general mightiness

[mountain_laurel]

this is all chattiness about flatpack furniture, tool use, and problem-solving skills, so run away if you don't want to read more...

yesterday i was so exhausted i couldn't think so i left work early -- i knew i needed to run errands and do laundry and i wanted to give myself plenty of time.

first i went to ikea, where i picked up some slats for my new bed ($35) and a set of shelves for my kitchen ($35). then i went to the grocery store, where i picked up a bunch of necessities, a pound of shrimp, and 4 oz. of blackberries. (it's blackberry season so they're cheap, and shrimp's always cheap here.) then i went home and fell over for a couple of hours.

once i recovered a bit, i put the slats on the bed. problem: the flat ones ikea sells assume a center rail, so they're only half-width. so i had to get some that are a bit curved for extra springiness, attached at the ends with a stapled cotton ribbon to hold them equidistant from each other. nice idea, but it turns out that they're *just* short enough that if a slat slips all the way to the outside of one rail, it slips off the other one. yeesh. and the mattress shifts around enough during normal use to do that occasionally, so last night three or four of the slats slipped out of place. very irksome.

*extremely* comfortable, however! now, clearly when weight is put on the slats they're going to flatten out and be longer, so they need at least some elbow room, but i figure shaving even 1/4" off their range on each side should be enough to solve the problem -- so i'm going to get some long dowels and tuck them into the rails. problem solved.

of course, then i had to put the shelves together because i was dying to see what my kitchen is like with counterspace. answer: much, much better. i put the microwave on a shelf, moved all the chiles out of the cabinets and onto another shelf, shifted a bunch of stuff around, and now i have a functional kitchen. sort of. i'm still working out the kinks, because it's just not as good a layout as my kitchen in pacifica, but i'll get there.

then i ate the shrimp and the blackberries and had no trouble at all getting to sleep for once.

so. yesterday at work i mentioned to my boss that my wrists were starting to ache and could i get my desk lowered a couple of inches. he said to ask the IT guy. so i shot him an email, and he said it was too difficult and told me to raise my chair. well, my chair was already at its maximum height -- high enough that only my toes touched the ground -- but far be it from me to beg the surly bastard for anything, especially since i've gone out of my way to be nice to him the whole time i've been here.

i was crawling around under my desk figuring out how to adjust it myself when the UI guy, Bill, came by and asked what i was doing. i told him, and he said "i'll help." so we went to the lab and borrowed a set of allen wrenches. it took us about 15 minutes, and i had to take it down 3", but it's much more comfortable now.

then, of course, i emailed surly IT guy to say "my chair was already maxed out so Bill and i did it, and hey, you're right, it is kind of a pain in the butt." just to be annoying. because fuck you, surly IT guy!

oh yeah, and i did all this wearing a wrap dress, because i never did get round to the laundry last night.

in other news, i have the pictures matrushkaka took of me and my cats up here, but they're HUGE, no, i mean REALLY REALLY HUGE, and i haven't had time to resize them, so you might want to wait to look at them, since each image is about 1.5MB.

Comments

[dianec42.livejournal.com]

Wow, go you! You are way mightier than I am.

(Especially for the f-you email. I need to send more of those...)

[madbodger.livejournal.com]

Yeah, lowering the desk is the way to go, even if it's a pain. I find I'm most unhappy (and
sometimes flail amusingly) when I can't reach the ground. I'm sure it's bad ergonomics
or something like that.

[merde.livejournal.com]

actually, Netscape had an ergonomics expert on staff who'd come around to evaluate your workspace. she told me that the optimal typing position is if you're sitting up straight with both feet flat on the ground, and your forearms are parallel with the floor, and that your desk (or typing surface) should be at a height that puts the keyboard at the right height for that.

she also gave me a cute little credit-card-sized measuring tape (about as thick as three credit cards, i guess) that i still carry around with me. which led to that glorious moment when i found myself more prepared than bquinlan for a random task that arose. this is a feat of which bards will sing long after my passing from the mortal plane.