Ecce! Romani!

My goal last week was to get a new Roman shade for my window.  That didn't happen.  After doing some pricing at Lowe's, I realized that I should be confident in which style I like.  My parents wouldn't like it if I decided to get another one for $300 after deciding I didn't like the first one.

Which do you like?

There are so many styles to choose from, so I'll hold off for now until I decide, but I do need to decide quickly because I took down the blinds and curtains, which will make it a lot hotter in my room.  I didn't reach that goal this week, but I got a lot of other things done:

• shelves built for my mom
• shopping at Lowe's
• six registers replaced
• curtains removed from my old room (sounds like a five minute job, but I am am proud of it because there were over 20 screws in awkward positions holding all the hardware to the wall)
• watched every episode of Pawn Stars

My mom is a teacher at the local middle school.  They have moved to a new school, which is about a mile from our house.  It is nice for her work to be so much closer (it was 15 miles away), but she has to move all of her stuff to her new room.  At this time she is almost finished getting it ready, but the last couple weeks have been busy.  My dad and I have been helping her around lunchtime for a couple hours.  The only problem with the new room is that there isn't nearly as much storage as the old school.  So, my dad and I built and painted shelves for my mom.

I went shopping with my sister at Lowe's on Saturday.  My parents aren't going to replace some of the things around the house, so decided to take the bull by the horns.  We spent over five hundred dollars. Worth every penny.  I (my mom) bought a ceiling fan for my new room, five registers, three smoke/CO detectors, two lamps, a kitchen chandelier, and two flush mount lights for the hall.  I also bought a new paper towel holder from Bed, Bath, and Beyond.

Before we went shopping I started to inspect the registers around my house.  They were disgusting. Just disgusting. Rust (and maybe mold?) were all over them.

When I was removing the register in the dining room, I saw two hair like fibers protruding from the vents.  I feared the worst -- a roach.   I carefully removed the register paying strict attention to those two little hairs.  I got it to eye level, and there it was! Ugh! 

I found another one on a different register only after I finished removing the others and going back to admire my pile of rusty aluminium.  Inside the ducting on the first one I took down, I saw something that looked like a string.  Naturally, I pulled it.  I discovered it to be the bones of a tail.

Meet Scully

I am happy to report that the kitchen register was pretty clean. It was just ugly, so it had to go.

Before

After

The paper towel holder has seen better days.

Before

After

My dad complains that these new ones are too low.  They shine in his eyes when he stands near them.  I think they are an improvement, but my parents might take them back to get the large version of these mediums.  We'll see.  Next, I need to convince them to get a new couch.  That'll take some work.

PT

I had my first physical therapy appointment today.  I arrived early and watched The Price is Right in the waiting area.  A lady was going to play the putting game.  It brought back a lot of memories when I watched the show when I was a kid.  I thought I was pretty good at guessing prices (not so any more). I remembered a guy who played the putting game years ago, and he missed the putt, but it bounced off the back rail and went right in the hole.  And wouldn't you know it? This lady did the same thing today.  Cool, but they haven't called my name yet.  Only others were to "Come on down!" I eventually get up from my seat and ask if I missed my name.  I guess I didn't because she sent me to a lady to sign some papers, and then I was on my way.  However, I now only had 15 minutes left for the therapist to perform an evaluation on me.  They had some really cool yet intimidating equipment to measure my neck strength (if I didn't know any better, I would have thought they were strapping me in for lethal injection).  Turns out that my range of motion is twelve degrees less turning to the right than to the left.  Good.  I am not crazy, and I really do have a problem.  The doctor who originally referred me to PT said I should have about three sessions.  I am now scheduled for two sessions a week for four weeks.  Hopefully, with the help of those folks, I can correct the range of motion and strength issues.

After PT I went to Best Buy, so they could check out my phone.  It wasn't user error.  The screen was dead, but they did get a shipment of six more Evo's as I arrived in the store.  I suppose I am the luckiest unlucky lucky guy.  That reads terribly.  Let me dissect that statement.  First, I was lucky to get the Evo at all.  Apparently, they sell like hotcakes.  Then, the device was useless in less than four hours.  My mom's never had a problem.  This afternoon the manager replaced it and even transferred my screen protector. Hooray!  

