My Ikea Adventure

I decided the last time that I visited my brother that he needed couches.  Not only couches, furniture period.  When I showed up, he had a giant living room that was completely empty since "What's the point, I'm just going to sit at my computer desk in my room anyway."  Well that's great, but you only own one chair and if you're sitting in it, I have nothing.

Fast forward a few months.  Jim gets a dog.  A giant puppy, really.  Turns out that having a dog who liked to remove interesting articles from the laundry basket and/or piles of clothes on the floor was just the push he needed to get dressers.  Ok, that's something.

So when I came to visit again, progress has been made.  He has a kitchen table with multiple chairs (I don't have to eat dinner on the floor?!?!?!?!) and a coffee table, but there's still no couches.  So yesterday we took a field trip to Ikea and found a couch and love seat that he liked for not an amazing amount of money.  Of course it figures that they are rearranging the warehouse area and if they are in stock, the salespeople can't find them.  But, as I am promised, they'll be in tomorrow.

Since Jim had to be in class in the morning, I got the brilliant (and later regretted) idea to go to Ikea by myself and get them.  Now, I have a large vehicle: I play the harp, so I have to.  As it turns out, my parents have this obsessive thing with fairness, so my brother has an exact duplicate of my station wagon.

However, when they pulled the first of the two giant boxes that I would need off of the pallet, I was immediately struck by the fear that my big car wouldn't fit one, let alone two of these monstrosities.

If I was intelligent (my blonde hair tends to get the better of me) I would have done one of two things after seeing the size of the boxes:

1. Buy one of the sofas, hope it fit inside, drive it home, come back, buy the other, drive it home.
2. Give up on the current endeavor, then have Jim drive his car over and we could take one box in each car assuming it would fit inside.

Ok, so I did neither.  I bought both and happily ambled off to bring my car to the loading dock, sure that it would magically turn out ok.  

The perk of this is that one of the boxes did in fact fit inside my car.  To be quite honest, the only reason this was possible is that I have severely short legs, so the driver's seat is almost as far forward as is physically possible (the only reason for almost as far forward and not as far forward is that I have movable pedals... best invention EVER!).  This gave a few more inches leeway, and box #1 is inside and fine.

Now, there is no way in hell that we are getting the second box into that car.  So, the lovely Ikea gentleman helping me offers to put it on top.  What he doesn't explain to me is that although he will help me get it up there, they legally cannot help me tie the thing on.  They will provide as much string as you want, but they will not help with the tying.

So I stand there for a few minutes as he helps someone else, thinking he's coming back.  He does, but only to explain to me this fun byproduct of an overly litigious culture.  So I wrack my brains trying to figure out the best knots to tie, all the while cursing the Girl Scouts for spending our time on make-up merit badges instead of the fun stuff that the boys got to do.  In case you were wondering, that merit badge was 100% the reason for my quitting the girl scouts.  What a stupid waste of time.

Ok, off my soap box.  Where were we? Right, I am in the loading dock of an ikea wrapping a 130lb box in twine and praying that it will stay on for the 20 mile drive back to my brother's house.  

The one intelligent thing that I did was to have this trip sometime other than rush hour because I got to be "that guy." You know "that guy," the one doing exactly the speed limit (or under, which definitely happened on the 3 miles worth of 55mph that I was on) and in the wrong lane all the time and just doing everything slowly.  However, what I don't understand is that if you come up behind a station wagon driving obviously much lower than it should be with a giant box on top wrapped in twine attached to the top, WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU TAILGATE? Let's think of the awful possibility, shall we?  Let's say I did a bad job.  Let's say something slipped or the twine broke or any other number of awful possibilities.  Where is that 130lb box going? ONTO YOUR WINDSHIELD.

I survived the trip!

Seriously, kids, don't tailgate a station wagon with a giant box strapped to the top, especially within 20 miles of an Ikea.  This advice also goes for driving behind anyone trying to move a mattress and/or a christmas tree.  Well I guess in that case it would be minus the Ikea bit, but I digress.

Lucky for us, that didn't happen, the twine held, my lack of knot knowledge apparently didn't do that much damage, and the car was safely in my brother's parking lot.  I'm still angry at the girl scouts.

