In terms of weather, it was pretty crappy most of the day. It snowed a bit in the morning – though as I heard people freaking out about it (I said to someone, “Back home this would be considered ambience, not weather.”) I was looking at pictures that a Facebook friend in the UP was posting of the six-foot plus snow drift piling up at her house – and then turned to rain for the rest of the day.
However, it showed signs of clearing up as I was on my way home, which pleased me, as it meant that the other commuters would be slightly-less panic-stricken.
In fact, the drive home proved to be relatively un-terrible all around – you can’t ever describe commuting conditions in NoVA as “good” or anything like that; it’s all varying degrees of terrible – and I even made out pretty well as far as the lights went. I mean, I still hit every red light along the way, but I was generally at or near the front, so I never had to sit through multiple cycles.
Naturally it made me suspicious, and when I got home my suspicions seemed to be confirmed by the sight of a truck that was parked about a quarter of the way into my parking space.
I thought that I probably could have squeezed in, but didn’t feel like bothering with it, especially since if I did manage to fit there wouldn’t have been enough space behind me for my neighbors to swap out the smaller car for the larger car when the mom got home from work, so I turned around and headed to the parking lot.
When I got home I was pleased to find that both my Federal and State tax refunds had arrived in the mail. This was, of course, good, which made me suspicious once again. However, I considered the possibility that my “debt” to the Universe – that is, if something good happens to me, something, or multiple somethings, bad, or at least annoying, has to happen to make up for it – had already been paid. After all, if I hadn’t screwed up filling out the direct deposit information when I filed my taxes, I would have already had the money two weeks ago.
I initially thought about just stopping and depositing the checks on my way in to work in the morning, but as the skies had cleared, the sun was shining, and it had warmed up a great deal, I decided I’d take a walk to the bank.
I had originally intended to stop at a grocery store on the way home, but I didn’t want to screw up the flow of my traffic mojo, so I decided I could do without the few things I was going to pick up.
As there’s a grocery store near my bank, and I was there anyway, I decided to grab the things I had neglected to get on the way home.
Naturally while I was in the store the rain clouds rolled back in, and I got to walk a mile in pouring, ice-cold rain.
Once I got back on my street I could see that the truck had moved, so I decided to get my car and park in front of my house.
Naturally while I was doing that someone else came along and stole my spot.
However, he was still there when I pulled up, and was courteous enough to move out of my way.
And then, after I got inside and was busily drying myself off, the rain stopped and it was sunny and clear again.
So all in all it was kind of a weird afternoon, containing elements of the typical and the atypical.
Showing posts with label tax refund. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tax refund. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Typical/Atypical
Saturday, February 04, 2012
I Wonder If She Wants The Cereal?
As mentioned in earlier posts, I filed my taxes about two weeks ago, and had, in under a week, already gotten – and spent – my VA refund, and I was eagerly awaiting my Federal refund.
Given that I’ve found that it typically takes a week at most for me to get it, I was anticipating its arrival shortly after the VA refund.
Unfortunately, I got an e-mail informing me that the IRS was reporting a delay in processing of refunds, so it would take slightly longer than usual. When I checked the “Where’s my refund?” page on the IRS site, it informed me that I would get my refund “by the 7th.”
It had been my intention to take a day off from work once I had the money in order to make a Costco run and stock up on those things which Costco is useful to me for stocking up on, which, honestly, isn’t a lot, but still ends up costing considerably more than a standard trip to the grocery store does.
So, in the parlance of the Internet, I was disappoint.
After all, I had hoped to schedule my day off in such a way as to give myself a long weekend by taking either a Friday or a Monday off.
That wouldn’t work, without additional waiting, if I wasn’t going to have the money until Tuesday.
With hope in my heart, I checked the IRS page again yesterday afternoon and found that the date had become more specific, stating that it was scheduled to be deposited in my account on February 6th.
Hooray! I could take Monday off!
