Hidden Pugmarks

One more big weekend in the new place behind us. We slept in pretty late on Saturday, but once we got up it was go, go, go all day.

We spent a few hours at IKEA browsing things. We found a desk, some chairs and a bunch of odds and ends. I got to show Holly what I had in mind for shelving. We looked for the old dining room table that we had liked and were thoroughly underwhelmed when we saw it. It wasn’t anything like either of us had remembered. I believe we have found a new table though.

There was some talk before picking out a table. Last week I read a really great article, The Craftsmanship of Code, that changed how I view quite a few things. It made me think more about the furniture that I normally buy. As a whole it made me think about almost everything that people buy in today’s world.

I am a geek. I won’t deny it. I know my way around computers and most electronics backward and forward. When it comes to picking a TV, DVD player or new computer I don’t really cut corners. I certainly don’t go buy the cheapest mass produced thing available that looks nice. I look for quality products that will last. I spend a great deal of time doing research on items. I get pieces that will work together. I don’t buy from companies like AKAI.

Yet, when it comes to furniture, quite often I do head to a place like IKEA or some other large store that sells cheap crap. Now, just to be clear, not everything that IKEA makes is crap. A lot of it, the more expensive stuff, tends to be quite good. I am also not trying to say that all mass produced things are crap.

Anyway, this boils down to the fact that I had started to think that I wanted a “real” dining room table. Not something mass produced by machines. By no means did it have to be a singularly unique piece, but I wanted to know that there was a human, a heart and a soul, behind it’s construction.

It made me think back to a lot of the large pieces of furniture that we had growing up that my Father had made. They may not have won any awards, but they are solid examples of good craftsmanship. Everything was built to last. They have stood the test of time. The test of moving over and over again. The test of hyper children and claw wielding cats.

If that furniture had been put together out of some cheap press board and a few nuts and bolts out of a box, there is no way it would have ever lasted so long. It has a presence of stability about it. Something which I consider to be important in today’s world.

I would like to craft that same sense of stability in the home for my own little family. That calming sense of safeness because everything is the same. No matter how many times you move, how many places you live, how many things happen in the outside world, I believe that home should always be the same. This isn’t to say that change is bad, or that things should never change, but I do think that core stability is important.

That’s the way it is with my family now. I might only get to see them once a year, but when I do, it always feels like I never left. It’s a wonderful feeling.

Ultimately we decided that we will get something from IKEA for now, but when we have a house we will decorate with furniture that exhibits craftsmanship.

Today I turned in the keys for my old place. I have some great memories of that place. Memories that I never would have had without meeting Holly. Lots of laughs, some great times and a few fights.

In one of those wierd twists of life the only thing I really miss about the place is the time I spent there with Holly. Now of course, I get to spend every night with her. It is strange to have the near-present become a memory.

We have survived our first week of living together. The two of us are doing great except for an ever present state of exhaustion and some kitten bites and scratches. Leo is quite a ferocious little guy when he wants to be. Even Max joined in on the fun last night and swiped me across the back of the leg. This is what I get for wearing shorts instead of pants.

There is still quite a bit of settling in and unpacking to be done yet. Something like eight more boxes of books, movies and games to unpack. I’m not really happy with the current performance of the home network either. It seems to be taking about an hour to download 40MB over my Xbox 360. That just isn’t acceptable. The connection is supposed to be 10MB/s down. I’ll be doing performance tests on it after I get a desk; and setup probably the only computer that will be bound by a wire connection.

Sleep is a precious memory.

= A short interlude =

If you haven’t seen Hot Fuzz yet, then you must go now! Now! Now I said!

It is quite possibly the funniest movie that I have ever seen. People in the theater were clapping, yelling, hollering and I even believe there may have been some hooting. Don’t read reviews or previews of it. Don’t watch trailers. Just go see it! Now!

For the gamers out there if you haven’t tried the PC demo of Puzzle Quest, or one of the other various flavours of Puzzle Quest, this is also something else that you must go do now. It has possessed everyone at work.

This past Saturday all of the big furniture finally got moved to the new place. The movers were an interesting pair. Quite odd fellows you might say. When the people downtown saw them, they were worried the movers would try and mug them.

I wish I could say that everything got moved without incident, but that would be a lie. The moving truck’s battery died at my old place in Vancouver so they were a couple of hours late getting to the new place. Now this was really unfortunate, because Holly had made sure to get the guy coming to pick up my old couch and freezer and a few of her bookshelves to be there at noon (when the movers were supposed to be there).

