t relish the thought of putting it in the car and hauling it to the dump. And since I live in an apartment building, I couldn’t really leave it at the curb or in the dumpster. Besides, it was heavy. So I disassembled it and put it in my closet.

Every couple of weeks after that, I would pull a piece out of the closet, stuff it in a bag, and throw it down the trash chute.

After a while, all the small pieces were gone and it was time to tackle the large panels. These I leaned on the steps and split by jumping on them. Then one piece went back in the closet, and the other went down the chute.

Finally, I was left with the big, extra thick pieces. They wouldn’t break no matter how much I jumped on them.

I don’t own an actual saw so I reverted back to a technique from childhood.

Have you ever tried to throw out dirt in a city? I don’t mean to scatter it, I mean to get rid of large quantities? It’s not easy.

When I was in grade school, my father decided to pave over the back yard with asphalt.

To do that, we had to remove 2-3” of dirt from the entire surface of the yard and get rid of it. Rather than try to get the Sanitation department to haul it away, we buried the dirt under the pantry. To do that, we had to cut a hole in the floor. How do you cut a whole in a surface when you are starting in the middle? You use a drill.

We drilled a series of holes in the floor in the shape of a square. Then we used a jigsaw in a game of power-tool connect-the-dots. The floor opened right up and over the next few days, we dumped dirt underneath the floor of the pantry.

Over the past few weeks, I took my drill to the large pieces, and made a line of holes across their width to weaken them. Then I jumped on the panels to split them.

And tonight -- 17 months after I began-- I dropped the last piece of the desk down the trash chute.

No one ever said I can’t complete a project.

So we drove up town just to get the tags
And I headed her right on down main drag
I could hear everybody laughin' for blocks around
But up there at the court house they didn't laugh
'Cause to type it up it took the whole staff
And when they got through the title weighed sixty pounds.