the weekend that was

May 17, 2004 by Eric Richardson

I've started three or four posts here in the last day or two and haven't finished any of them. Oh well.

Saturday we finally got all moved out of City Park. Cleaning and the last bits of moving out took all day, starting at probably 10 and ending just after 5. It ended up well, though: our inspection went fine and we'll be getting all of the deposit back. Now I'm officially a resident of downtown.

Saturday night the Lakers won, as everyone knows by now. I watched the game over at Kathy's, but on the way back couldn't resist driving by Staples. It wasn't the best route time-wise, but it was fun to be surrounded by people honking their horns and generally being excited about the game.

Today my ethernet transceiver got here, so I booted the old Personal IRIS up with that. I've been messing with a handful of utilities I want to get installed on it to try and figure out a way to make the machine at least fun, if not useful. None are really wanting to compile cleanly on a 15 year old OS, though. That'll take some work.

the fun of furniture making

May 14, 2004 by Eric Richardson

I put up a picture today showing a bit of what my desk currently looks like. Last August D4 and I went about building ourselves a set of full-sized bunk beds and a 8' long table for a desk. The beds actually came out really well, and just the other day we cut the legs in half to make them into separate beds as we go our own ways.

The desk, though, was troubled. We never did get all the wobble out of it, even through two iterations of the legs. I've now got it in the new apartment, and there was no way I was rigging it back how it was.

And so I ended up with my current solution, which may be temporary or may be permanent. On the right I've got an SGI Personal IRIS, which has the solid metal framing to withstand much more than the weight of a desk and monitors. On the left is my desktop, an old PII 400 in a Gateway 2000 full tower that originally shipped as a PPro 200. To bring both up to a height of 26 1/4" I'm using a bunch of books that would otherwise have sat on my shelves. The Deeds of Frederick Barbarosa have never been so useful.

ah food

May 13, 2004 by Eric Richardson

On the way back from lunch today I wasn't paying attention and walked straight past the front door to my building. Yeah, I'm still new here.

I was feeling boring and hungry, so I just wandered over to the Subway on Hill/Fifth to get something to eat. This also sent me straight past the BofA ATMs on Hill between 5th and 6th, which was convenient. Across the street there is Pershing Square, a park that now sits on top of a parking garage and sometimes doubles as a concert venue. And around Christmas time it's the site of LA's downtown ice rink, something I didn't make it to this past holiday season but definitely plan to next year.

man the periscope!

May 13, 2004 by Eric Richardson

They were doing a fire alarm test in the new building just now. I swear it felt like I was back in the Commodore 64 days playing Silent Service and I just gave the signal to dive. Better turn off the diesels, we're going under...

Hmmm, I didn't realize until I was looking for a link for Silent Service that it was done by Sid Meier of Civilization fame.

getting closer

May 12, 2004 by Eric Richardson

Internet's now working! I'm writing this via my Speakeasy DSL from the floor of the new apartment. The floor because we haven't actually gotten to the setting up furniture stage, just the moving the pieces into place one. I forgot to bring over the screws that go to my bed, so for tonight I'm sleeping on the mattress on the floor.

It won't matter, though, I'm going to be out like a light. Today flat out wore me out moreso than I can remember in a long long time. My legs are done. My knees hurt. My arms have random scratches.

A neighbor invited us over to hang out tonight, so we got a chance to (after showering) sit, cool down, and have some really good food. We already got invited to another "get-together" next weekend. I went two whole years never really knowing anyone I lived around at City Park, and I haven't even slept a night yet and already know people here.