My first night in my condo! (random)
by at 10:05 AM
- It will be very nice to get Internet at home again. Blogging from the iPhone is certainly easier than from my previous phone but certainly not something I want to do if I can help it.
- My condo is in some sort of anomalous "cone of silence." There is absolutely no audible street noise, unless I open the window, and even then it's very faint. This is even though it's right in the middle of a very lively and noisy neighborhood. It was so quiet my ears were ringing. I will definitely want to get my bedroom stereo set up again.
- Most of the local restaurants are cash-only. I had no cash last night. I ended up going to Burger King (ugh).
- I am swimming in boxes. One of them has my bike helmet. Until I find which one that is, I'm commuting via BART or the bus (either option still involves a lot of walking), since I have no desire to ride my bike without a helmet.
- My living room is HUGE. My 40" TV seems so tiny now. Also my layout is quite nice. I have the entertainment center against a wall, then my 8'x11' area rug in front of it (flush up against it), then my couch at the other end of the area rug, and then there's still a few feet behind the couch, so I actually have my surround speakers behind for a change, and I'll probably keep that area open or maybe put some of my media storage there. The layout that's taking shape is very nice, in any case.
- My upstairs neighbors sure do walk around a lot. But then again they're in the process of moving out, so things will probably settle down soon enough.
- The move ended up costing about 3x what I was quoted, because of the dumb miscommunications I mentioned previously. I mean it was still a pretty good price for the service and professionalism I got, and the movers were all very fun to talk to (they are all pretty well-educated but didn't have the patience for desk jobs and decided they'd rather work with their hands), and it was still within my budget (barely), but still, it was a bit of a shock to the wallet. I should have asked for a revised quote.
- I don't think any of my neighbors speak English. I've come across two of them so far, namely my next door neighbor who is an older Asian man (I am certainly not presumptuous enough to guess as to which country he's from), and an older Hispanic woman. I tried introducing myself to both of them and I was met with something of a blank "Sorry, what?" stare each time.
- The OTA HDTV situation is excellent at my new place, so I probably won't be spending the $7/mo extra to Comcast (unless I decide I really want Discovery HD or something). Fortunately the TiVo has a dual-antenna setup and will supposedly record from both antenna and analog/QAM cable simultaneously.
- I still have a few things to move out from my old place (my cleaning stuff, which I left there so I could finish cleaning, of course). There's also a few things I want to buy (I'm going to try using a drying rack instead of a dryer). Conveniently, my Realtor gave me a $50 gift card for Bed Bath & Beyond, and the BB&B is pretty close to work. Most likely I'll do the cleaning this afternoon, and then just rent a Zipcar this weekend and take care of the rest of it at once. (Unfortunately, BB&B's clothes dryer racks are pretty badly-designed compared to that Ikea one.)
- Or I could just go relatively low-tech.
Comments
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Now playing: CBC Radio 3 - Episode #166
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The 8' span is a definite problem for me as well. I'll probably just wander around at BB&B all slackjawed and stuff until I find something which I can just make do with.