Well, I finished packing to move down to Olympia on Thursday night, laptop, boxes, and all. We left at about 8am yesterday so that we could get down here in time for my scheduled walk-through with the property manager for Olympic Heights. We got here uneventfully and I checked in with the renting office. The walk through took probably 20 minutes or so, but it got done with several damages noted on the apartment check-in sheet. Good thing, too, since most of them are small things — there aren’t any large, gaping holes in the walls (as if I expected there to be any!).

After that, we went ahead and unloaded the car — you haven’t had fun until you’ve carried a 60- or 70- pound dining room table up a flight of stairs backwards and slowly so that you don’t fall and break your neck. I’ve decided that moving out of here, due to the large number of heavy furniture pieces, will require a moving company that can do heavy lifting for me. Anyway, we brought everything up, set up the dining room table, then went shopping for some things. We went to Target, picked up some supplies and some floor lamps (since the living room has no lighting in it, it has to be lit entirely by floor lamps — I also got one for my own room). We went to Joann Fabrics after that and got a 3-foot long wood dowel to use as a door jamb for the glass sliding door in the apartment, then went to lunch at Red Robin. After that, we stopped by Ace Hardware and got some nails to hang pictures and stuff with, then cruised through the Big Lots right next door to see if they had anything interesting. They did have a cheap futon for about $140, cushion and frame. It was tempting, but we didn’t go for it.

After a stint of grocery shopping, Mom dropped Amanda and I off at the apartment and said her goodbyes. Amanda and I spent the rest of the day Friday assembling stuff, including my nightstand, a small QBits storage stand to hold the cable internet stuff, and the frame for my desk (without putting the glass top or the small CPU/printer stands onto it). I put together all three floor lamps, which wasn’t quite as easy as it sounds. The procedure was relatively easy, but assembly was a little annoying, mainly because they pack it so that you have excess power cords that you use in order to store it that aren’t really needed once assembled and need to be stuffed into the frame of the lamp. That part alone took a bit, since the frames are a little narrow.

At about 6:00 (maybe 7), I went in to get the wireless router from the boxes, and got my laptop out at the same time. Lo and behold, out of everything I had packed, I had forgotten one very crucial thing: the laptop’s power supply. Thus, I’m stuck on batteries and waiting for the power supply to be shipped via UPS from home. Argh.

Anyway, since we had no bed, we slept on the floor in my room, getting up at about 8:30 so that we could be ready when the Bon-Macy’s delivery people came with the bed. That happened at about 9:30 — they showed up, asked me where I wanted the bed, then went down to get the bed itself.

At this point, I’m thinking it’ll take them about 15 minutes to fully assemble the frame, then put everything else together.

It took them about four minutes. I swear, I’ve never seen a bed assembled faster in my life, and by the time they got to me, if their delivery sheet was right when I signed it, they had already done two deliveries!

Amanda and I put the sheets we got at Target on the bed, then pulled my nightstand out of the closet and set that next to the bed. We then proceeded to bring the frame for the desk into my room and set up the glass top — it faces the door to the room, with the longer side of the desk extending outward from the wall in the space between the door to the room and the door to my closet. It looks good. We later added in the CPU and printer shelves on the inside part of the desk on the right side. I’m using those shelves as bookshelves, for lack of any other book storage other than my closet at this point.

We had an hour before Comcast showed up to do the cable internet hookup, so we went ahead and walked over to Target and got some more things that we needed, then stopped by OfficeMax and picked up a floor mat for my desk. We stopped by McDonald’s on the way back and got lunch, then came back and ate. Amanda went off to Joann Fabrics to look around for a while, so I spent my time doing some organization and putting up some posters in my room until the Comcast technician arrived.

The technician just dropped off the modem and gave me the stuff I needed to do a self-install — since my laptop’s battery power was nearly gone at this point (and I’m running Linux anyway, which is unsupported by Comcast), he couldn’t do a full install and said that he would try to get our charges reduced to a self-install configuration. That was nice of him.