After seeing a blog post from my sister, I decided to stop by Sherwin Williams to pick up a fan deck.  Many rooms in my house need painting, but it may take years to get to them, but right now my old room is ready for it.  My parents need a little help in getting things like this rolling, so I went and got it:

The fan reminded me to post what I got my dad for Father's Day:

It is a digital level by Craftsman, and can measure angles with an accuracy of +- 0.1 degree. Not bad.  I think he'll like it. He is working on building a sundial on a non-level surface.  This should come in handy for those calculations involved in the project.

I finally got outside and road my bike for a little bit.  I really ought to ride more and get in shape considering I want to do some physically demanding careers.  This time of year it is still over 90 degrees at 10 PM; I really can't catch a break from the heat, which may be a good thing in the long run, but I definitely noticed the effects of the heat on top of the fact that I hadn't ridden in several months.

Yesterday, I spotted a couple hawks in my backyard. I went inside to get my camera only to discover that I left my memory card in my computer.  I ran back inside and was ready for action.  When I got back outside, there were more than two.  In total I spotted five.

I saw them again today and took some more photos.

Alas!

Last week I received an offer for a part time position with Worldwide TechServices.  They do hardware repair for companies like Dell, Apple, Sony, and Lexmark.  So, after you call Dell to troubleshoot some problem with your computer, Dell ships replacement parts, I pick them up, and fix your computer.  $29 a job, which could be as little as five minutes or several hours.  It isn't an ideal job for my degree, but neither is the police.  I would rather be a network engineer or administrator until I decide whether to do police or military, but those jobs are hard to come by especially at my experience level.  I did buy some cool tools for the job, though.

And by "I" I mean Dad.  About $100 for a few small bags, a larger bag, and several screw drivers and pliers.  I am pretty excited to get to put them to use. What man wouldn't?  New tools. New job. It's going to be awesome.

I also got a new phone today: the HTC Evo.  It is a huge upgrade for me.  My old phone will be four years old this year.

My mom got one, too.  She is getting used to it (and so am I).  I started doing more texting within the last year or two, and I started to hate it.  No QWERTY keyboard, incorrect predictive text, misspellings with T9 -- it drove me up the wall.  I was pushed over the edge after getting this new job.  Employees are required to report online when jobs are complete.  Now, I can do it in real time (not required, but I was told it may be in the future).  Very exciting, but I am having problems already with the phone.  Fortunately, I think they are due to user error.

It is an uphill battle to try to get the house in order.  I keep seeing things in the house that really ought to be replaced, but I am continually reminding myself to take it one step at a time.  After all Rome wasn't built in a day.  Three registers have been ordered, and I plan to buy some sort of Roman shade to replace the current window treatment.  I am still looking at fans and light fixtures, but they are not the high priority at the moment. I forgot to post the following picture in the last blog, so here it is.  I used Photoshop to diagram my room to prevent moving furniture two and three times.  It didn't work, but I would have ended up moving them a lot more if I didn't draw this up (really, I should have used Microsoft Visio, but it did the job).  I was also surprised to see how different the diagram was in comparison to real life.  Perhaps, if I knew how to use 3ds Max, it would make a difference.

In my last post I mentioned that I was coming out of a "not listening to music" phase.  I am trying to catch up, particularly on the Christian rap scene.  Christian rap? Is that an oxymoron? Believe me. It's not.  I think some of their talents rival those of the secular market.  Some are really fast, too.  Luckily some videos have rap-along lyrics, but you have to read as fast as they rap.  Not easy for me.

Last summer I injured my neck in my sleep.  I woke up to a pop in my neck, and it was a painful day.  I was working at a computer camp, and one of the directors took me to the doctor around midday.  The doctor diagnosed it as torticollis.  He prescribed a muscle relaxer.  It did help, but I still feel a certain tightness in my neck when I look to the right.  I've wanted to get it checked out further, but decided to wait to go home from college since the Purdue health center doesn't take my insurance or anyone else's for that matter.  I went to the doctor in town last week and they took several X-rays.

"No termites!" the doctor said.  "Well, that's good," I replied.  The doctor sent me on my way after filling out a sheet of paper for the physical therapy folks downstairs to set up an appointment with me. The big day is tomorrow or really today now that it is 1 AM.  I really hope they can help me out.  I don't like not being able to look to the right as fas as I am able to the left.  Sounds weird, but it is annoying.

A Move Across the Hall

Input: "You can move into your sister's old room."

Oh my gosh.  I have worked on my room all week, and it is nearing the finish.  I don't need this option.  Let me go vacuum and think about it.  Sister's room:

The room is also a disaster partly because I have used it for some storage while I clean my room.

