Catch Up

Scott Hardie | July 1, 2002
The last few days have been busy. Here are some quick notes on what I've been up to:

- Our desks finally got delivered after a two-week delay. Kelly's was all good, except for the lack of a hole where the scanner sits; she plans to run a cord around. Mine is more troublesome: It's a massive desk, too heavy to even budge, so I can't move it away from the wall to install anything. It wraps around the corner, and most of the cords go in the corner. I need to run the cords under the monitor then through a hole, over to the right about two feet, and into another hole to get them into the computer space. Since the desk is only an inch away from the wall, it's really hard to move cords two frickin' feet in any direction and then get them in a hole. But, Kelly and I could do that with some homemade hooks on sticks, but it doesn't really matter, since the cords aren't long enough to connect anyway. They'll get just inside the computer space, but that's it. The cabinet for the computer is only big enough for the computer itself, so I have to pull it out to run any cords to it, and like I said, they don't reach. I was very frustrated for a day with this setup, and finally I decided to put the computer under the monitor. All of the wires reach it really well, and other than occasionally kicking it (I'm going to put a wooden plank there or something), the only real problem is having to get down under the desk to put in a CD-ROM, which I won't be doing often. At least the desk chair is nice. The fourth and final piece of furniture that we got delivered is the entertainment center, which didn't come with holes in the back, so we had to drill our own, and the guys didn't hook anything up like we were told they would. It took us an hour and a half, but we finally got the whole thing wired. We've got our PS2 and Gamecube and DVDs out there, and I've got my 400-CD changer in here in the office, with an FM transmitter on it so that I can listen to the music in the living room. It's a little scratchy, but I plan to fiddle with it a bit.

- The new computer is very sweet. It's my first Gateway and, other than leading me to expect someone to set up my computer for me (it was delivered by UPS), I'm quite pleased with them. Stats on the new computer: 2533MHz Pentium 4, 1024MB RAM, 18" flatscreen monitor, 64MB video card with TV-out, 120GB hard drive, CDRW, DVD-ROM, printer, scanner, speakers w/ subwoofer, other stuff. This was a damn expensive computer, the single most expensive thing I've ever bought in my life, but it was worth it. The whole idea is to have a computer that will last me 5 years or so. This old one (I'm typing on it at the moment) was state-of-the-art when I got it in the summer of 1998, but by the next spring it was obsolete. I think the new computer will last a while. Since I don't download movies or music from the web, that hard drive's going to be mostly empty, too. Kelly also got a new computer, but I don't know the stats; she can post them in a comment if she wants. We bought a router and will hook it up tomorrow after the cable modem dude leaves. Tonight is hopefully my last night of dialup ever.

- Loki, Kelly's new kitten, got declawed on Thursday. We brought him home with a plastic bonnet on his head and his front legs wrapped up tight, like sticks, in gauze. He's been very good about it, though, putting up with the painful removal of said gauze and the forced swallowing of antibiotics. We have to wait a few more days until we can take off the bonnet, though (he can't be allowed to lick his paws just yet), and in the meantime, he reeks. Felicia's still growling and hissing at him whenever he gets close.

- My mom visited on Saturday afternoon. Felicia didn't even recognize her. She was very pleased with Loki. I can't say I was surprised that almost 50% of our conversation that whole evening was cat-oriented. We ate at a gourmet deli (it was kinda bad) and played Scrabble. It wasn't the best use of a Saturday, but getting to see my mom on lazy days like that and not do anything "important" with our time was one of the reasons I moved down here. We're going to see her on Thursday or Saturday.

- We have one roll of photos taken, mostly Illinois stuff like my graduation, but a few of the house. We also have a brand-new single-use camera that we plan to use entirely on the house, but we have to wait for all of our furniture to be here before we do it. So far we still need to buy a bed and two nightstands, plus we need to hang some paintings and unpack the last few boxes. When our stuff is in place, we'll take all the pictures, get both sets developed, and put them up on the web. I'm also planning to build a Sims version of our house just for my own amusement, and as long as I'm doing it anyway, I'm going to export it to a web site and put it online so that you all can see it. That should be in the next day or so.

- We bought dishes. Green ones.