very simple

In November, I rearranged my living room. This involved moving my giant, heavy bookshelf, which in turn required me to remove all the books for the first time in several years.

As a consequence, I ended up with a pile of (mostly) mass market paperbacks that I really never planned on reading again and had no sentimental attachment to, so I decided to pack them up for Housing Works. And here they sit, because I never seem to remember to actually take them with me when I leave my apartment. And lest you think I’m entitled to avoid a big hassle, there’s a Housing Works shop two blocks away.

when I bought my apartment in 2005, I planned on putting all of my media components inside one of these shelves, which had previously held 200+ CDs that I never listen to anymore because they’re all on my computer/ipod. I finally followed through with that plan tonight. The temporary solution, which existed for 4.5 years, involved these components being oh-so-strategically stacked in a big pile next to the TV. While not perferct (I wish there was a better place for the power strip, but it won’t fit behind the shelves), it’s definitely better looking than the prior arrangement.

The cable guy finally showed up yesterday, after I had been without service for a week and a half (no such luck having my service mysteriously pop back on this time without intervention).  He ran some tests though, and discovered that it wasn’t that I got no signal, but that the signal was coming through at way too high a frequency (one which was OK for the TV/cable service, but not for internet).  So began the process of checking every connection all the way back to the junction box in the stairwell.

Which he opened up, took a deep breath, and noted that the connections in there looked like they hadn’t been updated in over 20 years.  I laughed and pointed out that I knew the previous tenant in my apartment (being that she’s my stepmom), and she moved in in 1978.  So she probably had cable installed around the same time that cable was installed in the building.  So he replaced all of the connections, and now I have shiny shiny internet again, and it’s actually much faster than it was before.  Like, near-instantaneous.  So I highly recommend that if you live in a really old building, you find out the last time your trunk line was updated, and if it’s before the internet existed, maybe see about getting that fixed!

Also, I didn’t even realize that there was a problem before, but when we put the TV back on to test it out with some high-def olympic coverage, I could swear that my picture was clearer than it had been in the morning.  I could just be imagining things, but I was actually taken aback (I think the non-word “whoa” might have been uttered).  

The third thing I have, of course, is a neckache, because I had to put all of the furniture back after the cable guy left and something went wonky in the middle of that process.  

Still managed to get a bike ride with my brother in afterwards.  Although “with” is somewhat misleading as a significant portion of our ride involved me watching his red backpack get smaller and smaller, and him having to periodically stop and wait for me.  The best part about the ride?  The realization that I’m not actually that slow.  I’m only the slowest cyclist on the road at 6:30 in the morning.  At 5 in the afternoon on a Saturday, there are plenty of people who are more than willing to suck and get in my way while I quietly seethe about how slow they all are.

in going through my sitemeter referral logs, I noticed that there were quite a few people looking for things on this site who didn’t appear to be finding them, thanks to the move from iblog to wordpress.  While I’ve changed all of my internal links, I can’t change old references on other people’s websites, so here’s a short list of the most common things people appear to have been looking for and not finding.

If you’re looking for info on hardwood floors, tiny kitchens, or anything else apartment related, check out the home improvement or real estate categories, where I blogged my whole apartment buying and renovating experience.

If you’re looking for stuff on Italy, check out the milan category – I lived there for six months.  There are probably also a few posts on Rome, where I spent some time, in the more general travel category.  Also, pictures from Rome can be found here.

Pictures are sometimes inside blog posts, but are more often contained in my photo albums, listed on the photo album page, or here.  If you’re looking for pictures of the Dakota, check out the album titled NYC snow day 2006.

And don’t forget that if you’re looking for something in the blog, there’s a search box at the top of the page.

Man o man. Things have been a little bit crazy around here. Got home all of two and a half weeks ago, suffered jetlag to the extreme (kept waking up at 4 in the morning), and then got dragged into a crazy urgent work situation that involved staying until 2 or 3 in the morning almost every night last week (from Sunday to Sunday, I billed 101 hours!).

Needless to say, blogging (yet again) has been pretty near the bottom of my list of things to do. I haven’t even gotten around to downloading the last photos I took in Milan (one of my colleagues and I took a long lunch my last day there and climbed (Ok, took the elevator) to the top of the Duomo).

Other annoying things since I got home? I ordered some cabinets from Ikea to fit in a space that was exactly 26 inches wide. The website and my receipt both say that they’re 26 inches wide. Then the boxes came, and the labels said they were 26 and a half inches wide. Argh. Now I’m trying to figure out how to return them, because the only room that they even matched was the bathroom, and the only open space was the one I had ordered them for. So that was annoying. Not just because of the hassle, but because I really wanted some cabinets in that space.

Hmm. what else. Oh, my dad and my stepmom both got some flu/virus bug going around, so I’ve seen them all of once since I’ve been home, and that was the day I got home.

In better news though, I’m going to see Lucinda Williams at Radio City tomorrow night, so that’ll be fun (and convenient, as I work all of a block from RCMH). And I actually have plans on Saturday with friends. And I just got a save the date for a friend who is getting married in the Canary Islands. So that’s a good excuse for a trip (and here I thought the wedding I was going to in Florida next month was going to be the most exotic one this year!).