That done, there was nothing else to do for most of the day other than organize some more and keep tweaking the room. That’s where it stands at the moment. I’m glad to be down here, but I almost feel like half an academic year has passed already!

Well, today brought a haircut — my hair is now much shorter, thank goodness — and a new bookcase ordered. It’s not really labeled as a bookshelf (it’s actually a O’Sullivan Cliff Top Oak Stepping Cube, which the web site I link to calls a “steeping cube”, whatever that is), but it can be used as one. I’m defining a small reading/lounging area in the living room with my papasan chair as a centerpiece, and was going to use the bookcase both to define that space and allow for some book storage. I may also get a small bookcase for my own room. We’ll see. I know for sure that I’m getting at least two more floor lights — one more for the living room and one for area lighting in my bedroom.

I’d get something more entertainment-related if I thought it’d be worth it, but I’m being cautious to see what my bills look like first. Perhaps next month.

The good news: the wrist pain I’m having is not carpal tunnel. It’s another condition that can also cause wrist pain. I forget the name, and I only remember that it starts with an “a”. Yeah, real helpful. There’s an interesting web page on wrist pain that gives me a couple ideas.

Anyway, obviously, I went to see Dr. Kyle Oh over at Kirkland Spinecare this morning. We got there, filled out paperwork, then he took me back and did some really cool nerve testing. Basically, he uses electrodes and some contacts to run low-voltage electricity through nerves to figure out the response time. If the response time falls within a particular standard deviation (I believe he said something like 2 standard deviations from the norm), it indicates a problem (though not necessarily carpal tunnel). Luckily, I fell within that standard deviation, and he prescribed a wrist support, which we picked up at a nearby pharmacy. Ironically, this wrist wrap is a lot like the ones I’ve already been using to try and help this problem. He also recommended setting up my desk to be more ergonomic and to get some ergonomic computer equipment.

Anyway, after that we went over and saw my friendly audiologist (Evergreen Speech and Hearing). We made some tiny adjustments to my hearing aid programming based on further feedback, but we decided to keep testing the new aids to see whether we could get them to work in a satisfactory manner. They were nice enough to extend the one-month purchase return deadline from September 20 to October 15 to give me more time to test the aids in classroom and work situations. That really made my day, since I was concerned about having to return them before I had a chance to test them in my current primary environment.

We also went shopping.

Went over to Linens ‘n’ Things in Woodinville after we had lunch at Red Robin (mmm, Mocha Smoothie), and I picked up a new torchiere lamp, placemats, and some goop remover that works nicely on that sticker goop you get when you remove the price stickers on some products. I also picked up a hole punch and scissors from Officemax. I also got a mouse pad with a gel wrist rest, which I’ll start using.

Not much else to report other than that. The week slogs on until I go down to the apartment for the year and start really setting stuff up. I called Olympic Heights before my appointment with Dr. Oh and confirmed that I can get a walkthrough of the apartment with management at 10AM on Friday. So at about 8AM on Friday, we’re Oly-bound.

We went down to Olympia this morning to take most of the rest of the stuff I needed down. Thus, we had a little fun shopping as well — picked up stuff for the bathroom (namely a shower rod, shower curtain, and a trash can), plus some stuff for my room.

I got my chair, too! I’ve been looking at a papasan chair from Pier 1 Imports all summer — frame plus a loden green chair cushion. I got something I didn’t expect, however — a matching stool frame and cushion that goes perfectly with the chair. I know for a fact that I’ll be using that chair quite a bit. I put it next to the fireplace and a small window thinking that that would be a really nice use of natural light. In addition to that, I also got a nightstand for my bed and a small cabinet for the cable modem stuff (including the wireless router). We’ll see how that goes.

Not really much else to report, since there’s very little else that I actually did today short of running around looking at stuff. More tomorrow after I go through not one but two doctors’ appointments in a row, then do some phone calls to figure out apartment details.