So now we have the lovely job of getting these two 100lb+ boxes down a flight of stairs to my brother's apartment.  I made it 3 steps before I gave up on being any form of help.  I am quite sure KB would not have approved of me doing this anyway.  Luckily, the maintenance guy at my brother's complex wasn't busy.  I bet he regretted taking that call...

An hour's worth of stick figure instructions later, mired only by needing to unbolt and rebolt something together because of a factory mistake, we successfully acquired furniture for the living room.  Success! 

What, do you want to take a picture or something?

Furniture!

No windshields were harmed in the making of this blog post. Hooray!

The strangest rehearsal ever -or- why you should never assume the elevator works

Ok, so I have to start this off by saying that I am a professional harpist.  I've played a mess of orchestral repertoire on some very strange stages.  However, I think this one takes the cake.

I was asked to play for a local youth orchestra.  The parts are super easy, so no problem there.  After a string of email correspondence with the conductor, where I am quite sure my emails were never fully read, I am told to show up 15 minutes before the rehearsal and they can get me in.  Ok, well, that's great but I'm a harpist and I have to tune and I'm not capable of getting anywhere in 15 minutes, let alone deal with parking on this major university campus.  So I arrive about 45 minutes early, spend a little time double parking 5 people since that's the only handicap accessible entrance to the building, repark the car and another group is using the rehearsal space, so I find myself a semi-quiet corner and tune, interspersed with parents walking by with their kids saying "look at that honey, a harp!"

Oh, and this is about the time I realize that I forgot to grab my coffee on the way out the door this morning.

This would probably have fixed most of my morning stress.

So finally the other group lets out and I need to figure out a way in.  There are two doors into this rehearsal room, each of which opens directly onto a flight of stairs.  The space itself is basically a giant staircase to make rehearsing easier which is fine except that really the only place to put me is all the way down on the ground.  This too shouldn't be a problem since I find out there is an elevator.  Wonderful!

Ok, so off I go to find the conductor who is going to lead me to the elevator, and she gives her keys to a young cellist who is going to go unlock the door for me.  Basically, the elevator is easily accessible from the main floor, but it opens into a utility closet which is locked.  So the conductor and I ride the elevator down, only to discover that the kid with the keys can't get the door on the other side open.  So she leaves me there to ride the elevator back up (now the only exit from this room).

Let's think about this for a second.  I'm in a broom closet where the only door is locked and the elevator is my only way out.  Has anyone talked to the fire marshal about this one?

So the conductor gets to the other side and is not having any luck getting the door.  She rides the elevator back down with another gentleman, who also can't unlock the door.  So we give up on this and ride the elevator back up.

Now I get to try to get my harp down the stairs.... whee!  Two wonderful (adults) in the orchestra helped me walk it down the stairs and around the corner, all the while attempting to not smash it on the concrete or the violinists' heads as the orchestra is starting to tune.  Its things like these that I try not to relate to my insurance company.

I. Hate. Stairs.

Whee I've made it down here!  Ok, so now I have to frantically set up and pull myself together.  I hate being late for things and now I'm feeling super unprofessional.  On top of that, the two pieces I am here to play are both Viola concerti.  So, I quickly open my music and check: yes this is a viola concerto, yes there is a viola soloist standing in front of me.  Ok, she's starting to conduct in 3 and this piece is 9/8, great, I'm golden, I have 50 measures before I have to do anything.  Wait, why did the meter just switch to 4? There's no meter change here? What's going on? Maybe I'm just not paying attention well enough.  Why didn't I grab my coffee? Crap, I'm going to get a headache.  Seriously, what is going on this makes no sense.  Oh crap, I bet I'm on the wrong piece, yup, look at that (frantically turn to other piece) and no I have no idea where we are and she seems to have no intention of stopping.

At this point I get the kid next to me to tell me where we are (also not my most professional moment), and start playing away.  Whew.  Ok, so that piece is fine, but following this conductor is a bit of a trip.

Let me just take a second to explain this for the non-musicians.  Most pieces are conducted in 2,3, or 4. The conductor's baton tell you what beat you're on.  For all of those set ups, the first beat goes down.  Always.  Ok, easy enough.  The second beat tells you what meter you're in: if the conductor goes up, its in 2, if right it's 3, if left it's 4.  So, by the second beat I know exactly what's going on.