However, there still remained a problem in the form of my spending my entire VA refund so long before getting my Federal, which left me with a minimal amount of available funds until then unless I moved some scheduled bill payments around a little. Which isn’t to say that I’d be paying bills late, just later than originally planned, which would give me some breathing room until Monday.
On any other weekend I would have been fine just waiting to do my shopping on Monday, but…well, the Super Bowl is tomorrow, and it’s become something of an annual tradition for me to do my grocery shopping while everyone else in the world is watching the big sweaty mens playing with a ball on their TVs and I can move through the aisles of the stores as though I’m living in a post-Rapture world free of crying children and slow-moving old people.
It is, quite frankly, one of my favorite days of the year. It’s like I’m living in the world of Night of the Comet or I Am Legend, only without the homicidal zombie mutants chasing after me. (The zombie mutants are what I contend with every other day of the year.)
So I couldn’t not go shopping on Sunday night. The whole experience means more to me than Christmas.
So I shuffled things around and had to hope that the IRS was as good as its word and that the money would be there on Monday, or, barring that, no later than Wednesday.
I got up this morning intending to do my usual Saturday stuff, with the nagging question of “What if the money doesn’t come in until, say, Friday? I should just hold off on buying anything until I know for sure that it’s there.”
With that in mind, for the sheer hell of it, I logged into my bank’s mobile site on my phone to check my balance. The tiny text on the screen was hard to read, but it was immediately apparent that the first number in my balance wasn’t the same as it was yesterday, or the number that I was actually expecting. A quick zoom showed that it was, however, the number it would be if my refund had been deposited. Checking recent transactions confirmed that this was the case.
Yay!
So, unburdened by any financial concerns, I headed out to pick up my comics and a few other things to tide me over until I could do the serious, no hordes of mutant zombies shopping on Sunday and Monday.
Some time back I discovered that, ironically enough, the best price for cigarettes can be found at CVS Pharmacy. Unfortunately, others have discovered that as well, so they’re frequently out of stock of my cigarettes. Today, when I went, as I do every week, to the CVS in the same plaza as the comic shop I found that their cigarette shelves had been heavily raided, so I decided that I’d stop somewhere and get a pack or two and then pick up more tomorrow or Monday.
After that I stopped at Best Buy to look at Bluetooth keyboards for my slate, as I had been mistaken when I read that the slate came with the dock and the keyboard, and to pick up a MicroSD card to add to the slate’s overall storage.
I ended up buying neither, opting instead to just order the actual Samsung keyboard for it online at some point, and finding that they didn’t have any 32 GB MicroSD cards, which is what I was looking for. I did pick up a cheap, low-profile flash drive for it, however.
In any case, I went from Best Buy over to the nearby Giant (a grocery store) and picked up a few things, then stopped at the unattended service counter – I’ve never seen service counters at stores unattended as often as I do in VA in any of the other places I’ve lived – and waited for someone to show up to sell me cigarettes.
While I was waiting, I could hear some woman at the registers very loudly repeating, “How much is the cereal? I want the cereal. How much is the cereal? I want the cereal.”
She was stuck on that loop for a solid two minutes, before moving on to asking how much the Coke was, and stating that she wanted that as well, periodically reiterating that she wanted the cereal.
From what I could gather, based on her loud, undirected rant, her EBT card (the 21st Century version of food stamps) had not been activated/loaded on February 1st, as it was supposed to have been.
”It was supposed to be activated on February 1st! It’s February 4th! That’s terrible! It was supposed to be activated on February 1st! It’s February 4th! Well, I got the cereal. I wanted the cereal. And the Coke. But it was supposed to be activated on February 1st! It’s February 4th!”
I’m not kidding. She went on like this non-stop, to, apparently, no one, or to the uncaring Universe.
Or possibly to all of her fellow shoppers within earshot – which covered a fair distance, honestly – who were equally uncaring, or at the very least were completely incapable of doing anything to resolve her issue. Even if we did care, or were able to do something about it, we pretty much would have gotten the message after the first twenty repetitions.