I decide to do it.  This will be a chore, but I will do it mostly for one reason: it is bigger. A lot bigger, which means I could possibly have extra seating for company.  This is my main motivating factor.  As I said in my last post, I don't think life is about me; otherwise, I would still be in my old room.  I am generating ideas of what I could do if I hosted a few people: play a board game, have a Bible or book study, or just sit and chat. They sound appealing to serve others in those ways, so I begin.

Desk out. Crib thingy thing in.

Desk in. Dressers moved.

Dressers and bed out. My dresser and bunk bed in.

All my other junk in.

Everything in its proper place.

During this entire process I vacuum when the floor shows itself after moving furniture.  This is a pretty sweet vacuum.  It has an indicator of how much dirt it is collecting.  The picture above shows green, which instinctively means good to go (holding a vacuum, taking a picture of it to make it appear that someone is actually vacuuming, and getting the correct indicator light in the shot was a lot harder than I thought) .  Below shows two orange lights and a red one, which means, "Stop! This carpet is dirtier than Mike Rowe's mouth after a lamb castration!" 

Maybe that was a little graphic, but in case you haven't gagged enough already, look how much dirt was collected in my sister's room and under where my bed used to be.

I decide to play in the dirt ball a little to be fair and show you how much carpet rather than dirt gets sucked up.

The room is livable!

It still feels cluttered, but at least there is nothing on the floor.

Lots of space for guests.

For now, I decided to have the bed out from the wall a bit to store a few things until the walk-in closet is cleaned out.  I also still have many things that can hang on the wall that currently are not.  I kind of like it plain walled right now, but that may change quickly.  I am coming out of a phase where I have liked not having music whether it be driving or in my old dorm.  Plain walls are appealing to my stimulation sensitive mind.

Old dorm with flags I could hang, but they take up a lot of real estate.

I would also like to hang my green screen (shown here in my old dorm) and perhaps get real lighting, but I think I am starting to ask for too much to fit in this room.

One drawback is that there are five doors on the side of the room shown below, and that causes a lot of space to be wasted so that doors are able to be opened.

Wasted space.

And now that I have successfully painted myself through these cleaning blogs as a good house wife, I will try to repair my image and fix a few things around the house.

My vent (which is technically called a register) in my opinion looks hideous.  I find it interesting that I suddenly wake up and realize that I am not watching a movie, but that I can actually change the environment around me.  Before, I suppose my mind saw these ugly things in the house and thought they were normal.  I was wrong.  This reminds me of a story that happened to me many years ago.  I was was getting off the Subway train in New York along with many other passengers.  We all headed towards the escalator and patiently waited each of our turns.  One lady approached the escalator like normal, but then she started to stumble.  In that moment I thought to myself, "I wonder if she is going to fall or make it up okay."  Another older gentlemen acted while I observed the event.  He ran to the emergency stop button and pressed it.  It failed.  She fell backwards, and everyone watched her outstretched body being transported to the higher level.  It was the weirdest thing.  I didn't react.  I just watched.  So now, I learned my lesson and am replacing the register.

As I attempted to remove it, I detected that it was peeling the paint.  I retrieved a razor blade and started to slice around the perimeter.  I wasn't very successful.  It peeled paint, paper, and dry wall.

I went to Lowe's before measuring and guessed its dimensions incorrectly.  Tonight, I went back and found only one model was in stock, and I didn't care for it.  I am going to order one. Which one do you like?  Then, I discovered the kitchen register is craptacular, too, and will order this one because of the shape of our kitchen.  I am also now shopping for a new ceiling fan, a light fixture for the hallway, and maybe a new light fixture for the kitchen table.  We'll see.  This to do list only grows.  I did replace the light in my lava lamp after it has been collecting dust for a few years.

It did some weird stuff when it was warming up for the first time.

I also worked on my refrigerator.  I thought it would be nice to stock it with a few drinks if some friends were over, so I dug it out of the garage.  It's feet were short for carpet and were not at an ideal height to open the door easily.  With a trip to Lowe's I find the correct bolt and nut size.  I line up the nut with the length of the original foot so that I don't screw it in too far.

On one corner, the place where you screw it in, is broken. I find it hard to articulate the problem, but you might be able to tell from this photo:

That little piece on the other side of the white has been dislodged from the rest of the chassis.  So, when the foot is screwed in, it turns and doesn't sit level. Solution: large washer:

Much better.