After the movers had dropped everything off we headed out in search of computer desks. We didn’t find any desks yet, but we did find a chair that Holly likes. I have a hard time finding good chairs. For the moment I’m going to stick with my lawn chair until I find the “right” chair.

Then we headed out for a pub night with Holly’s co-workers. It’s amazing the strange things that can happen and be talked about when you get a group of librarians together. The food was good. The company was great. The hockey game sucked. I’m hoping Vancouver will pick it up tonight and beat Dallas out of the playoffs. I also hope that they don’t end up playing Detroit next round. I’d prefer not to have my team knockout Holly’s team, or vice-versa.

Sunday we got up too early and headed in to my apartment in Vancouver to meet the cleaners. While they cleaned we headed out for some breakfast. I was hoping that Le Gerard would be open for brunch, but alas they were not. So we ended up at Denny’s where I at a hojillion too many pancakes!

On the way home we stopped off at a pet store and we walked out with a pet. The kitten picked us, I swear. Once he got into my arms he went out like a light. A deep sleeping purring machine. I fell in love with him instantly. His name is Leonidas! (Leo for short).

Originally I wanted to name my first born son Leonidas (it’s a great name), but Holly wouldn’t have any of that. So she invoked the rule that you can’t name children after pets, and we got little Leonidas.

So we now have Max(imus) and Leo(nidas).

Max has been having a bit of a rough time lately, and he isn’t quite sure what to make of Leo yet. Max has had a bunch of his furniture moved out. A bunch of new furniture moved in. Plus, now I’m there a lot more often too. So when we brought Leo home he was a little distraught.

After a little hissing and a lot of growling he seems to be coming to terms with Leo. Afterall, we got Leo because Max seemed lonely so we wanted to get him a buddy to play with. This morning Max was chasing Leo all over the house. Leo thought that this was great fun! A wonderful game! We’re not so sure that Max thought it was a game though. Time will tell.

Leo, is a kitten without fear. He leaps and bounds and dives off of things without a care in the world. He loves to chew on cords, this needs work. Hopefully he will grow up to be a Spartan of a cat like his namesake before him.

It is truly a strange thing, at the very least for me if not for everyone else, to see my physical world packed away into boxes. It can be quite distressing. Half of me thinks Oh my God! Is that all I have? while the other half thinks Dear Lord! Where the Hell did all of that come from?

You see, that photo above is essentially everything that I own. From clothes, to computers, to game consoles to books to, well, like I said; essentially everything.

Some of the things I threw out were a little hard to let go of, but for purely sentimental reasons. I seem to be becoming more and more of a sentimental person as I get older. I still hung on to a few things for no other reason than sentimentality. Realistically, what are the odds that I’m going to use my old baseball glove again? It doesn’t even fit anymore.

I realized that the root of my attachment to my faux suede sofa was that it was the first major piece of furniture that I ever bought. It wasn’t because it was the most comfortable couch in the world; which it isn’t. It wasn’t because it was my favourite colour; which it was. It was because it was the first non-computer major purchase that I had ever really made in my life.

And yet, even after a realizing all of this as I was getting rid of things, I still prefer to see it all go to a new home than to be recycled or junked. People at work have spoken for my old computer monitor and my couch so far. I’m still not sure if we’re going to try and keep my little freezer or get rid of it. We were thinking we might use it as a fridge if we could turn it all the way down and still not freeze pop. I haven’t started the experiment yet though.

I do have to say that a freezer could very well make the best pop fridge in the world. If you could get it right and the pop was absolutely as cold as it could be without freezing. Mmmm, mmmm, good!

In the end it felt good to finally have all of those boxes moved over to Holly’s place, or as I’m starting to call it “Our” place. It will take a little while to get used to saying that, but I like it All that is left is the big furniture. The big furniture consist of anything that wouldn’t fit in her car, which is about 1000x times bigger on the inside than it looks. We managed to move my apartment in three trips I think it was. There is probably another half one pending, but that’s still pretty amazing.

You can read about the details of the move in her blog. Her blog is a much funnier and better account of it all than I was going to do

I was thinking about perma-linking her blog in my links section, but then I was afraid she might link mine and that eventually her Mother would find all of the things I’ve said about her cooking >.> <.< So those of you who like it had better book mark it!

On a final note, the NHL Playoffs start tonight. You had best get yourself to a TV and settle in with a beer soon! There is nothing else like the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs!

Go Wings! Go!