I will not deny that it must be frustrating to discover that you don’t have the ability to buy the things you need after you’ve walked into a store and made it all the way to the checkout fully expecting to be able to do so – after all, I had been, more or less, in the same boat earlier in the day – and I sympathize, particularly given that she was accompanied by someone in a wheelchair (I assume the EBT card, if that’s what was supposed to have been activated on February 1st – bearing in mind that today is February 4th, in case you forgot – was part of her companion’s disability benefits) but it was pretty seriously annoying, and is a good representative example of why I enjoy my Super Bowl shopping experience so very much.
Still, at least she got the cereal.
I’m just not sure she really wanted it.
****
Despite the influx of funds, I didn’t really end up spending any more money than usual today. Actually, I spent a bit less, since I didn’t buy a carton of cigarettes. Even the extra purchase of the flash drive for the slate didn’t amount to much, as it was relatively inexpensive.
Monday, however, will be a different matter entirely, since I never walk out of Costco without having spent, at a minimum, $100.
****
(Note: Our boss refers to my co-worker and I as brothers.)
Boss: I’m worried about your brother.
Me: Why?
Boss: He’s getting jaded.
Me: Tell him to join the club.
Boss: I know. That’s the problem. You’re jaded, and I’m jaded…I can’t deal with all of us being jaded.
****
Boss: So I’m getting one of the high school interns dumped on me.
Me: You mean I’m getting one of the high school interns dumped on me.
Boss: …yeah.
Me: I knew that was going to happen as soon as I heard there were going to be interns, because I’m fucking psychic.
Boss: Well, I thought about giving him to your brother…
Me: What’s he going to do with an intern?
Boss: I don’t know. Stop being mean to me. You’re going to make me cry.
Me: No I’m not.
Boss: Yes you are.
Me: No, you’re going to make you cry.
Me: *Sigh* Fine, I’ll try to to think of something for him to do. When does he start.
Boss: He started already, but he’s already working on some other stuff. You probably won’t have to do anything with him until next week, so you’ve got time to come up with some projects for him.
****
(The next day)
Boss: So here’s the intern. Find something for him to do.
****
Me: I thought I had time to come up with something for the intern to do, but he got dumped on me this morning. So I spent an hour and a half explaining what our team does and watching him struggle to stay awake.
Scott: Well, he’ll take away one thing from the internship: the knowledge of what he doesn’t want to do with his life.
****
Me: I didn’t realize I was getting him today.
Boss: Yeah, sorry.
Me: He’s so young.
Boss: I know! It’s crazy.
Me: He’s not even a baby. He’s a…pre-baby. He’s a zygote.
****
I’m currently reading Criminal: The Last of the Innocent by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. I now understand why it made so many “Best of” lists last year.
Not that this comes as any surprise to me, because Ed Brubaker. And even more to the point, because Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips.
Given that I’ve found that it typically takes a week at most for me to get it, I was anticipating its arrival shortly after the VA refund.
Unfortunately, I got an e-mail informing me that the IRS was reporting a delay in processing of refunds, so it would take slightly longer than usual. When I checked the “Where’s my refund?” page on the IRS site, it informed me that I would get my refund “by the 7th.”
It had been my intention to take a day off from work once I had the money in order to make a Costco run and stock up on those things which Costco is useful to me for stocking up on, which, honestly, isn’t a lot, but still ends up costing considerably more than a standard trip to the grocery store does.
So, in the parlance of the Internet, I was disappoint.
After all, I had hoped to schedule my day off in such a way as to give myself a long weekend by taking either a Friday or a Monday off.
That wouldn’t work, without additional waiting, if I wasn’t going to have the money until Tuesday.
With hope in my heart, I checked the IRS page again yesterday afternoon and found that the date had become more specific, stating that it was scheduled to be deposited in my account on February 6th.
Hooray! I could take Monday off!
However, there still remained a problem in the form of my spending my entire VA refund so long before getting my Federal, which left me with a minimal amount of available funds until then unless I moved some scheduled bill payments around a little. Which isn’t to say that I’d be paying bills late, just later than originally planned, which would give me some breathing room until Monday.