I’ve updated the look of this blog to make the header stand out a little more. People who have seen this blog before will notice the new bold titles. Below the title on the right side is the posting, trackback and (sometimes) comment information for that entry that used to be at the bottom of the entry. This makes the entries look a little cleaner and gives each entry a bit more of an offset than it used to have.

Other than that technical change, not much else has happened — the new header comes after experimenting with a new template for this blog and deciding that the header worked better with the current layout than with the new layout I was considering.

I’ve got an apartment! Yay!

At this point, you can either close your eyes and imagine me doing a little dance or you can keep reading. Preferably both, but more than likely the latter.

We went down to Olympia this morning, dragging a whole carload of cargo with us. When we got there, I found out that I wasn’t expected until tomorrow, so my paperwork wasn’t quite ready to be completed and the apartment hadn’t been completely cleaned yet. Both were fine, since they completed the paperwork as I sat there and I wasn’t moving in permanently anyway. There’s a huge stain in the rug in the apartment itself which they’re trying to clean, and they’ll be nice and not hold me accountable for it. It’s a nice little two-bedroom apartment on the second floor of a two-story building. Courtesy of my roommate, I’m taking the master bedroom, which is small but has a nice walk-in closet with some storage space. I’m thankful for that — perhaps I won’t have to have much under-the-bed storage. Anyway, the apartment also has an in-room washer/drier (which I didn’t visually check, but it’s there), a full-service kitchen (fridge and stove/oven provided), a fireplace, a relatively cozy dining area and living room, a nice patio balcony, and a little storage room off the balcony. It’s small, but it’s home until at least May 31, since that’s when my lease runs out.

We went furniture shopping at the nearby Bon-Macy’s Furniture Gallery and got a full-size bed plus frame, and since it was only a showroom, that’ll be delivered on either the 10th or 11th of this month. This is good, since I’m going down permanently on the 10th. Cable internet hookup (via Comcast) is on the 11th between noon and 4, so I’ll be without internet access for a day or so (gasp!) while I wait for that to get hooked up.

With bed ordered, we went over to the College and paid fees and did some background checking into Amanda’s financial aid. Apparently, they’re not validating student IDs for Fall until the 18th, which sucks, since I’m going to be using the bus lines to get on campus before then. I also stopped into the new location of the Writing Center to say “hi” and see how the move was going — as is usual for the summer months, nobody was really there, since we’re always on minimal staffing during the summer. I did get to talk to one of the Assistants to the Director and one of the other tutors I work with, though, which was enjoyable. We went up to the bookstore, got Amanda some of her books, then went out to lunch at Apollo’s Pizza and Pasta on the corner of Division and Harrison on Olympia’s west side. After that, we beat feet home. We’ve done pretty much nothing since.

I am glad that we managed to get some of my larger items down — my chair, my new desk. That was an accomplishment, though not all that easy, since we did have to heft everything up a flight of stairs. At least it got there, I count that as an accomplishment. The next step may be getting a dining room table from up here to down there, complete with chairs. We’ll see.

Not much else to report. It’s been a long day, but it ended well.

I’ve got an apartment! Yay!

So I’ve spent the day bouncing between a client meeting this morning in Seattle, an audiologist appointment this afternoon, and stops by Target, Red Robin, and Linens ‘n’ Things this evening. On top of it all, we had to put up with thunderstorms both at the house and on the road — I miss thunderstorms, somehow. I’m always humbled by the power they convey.

Oddly, this statement also comes at a point when I’m considering my votes for statewide positions. Since the elections this year are based on a party system, we have to choose a party and vote for people within that party, which has vastly pissed off voters in this state, but has to be used, at least for now. I’m voting within the Democratic party for this election, since they have several incumbents that I support (current Washington Senator Patty Murray) and some runners that have what I see as strong positions.