Now, if you are conducting and accidentally go the wrong direction on the second beat, I get MASSIVELY confused.  I think we're on that measure in 4/4 but no, we're actually doing a 3/4 measure.  Suffice it to say, at some point I mostly gave up watching the conductor.  I recognize that this is a general no-no, but I was doing better without.

Luckily the rehearsal went by pretty quickly, I got the harp back up the stairs ok, I managed to not get a ticket from the fanatical parking people at this major university, and now I just get to wait until I get to do it all again next week.  Yippee!!!!

I need a nap.

Touchpad Toggle for Wacom Bamboo Tablet in Linux

So I got the Wacom Bamboo Create Tablet and I'm in love.  I can write notes on my computer, annotate pdfs, draw pictures, it's wonderful!

The only issue is that the tablet picks up both the pen and my hand leaning on the tablet, so I wrote a short script to give me a GUI toggle to turn the touchpad part on and off.  This works for my machine running Ubuntu 11.10.

The code can be found here: http://elizabethmunch.com/BambooTouchToggle.py

And now for the best pumpkin idea ever...

I give you.... The Infinite Loop:

The Infinite Loop

Props to Halcy for ideas and help.

Found him!

Operation make a haloween costume has been a success!  Also, the hat took less than 24 hours.  Yay for being an obscenely fast knitter!

It even has a puffball!

Procrastination

I truly have a gift for avoiding work I am supposed to be doing.

This Thursday, I am giving a talk at a conference.  The slides are all done.  That part is easy because I like it.  The problem is that I don't want to actually practice the talk.  I am conscious of the fact that I will do a far better job if I practice in advance.  Seriously, I went to music school.  That lesson was certainly beat into my brain.  However, there's something about giving a talk to EvilCat on computational topology as applied to sensor networks that makes me find absolutely everything better to do.

EvilCat is more interested in the laser pointer than in computing probabilistic failure of sensor networks.

I really do need to practice.  There is a strict 25 minute limit on talks, plus I talk very fast when I'm nervous.  The idea is that if I practice, I won't be nervous, and therefore will talk at a pace where my tongue can keep up with my brain.

In case you were wondering, yes, writing this blog post is actually a method of avoidance as well.

I am incapable of dressing myself

I spent the afternoon shopping with some friends.  I am a terrible shopper.  I do not understand why so many people enjoy it and do it for fun and entertainment.  I generally only shop out of necessity.  For example, today's necessity was that I ripped a hole in my last pair of jeans and although I have a bit of a habit of dressing like a slob, wearing sweat pants to work would be a new low, even for me.

It is interesting how the amount of effort I put into my appearance changes based on my surroundings.  In undergrad, I was in music school, surrounded by artists who had far better taste in clothing than me.  As such, I put more effort into my appearance in order to fit in.  I actually did my hair in the morning, I wore "outfits" instead of clothes, I put on some makeup.  Honestly, it was a bit more than some.  Now it's next to nothing.

The past three years have had me surrounded by academics.  Not just any old academics: mathematicians.   True to the stereotypes, a majority of people in my line of work give up on the appearance front.  It's not that they don't care, its just that, well, no, I take that back... it's actually that they don't care.  Appearance is not of any importance.  How you think, what you do, how you work is far more important than how you look.

I'm about 80% for this method of thinking, but the fact that I look like a bum most days still bothers me in retrospect.  I would like to look like a professional.  I would like to look like I deserve to be given a job that pays more than just enough to keep the fridge stocked.  I would just like to be able to do it without having to take time away from my work.

That being said, the obvious thing to do would be to build up a new wardrobe of adult clothing (no more buying anything in the juniors section of Penny's).  However, shopping just makes me frustrated.  It reminds me of two things: First, it points out how little taste I have in clothes.  Secondly, it points out that most clothing stores do not cater to my body type.  Everything is made for hyper-skinny, hipless, boobless women and as such, nothing looks good on me.

I'm not sure what the solution is for this.  At least I know that I want to change my appearance. Maybe I can solve this like a mathematician.  Do some research, get a sense of what looks good on other people with my body type, then work on buying that.

Problem is that end of the day I am much more apt to spend my money on computer parts and other gagets than I am willing to spend on clothing and I am much more willing to spend my time playing with math and computers than shopping.