On any other weekend I would have been fine just waiting to do my shopping on Monday, but…well, the Super Bowl is tomorrow, and it’s become something of an annual tradition for me to do my grocery shopping while everyone else in the world is watching the big sweaty mens playing with a ball on their TVs and I can move through the aisles of the stores as though I’m living in a post-Rapture world free of crying children and slow-moving old people.
It is, quite frankly, one of my favorite days of the year. It’s like I’m living in the world of Night of the Comet or I Am Legend, only without the homicidal zombie mutants chasing after me. (The zombie mutants are what I contend with every other day of the year.)
So I couldn’t not go shopping on Sunday night. The whole experience means more to me than Christmas.
So I shuffled things around and had to hope that the IRS was as good as its word and that the money would be there on Monday, or, barring that, no later than Wednesday.
I got up this morning intending to do my usual Saturday stuff, with the nagging question of “What if the money doesn’t come in until, say, Friday? I should just hold off on buying anything until I know for sure that it’s there.”
With that in mind, for the sheer hell of it, I logged into my bank’s mobile site on my phone to check my balance. The tiny text on the screen was hard to read, but it was immediately apparent that the first number in my balance wasn’t the same as it was yesterday, or the number that I was actually expecting. A quick zoom showed that it was, however, the number it would be if my refund had been deposited. Checking recent transactions confirmed that this was the case.
Yay!
So, unburdened by any financial concerns, I headed out to pick up my comics and a few other things to tide me over until I could do the serious, no hordes of mutant zombies shopping on Sunday and Monday.
Some time back I discovered that, ironically enough, the best price for cigarettes can be found at CVS Pharmacy. Unfortunately, others have discovered that as well, so they’re frequently out of stock of my cigarettes. Today, when I went, as I do every week, to the CVS in the same plaza as the comic shop I found that their cigarette shelves had been heavily raided, so I decided that I’d stop somewhere and get a pack or two and then pick up more tomorrow or Monday.
After that I stopped at Best Buy to look at Bluetooth keyboards for my slate, as I had been mistaken when I read that the slate came with the dock and the keyboard, and to pick up a MicroSD card to add to the slate’s overall storage.
I ended up buying neither, opting instead to just order the actual Samsung keyboard for it online at some point, and finding that they didn’t have any 32 GB MicroSD cards, which is what I was looking for. I did pick up a cheap, low-profile flash drive for it, however.
In any case, I went from Best Buy over to the nearby Giant (a grocery store) and picked up a few things, then stopped at the unattended service counter – I’ve never seen service counters at stores unattended as often as I do in VA in any of the other places I’ve lived – and waited for someone to show up to sell me cigarettes.
While I was waiting, I could hear some woman at the registers very loudly repeating, “How much is the cereal? I want the cereal. How much is the cereal? I want the cereal.”
She was stuck on that loop for a solid two minutes, before moving on to asking how much the Coke was, and stating that she wanted that as well, periodically reiterating that she wanted the cereal.
From what I could gather, based on her loud, undirected rant, her EBT card (the 21st Century version of food stamps) had not been activated/loaded on February 1st, as it was supposed to have been.
”It was supposed to be activated on February 1st! It’s February 4th! That’s terrible! It was supposed to be activated on February 1st! It’s February 4th! Well, I got the cereal. I wanted the cereal. And the Coke. But it was supposed to be activated on February 1st! It’s February 4th!”
I’m not kidding. She went on like this non-stop, to, apparently, no one, or to the uncaring Universe.
Or possibly to all of her fellow shoppers within earshot – which covered a fair distance, honestly – who were equally uncaring, or at the very least were completely incapable of doing anything to resolve her issue. Even if we did care, or were able to do something about it, we pretty much would have gotten the message after the first twenty repetitions.