With Friday fast approaching, I’m beginning to plan out what needs to be taken down first. So far, I’ve decided that furniture and kitchen items should be taken down initially, as well as some larger items such as my printer, hamper, essential class materials (read: books), and probably a few boxes of other things along the way. I’m still excited (that’s good, right… right?), though I can’t say that doing paperwork is my favorite thing in the world. At least it’ll get me the keys so that some of this will be over and done with. For now.

I’ve put some screenshots up of my primary machine, just in case people are interested. Doubtful, but remotely possible.

I went to see the doctor about my wrists this afternoon, and he said that I was an “odd case” because I haven’t had any tingling in my fingers that I’ve noticed. I’ve been referred to some neuromuscular specialist over in Kirkland — thankfully, the case is non-operative, according to my physician’s assessment. Thank goodness for that.

Not much else to report today, so.. until next time!

I went to amazon.com to update my wish list tonight. I’m an avid collector of Law and Order and Law and Order: SVU. Apparently, though, the studio that releases these programs has decided to do their seasons out of order. They released SVU season 1, and are now releasing season 5.

Wha’ th’ pluck?

The same applies to Law and Order: seasons 1 and 2 are out, so they’re leaping ahead to season 14.

How many people out there want to watch a series completely out of order? I don’t. Apparently, people commenting on amazon.com are just as baffled by this turn of events. This doesn’t make very good marketing sense, really.

On the other hand, CSI is releasing straight through — seasons 1, 2, and 3 are out, with season 4 on the way. I’m also monitoring The Simpsons, Stargate SG-1, and M.A.S.H. for now — I don’t intend to add any more series than that to my colelction until I’m up to date with the current ones.

In the future, I may start picking up Futurama and Homicide: Life on the Street, and — perhaps in another life — The Twilight Zone. I definitely want to get my hands on Quantum Leap — I loved that series.

Why collect TV series on DVD? Well, I believe that the best TV series are like works of art — to be enjoyed constantly. Thus, I’m hoping to collect my own favorites so that I can enjoy them just as I used to. Perhaps I’m just looking for a childhood that’s gone. Who knows.

My desk is ordered and the bed and the mattress still remain (at least, as major parts of the furniture shopping I need to do — still remaining are the minor things). It was kind of cool, actually, since I found a desk at Target, but then found the exact same desk at Office Depot for about $20 less — ah, the power of shopping around. I’m getting the Studio RTA Malibu Glass Computer Desk (item #611144, officedepot.com), which looks really cool. Not that I bought it just for looks or anything. Now why would I do that…

There’s a couple furniture places within about three minutes of the apartment complex, which is the really nice part of being in the Capital Mall area on the westside. Hopefully, we’ll find something — I’d be surprised if we didn’t. Oh, well. The saga continues — I’ve already ordered a wireless router for use with the DSL line we’re hoping to get for the apartment. I’m trying the Linksys WRT54G, despite the bad reviews I’ve seen regarding Linksys product reliability. This came recommended from another techno-geek friend of mine (or, rather, a friend of that friend), so we’ll see how well it works out. I’m hoping I don’t have to go through a return process just to get another one. We’ll see what happens there.

Life isn’t all fun and games — I’m still working on reading some stuff for next quarter so that I’m not completely swamped. Instead, I’m trying to only be a little swamped. I’ve already finished Orwell’s 1984, and am still reading Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, which is a long book. I may start in on Locke’s Second Treatise on Government in the near future as well, as if I didn’t already have enough reading to do. I have a feeling I’ll be averaging at least one very long study night a week, but hopefully it’ll be worth it.

I’m looking forward to apartment life, though I admit to being antsy about being able to move in and start setting stuff up. First apartments, I suppose, inspire a need to make it right, which makes me rather impatient. I’m the type that wants to get things done immediately, as in right this second. That’s been both a blessing and a curse, for obvious reasons — some things require more patience than others. Not that I’m not patient — it’s just hard to exercise patience when you’re looking forward to something on this level.

It’ll be an interesting year.