unwiredben

I've not been writing much lately. My job has been taking up most of my creative energy, with several long sessions with the laptop and the new couch since I returned from California. We're making good progress, but there are several deadlines coming in the near future and so many different things to juggle. I'm making an effort to manage the stress level, mainly through walks in the evening and working at different locations during the day, but I fear it will just keep going up as we get closer to ship time.

I'm really looking forward to this year's SXSW conference. Last year, I really enjoyed all three festivals; I hope to repeat that this year, seeing a good chunk of the sessions in the interactive fest, going to a bunch of films, and hearing some great music. It looks like I'll have a few friends to attend things with, and I'm also taking vacation so I won't have to worry about work while the festival is running (although I probably still will).

My reorganized kitchen has been the site of several experiments. I'm quite happy with my new-found talent at making refrigerator pickles, especially using the 3/$3 English cucumbers from Costco. I'm finding myself really enjoying the process of peeling vegetables. Less successful was my attempt to make tabouleh from a mix -- I found that the olive oil I used had been rancid for a while, so I had to throw everything out. In the middle was "veggie sausage helper", a ingredient mash-up that was slightly edible; however, it made for an interesting conversation with zen_elf which led to a much better and fresher recipe that I'll have to try out soon. I think I'll try some blender experiments this weekend, perhaps of the gazpacho variety.

The new garbage disposal seems to work much better than my old one. It's quieter and its motor is more powerful. However, there was one quirk in its installation that I had to fix tonight. I did a load of dishes on Tuesday and finally got around to putting them up this evening. Upon opening the door to the dishwasher, I saw inches of standing water. Oops. While it's all well and good to hook up the dishwasher drain to the new disposal, it works a lot better if you remember to punch out the plastic piece in the disposal where you hook up the drain pipe, since failing to do that means there's no place for the dishwater to go.

Get the bucket out, unhook stuff, use a lot of paper towels to dry things off, spend ten minutes with a hammer and a couple of screwdrivers, and then, hook everything back up. I'm now redoing the load and I hope that everything will be all dry and clean in the morning.

My old futon that I bought back in 1995 is now gone, off to a new home in southwest Austin. My new couch arrives sometime tomorrow from Eurway, the four-piece sectional that I wrote about on Friday. For the next day, I'm a man without a comfy seat in his living room. I think I'll use the time to vacuum.

The last week has been "Get Stuff Done" week for me and my home.

Saturday: pick up a replacement 1/2 HP garbage disposal for my kitchen sink; the original 1/3 HP disposal that came with the house had died during the summer. Also get fluorescent floods to replace the burnt-out incandescent floods in the track lighting over my never-used fireplace.

Wednesday: pick up replacement insert for back door that I'd ordered a few weeks ago

Thursday: with the help of tangoglenn, replaced the window insert in my back door. The outside plastic frame had warped in the sunlight and it was letting moisture into the insulation.

Friday: with the help of zen_elf, install the garbage disposal. This involved a trip to the hardware store to get a replacement drain pipe, plumber's putty, and Teflon tape, plus lots of cleaning of "fragrant" organic matter from the pipes. I also went and looked at couches at Eurway to replace my futon, and I'm really liking this sectional couch configured with two corners and two straight pieces.

zen_elf gave me an interesting idea about what to do with the old window insert, a sealed glass unit with an integral window shade and a magnet switch that opens and closed the blinds. His idea was to build a wood frame around the insert and turn it into a end table. I'll have to think about this one a while; it's a little ambitious for my own skills, and I don't know if I'd actually want to use it myself.

I'm also thinking about replacing the carpet downstairs with wood laminate flooring. My parents have some leftover material that I might be able to use, and Costco has a really good deal on new flooring. The carpet that's down there has some bad stains, and it's a mess to maintain. I'll wait until 2006 to do this, as I know I won't have time to work on this project until next year.