I will not deny that it must be frustrating to discover that you don’t have the ability to buy the things you need after you’ve walked into a store and made it all the way to the checkout fully expecting to be able to do so – after all, I had been, more or less, in the same boat earlier in the day – and I sympathize, particularly given that she was accompanied by someone in a wheelchair (I assume the EBT card, if that’s what was supposed to have been activated on February 1st – bearing in mind that today is February 4th, in case you forgot – was part of her companion’s disability benefits) but it was pretty seriously annoying, and is a good representative example of why I enjoy my Super Bowl shopping experience so very much.
Still, at least she got the cereal.
I’m just not sure she really wanted it.
****
Despite the influx of funds, I didn’t really end up spending any more money than usual today. Actually, I spent a bit less, since I didn’t buy a carton of cigarettes. Even the extra purchase of the flash drive for the slate didn’t amount to much, as it was relatively inexpensive.
Monday, however, will be a different matter entirely, since I never walk out of Costco without having spent, at a minimum, $100.
****
(Note: Our boss refers to my co-worker and I as brothers.)
Boss: I’m worried about your brother.
Me: Why?
Boss: He’s getting jaded.
Me: Tell him to join the club.
Boss: I know. That’s the problem. You’re jaded, and I’m jaded…I can’t deal with all of us being jaded.
****
Boss: So I’m getting one of the high school interns dumped on me.
Me: You mean I’m getting one of the high school interns dumped on me.
Boss: …yeah.
Me: I knew that was going to happen as soon as I heard there were going to be interns, because I’m fucking psychic.
Boss: Well, I thought about giving him to your brother…
Me: What’s he going to do with an intern?
Boss: I don’t know. Stop being mean to me. You’re going to make me cry.
Me: No I’m not.
Boss: Yes you are.
Me: No, you’re going to make you cry.
Me: *Sigh* Fine, I’ll try to to think of something for him to do. When does he start.
Boss: He started already, but he’s already working on some other stuff. You probably won’t have to do anything with him until next week, so you’ve got time to come up with some projects for him.
****
(The next day)
Boss: So here’s the intern. Find something for him to do.
****
Me: I thought I had time to come up with something for the intern to do, but he got dumped on me this morning. So I spent an hour and a half explaining what our team does and watching him struggle to stay awake.
Scott: Well, he’ll take away one thing from the internship: the knowledge of what he doesn’t want to do with his life.
****
Me: I didn’t realize I was getting him today.
Boss: Yeah, sorry.
Me: He’s so young.
Boss: I know! It’s crazy.
Me: He’s not even a baby. He’s a…pre-baby. He’s a zygote.
****
I’m currently reading Criminal: The Last of the Innocent by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. I now understand why it made so many “Best of” lists last year.
Not that this comes as any surprise to me, because Ed Brubaker. And even more to the point, because Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Screw You, Universe
Universe: So Jon, I see that you already got your VA tax refund.
Me: Yeah, that was surprisingly fast. I mean, I just got the notice that my form had been accepted on Tuesday.
Universe: Sweet! So...what are you going to buy?
Me: Nothing yet. I mean, I might take a day off from work next week and make a Costco run to stock up on stuff, but nothing too major.
Universe: What about that Samsung Slate you've been wanting?
Me: I can hold off on that for a while. I want to wait until March, when I've gotten my Federal refund and my bonus, and I know how much of a raise I'm getting.
Universe: Seems sensible.
Me: Yeah. I really want to put as much money away as I can - after paying off a few small debts - and use it to get some work done on my house and yard this summer.
Universe: Good plan.
Me: Thanks.
Universe: You know you're not going to do that, though, right? You can lie to yourself, but you can't lie to me.
Me: Screw you.
Universe: Hey now, I'm just being truthful. It's not my fault that the truth hurts.
Me: No, that's just a happy coincidence for you.
Universe: Well, it couldn't hurt to just browse over to the Microsoft Store site and see if they have any kind of deal on it. That has been the place with the best price for it, after all.
Me: No, I don't want to go there.
Universe: Come on...
Me: No.
Universe: You can do it. What's the harm? Start typing...
Me: No. Dammit, fingers! Stop typing!
Universe: ...dot com. There you go. Now, hover over Computers, and then on the Slates flyout...
