Progress Is Our Most Important Product

Before work, took a look at the roof and saw that they had removed the satellite dish. Yay!

Work was routine. Reading specs, mostly. Chatting with Automation Guy. Lunchtime I went to the Home Depot near Lyric Theater's warehouse, hoping they would not be all about Jesus music like the one closer to my house. They were just as bad, maybe worse. Anyhow, bought a floor lamp to replace the broken one in the office, and a ceiling lamp to replace the 3-spotlights lamp in the kitchen.

I don't mind some seasonal music mixed with the usual stuff, as long as it's instrumentals. The music itself is often beautiful, but the words make me want to puke. And that includes the generic winter music because here in the San Francisco Bay Area we never get snow at sea level, and even the tops of the hills rarely get enough to make snowballs, so forget about jungle bells. Want to get to Grandma's house? Take your F150.

I was lucky and found the perfect lamp for the office, it has 5 goosenecks, each with a 40W lamp on the end. And also found a good replacement for the kitchen track lighting, something which takes screw-in CF lamps.

Sometime during work I called the furnace people and set up an appointment to have an electronic thermostat installed. $94 just to come out. From what I saw of the innards of the one on the wall, I don't think the one I bought at Lowe's is compatible. But since I couldn't liberate it from the walls and see the wiring, I will hold out hope until told otherwise.

In other maintenance news, my 6-month free Toyota checkup is Thursday.

Home, USPS address change confirmation was in the mailbox, along with the Comcast bill. I guess the transfer killed off my paperless arrangement. Also a check for $50 from the movers, to pay for the broken lamp and in an attempt to get me to change the not-so-good review I gave them. It's an honest review, and not unkind, so it stays. I will modify it if they fix the web site to show their real hours and location, put a sign on their door and on the street-side sign they share with 3 other businesses. But nothing will make me say they did a good job moving the piano.

Today's move progress:
Before work I put away all the bathroom stuff from the mover's dishpack box, and added that box, flattened, to the pile in the kitchen. After work there were deliveries on the front porch. Took those inside, to be opened later.  Also took the lime tree inside, made a dish for it and stuck it in a window. Didn't want it freezing overnight - and it's only about 3' tall, if that. The leaves smell so good!

Did some re-arranging of stuff in the office, especially the closet, emptied a wardrobe which the movers were supposed to have unpacked and taken with them, which gave me a path to shove the file cabinet to the other side of the room, and unpack all the files into it. Unpacked the floor lamp and assembled it, and replaced the broken one with it. Much better.

Watched some TiVo - Shark Tank and South Park.

Opened the packages. One was the pair of burgundy blackout curtains, which are now up in the bedroom. The second was an Amazon shipment with replacement curtains for the ugly brown ones in the kitchen. It also had a webcam to replace the never-worked-very-well one, which will probably go in the office, but maybe in the laundry near the litterbox. That's a weekend project, I think. UPS banged on the door, another Amazon package,  a pair of tennis elbow braces. I lost mine somewhere, and have already worn out one. Am wearing one and the other is in the bathroom. I need to get some drawers for the bathroom, all she has are cupboards with shelves. That's not way to store nail clippers.

Dinner was a Healthy Choice merlot beef steamer. Good stuff, but very small portion. Ice cream, dessert and egg nog chaser helped.

Domino has been trying out several places to park herself. She has learned how to climb Mt Howeird and lay across the top of the recliner. She also tried under the piano bench, to the side of the sheepskin rug, a pillow on the couch, and my lap. Right now she is on the seat of the recliner, and most of the times when I found her in web cams she was on the smaller cat tree. It's a big place, and it's all hers.

After dinner, the kitchen got worked on. The Plan is always to put away the food and spices in the first box near the livingroom, but it always gets avoided. The two boxes of Big Stuff were unpacked and flattened. The big soup pot, the granite tub I use for pickling, the electric crock pot. I think also the electric fondue pot. The teapot is on the stove where it belongs. So is the small omelet pan. Cuisinart and blender are on the island, but they may move elsewhere later.

Opened the last package, saved it for last because I had no idea what it was. Turned out to be my present from Middle Sister. A shower curtain and bath mat made to look like the transporter room on the Enterprise. It is not going in the bathroom because (a) it is too cool to hide and (b) only the guest bathroom takes a shower curtain, and I already have one in there. There is wall space in the office, but also in the livingroom, I think. Weekend project.

I had thrown two boxes into the laundry area to get them out of the way, they are the glass pack boxes with dividers. I emptied out the foam sleeves and flattened the boxes & added them to the pile in the kitchen, so I could get to the laundry stuff box, which had been in the kitchen because in the apartment the laundry was behind the kitchen. Got that put away and the box added to the pile.

There is still a lot to be done. Two more evenings should take care of the important stuff. Not sure when I will unpack the old photos and record albums, CDs, DVDs, VHS tapes and books. That's all in the 3rd bedroom, with the door closed.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Home, more unpacking. Install new webcam.