Me: WHAT THE FUCK? $300 off with the 128 GB SSD and docking station????
Universe: Yeah, that's a hell of a deal.
Me: DAMMIT!
Universe: Oh, hey, look! You also get a $200 Microsoft Store credit for future purchases!
Me: SON OF A BITCH.
Universe:
Me: Yeah, that was surprisingly fast. I mean, I just got the notice that my form had been accepted on Tuesday.
Universe: Sweet! So...what are you going to buy?
Me: Nothing yet. I mean, I might take a day off from work next week and make a Costco run to stock up on stuff, but nothing too major.
Universe: What about that Samsung Slate you've been wanting?
Me: I can hold off on that for a while. I want to wait until March, when I've gotten my Federal refund and my bonus, and I know how much of a raise I'm getting.
Universe: Seems sensible.
Me: Yeah. I really want to put as much money away as I can - after paying off a few small debts - and use it to get some work done on my house and yard this summer.
Universe: Good plan.
Me: Thanks.
Universe: You know you're not going to do that, though, right? You can lie to yourself, but you can't lie to me.
Me: Screw you.
Universe: Hey now, I'm just being truthful. It's not my fault that the truth hurts.
Me: No, that's just a happy coincidence for you.
Universe: Well, it couldn't hurt to just browse over to the Microsoft Store site and see if they have any kind of deal on it. That has been the place with the best price for it, after all.
Me: No, I don't want to go there.
Universe: Come on...
Me: No.
Universe: You can do it. What's the harm? Start typing...
Me: No. Dammit, fingers! Stop typing!
Universe: ...dot com. There you go. Now, hover over Computers, and then on the Slates flyout...
Me: WHAT THE FUCK? $300 off with the 128 GB SSD and docking station????
Universe: Yeah, that's a hell of a deal.
Me: DAMMIT!
Universe: Oh, hey, look! You also get a $200 Microsoft Store credit for future purchases!
Me: SON OF A BITCH.
Universe:
 |
| Problem? |
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Too Tired...Too Lazy...Take Your Pick
I've got a huge rant waiting inside of me about my post-work commute yesterday, but I just don't have the energy to write it up just now.
Not sure when I will write it; tomorrow night I'll be off to see Watchmen in IMAX. Depending on how that goes, I might just have another rant. Hopefully not.
On some positive notes, for Riff Trax night Scott and I watched no Riff Trax, but rather the Futurama movie Bender's Game, which was hilarious, and the new DC Animated movie Wonder Woman. The acquisition of said movie contains a rant in itself, but the movie was awesome. Astonishingly so, actually. I'd read that it was good, and based on other DC Animated projects, I expected that it would be, but I was unprepared for it to be so full of, well, wonder.
Very good stuff, and the preview for the next feature - a Green Lantern movie - while containing no footage, made it look very promising.
And finally, let me just say, "Money money money money....money!"
(Tax refunds + bonus = a happy Jon*)
*For a Jon-specific value of "happy."
Not sure when I will write it; tomorrow night I'll be off to see Watchmen in IMAX. Depending on how that goes, I might just have another rant. Hopefully not.
On some positive notes, for Riff Trax night Scott and I watched no Riff Trax, but rather the Futurama movie Bender's Game, which was hilarious, and the new DC Animated movie Wonder Woman. The acquisition of said movie contains a rant in itself, but the movie was awesome. Astonishingly so, actually. I'd read that it was good, and based on other DC Animated projects, I expected that it would be, but I was unprepared for it to be so full of, well, wonder.
Very good stuff, and the preview for the next feature - a Green Lantern movie - while containing no footage, made it look very promising.
And finally, let me just say, "Money money money money....money!"
(Tax refunds + bonus = a happy Jon*)
*For a Jon-specific value of "happy."
Saturday, February 28, 2009
My Ancient Nemesis
Hmm, I guess I haven’t post anything in a while. It’s enough to make you think I’m Dave Campbell or something…until you actually read what I have posted and find that it’s neither as interesting nor as entertaining as what can be found at Dave’s infrequently-updated blog.
In any case, don’t be alarmed: my lack of updates is not an indication that I’ve actually gotten a life.
However, I have gotten the next best thing: money.
Even though I just had my taxes done on Monday, my VA refund was already in my checking account by Friday morning.
In my checking account, burning a hole, preventing me from just leaving it there...
I’ve been meaning to buy a new office chair for a while now. There’s nothing wrong with my old one per se – though it does have a rip in it – but I’ve had it since sometime in 2001, and it’s not nearly so comfortable as it once was.
Also, since it is still usable, if replaced it could serve as a spare, giving Scott someplace to sit whenever I’m showing him something up in the office.
So after hitting the comic shop this morning I made my way over to Staples and found a suitable new chair with good lumbar support and a high enough back that I can actually lean back and rest my head on it.
However, the chair didn’t have a price tag on it, and while I was wandering around hoping to be noticed by an employee – one of the pitfalls of having devoted a significant portion of my life to the art of not being noticed is that, unsurprisingly, it’s sometimes difficult to get noticed – I found myself looking at the desks.
It’s been my intention to buy a different desk since the day that I bought the desk I had. My old desk was perfectly serviceable, but it was bought in haste back when I moved into my house as I needed a desk right now and it was the best one I could find.
I spotted an L-shaped desk that I rather liked, one that seemed ideally-suited to a dual monitor setup. I noticed that there was also a matching printer stand suitable for my large-format printer, as well as a matching bookcase.
So by the time I finally did get noticed I had resolved to buy the chair, the desk, and the printer stand and bookshelf.
After loading them up in the car – which proved less of a challenge than I’d expected – I found that I had no room for groceries, so I headed home and unloaded the car, discovering that the scrawny kid working at Staples was stronger than I am, as I struggled with lifting and carrying the desk much more than he did.
Accomplishing that, I went back out to do my grocery shopping, came home and ate lunch, and then set to work on dismantling the ungodly mess of cables and wires and moved the old desk into one of the other bedrooms.
As an aside, I have to say that I was amazed and delighted to discover that those “Moving Men” things – those little disks you put under heavy objects in order to slide said objects around with ease – work exactly as advertised. I bought the things when I moved into the house, but this was the first time I ever used them. Honestly, the fact that I was able to easily slide my heavy, metal desk into the other room with scarcely any effort was the highlight of my day. Sad, I know.
After some vacuuming and dusting it was time once again to do battle with my ancient nemesis: ready-to-assemble furniture.
The battle went about as well as can be expected, and lasted for hours. I have to say, though, that I’m surprised that it took as long as it did for me to start bleeding, and at least this time – unlike the time I assembled my old desk – I didn’t suffer any blows to the head.
After setting up the desk I set to work on the printer stand, then hooked everything back up, taking thed opportunity to make my usual half-assed attempt at trying to impose some kind of order on the mass of cables and wires. It’s at least a little better than it was, and the new arrangement means that the speaker wires aren’t all tangled up with the other wires and cables, so I’ve finally gotten rid of the incessant static that used to issue forth from my left speaker due to the interfence from the other wires. So that’s a plus.
After that I put the chair together. The bookshelf is going to have to wait for another day.
As for the old desk, eventually I’m going to set up Munin, my old computer, on it in the bedroom that I’m using as something of a library. Assuming I can figure out and resolve the weird power issues that Munin is having, at any rate.
That’s going to have to wait until I get my bonus or my Federal refund – whichever comes first – though, as I don’t have a spare monitor since I’m unwilling to give up the dual monitors on Hugin.
However, once I do get the additional funds I’ll be able to spare the monitor I’m using as my secondary on Hugin, as I’m going to finally bite the bullet and buy a Wacom Cintiq.
In any case, I’ll post some pictures of the new stuff tomorrow, and I may even write up that post I mentioned on Wednesday.
In the meantime, I’m not looking forward to how I’m going to feel tomorrow morning, as I’m already pretty sore from all the bending, kneeling, and contorting that I went through today.
In any case, don’t be alarmed: my lack of updates is not an indication that I’ve actually gotten a life.
However, I have gotten the next best thing: money.
Even though I just had my taxes done on Monday, my VA refund was already in my checking account by Friday morning.
In my checking account, burning a hole, preventing me from just leaving it there...
I’ve been meaning to buy a new office chair for a while now. There’s nothing wrong with my old one per se – though it does have a rip in it – but I’ve had it since sometime in 2001, and it’s not nearly so comfortable as it once was.
Also, since it is still usable, if replaced it could serve as a spare, giving Scott someplace to sit whenever I’m showing him something up in the office.
So after hitting the comic shop this morning I made my way over to Staples and found a suitable new chair with good lumbar support and a high enough back that I can actually lean back and rest my head on it.
However, the chair didn’t have a price tag on it, and while I was wandering around hoping to be noticed by an employee – one of the pitfalls of having devoted a significant portion of my life to the art of not being noticed is that, unsurprisingly, it’s sometimes difficult to get noticed – I found myself looking at the desks.
It’s been my intention to buy a different desk since the day that I bought the desk I had. My old desk was perfectly serviceable, but it was bought in haste back when I moved into my house as I needed a desk right now and it was the best one I could find.
I spotted an L-shaped desk that I rather liked, one that seemed ideally-suited to a dual monitor setup. I noticed that there was also a matching printer stand suitable for my large-format printer, as well as a matching bookcase.
So by the time I finally did get noticed I had resolved to buy the chair, the desk, and the printer stand and bookshelf.
After loading them up in the car – which proved less of a challenge than I’d expected – I found that I had no room for groceries, so I headed home and unloaded the car, discovering that the scrawny kid working at Staples was stronger than I am, as I struggled with lifting and carrying the desk much more than he did.
Accomplishing that, I went back out to do my grocery shopping, came home and ate lunch, and then set to work on dismantling the ungodly mess of cables and wires and moved the old desk into one of the other bedrooms.
As an aside, I have to say that I was amazed and delighted to discover that those “Moving Men” things – those little disks you put under heavy objects in order to slide said objects around with ease – work exactly as advertised. I bought the things when I moved into the house, but this was the first time I ever used them. Honestly, the fact that I was able to easily slide my heavy, metal desk into the other room with scarcely any effort was the highlight of my day. Sad, I know.
After some vacuuming and dusting it was time once again to do battle with my ancient nemesis: ready-to-assemble furniture.
The battle went about as well as can be expected, and lasted for hours. I have to say, though, that I’m surprised that it took as long as it did for me to start bleeding, and at least this time – unlike the time I assembled my old desk – I didn’t suffer any blows to the head.
After setting up the desk I set to work on the printer stand, then hooked everything back up, taking thed opportunity to make my usual half-assed attempt at trying to impose some kind of order on the mass of cables and wires. It’s at least a little better than it was, and the new arrangement means that the speaker wires aren’t all tangled up with the other wires and cables, so I’ve finally gotten rid of the incessant static that used to issue forth from my left speaker due to the interfence from the other wires. So that’s a plus.
After that I put the chair together. The bookshelf is going to have to wait for another day.
As for the old desk, eventually I’m going to set up Munin, my old computer, on it in the bedroom that I’m using as something of a library. Assuming I can figure out and resolve the weird power issues that Munin is having, at any rate.
That’s going to have to wait until I get my bonus or my Federal refund – whichever comes first – though, as I don’t have a spare monitor since I’m unwilling to give up the dual monitors on Hugin.
However, once I do get the additional funds I’ll be able to spare the monitor I’m using as my secondary on Hugin, as I’m going to finally bite the bullet and buy a Wacom Cintiq.
In any case, I’ll post some pictures of the new stuff tomorrow, and I may even write up that post I mentioned on Wednesday.
In the meantime, I’m not looking forward to how I’m going to feel tomorrow morning, as I’m already pretty sore from all the bending, kneeling, and contorting that I went through today.
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