I have been fighting a bug for a few days, a bit of congestion, a bit of a headache, a sore throat and the gastro issues I self-inflicted on Sunday messed up my sleep last night. I have been super active in the last few days, so I should have slept like a log according to the logic of my mother. I can even hear her voice saying it.
Instead, I woke up at 4:00 a.m. Tossed and turned, tried to go to the washroom without success, back to bed, another 90 minutes of staring at the ceiling metaphorically, back to the washroom with success, and finally crashed back to sleep around 6:00 I guess.
Woke up at 9:00 feeling like a zombie. Things have improved generally over the weekend, and my sore throat was mostly gone but my digestive issues were going batty, my congestion was back, and my CPAP machine gave me an air pressure headache to start the day. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t COVID-serious, just an annoying bug of some kind. But I decided to crash and take the day.
Andrea might have the same bug as of late tonight. Hopefully, she’ll do her normal great job of kicking it quickly. I have a bunch of stuff tomorrow for work, so I’ll definitely be “back”, but I might push a few meetings to later in the week and focus on the core duties.
No African safari, no trip to Antarctica. No climbing a mountain. I was going for the extreme adventure today. I went to Ikea.
For those who have heard from those who have braved Ikea during the pandemic, you might have heard that the overall store is indeed open, but if you are going for Click and Collect, you were apparently taking your life into your hands. Reports over the last few months have been that it ranged from an outright sh**-show to chaos made real.
But I’m working on my dream office setup, the desktops came from Ikea originally, I finally found the leg / bases I wanted in another part of the website (spoiler alert: they were NOT listed with “legs”). I already had two desks set up, one with the proper base I like (an inverted I so that the leg is basically in the middle of the side of the desk rather than a leg out at the front to whack my knee on) and one with four annoying legs. I have another use for those, but I had a top with no legs at all, so I splurged and bought two sets of the legs I want.
I ordered them online late last night, and I was thinking I might have them delivered. No, apparently that wasn’t an option for me in “white” legs. They weren’t available locally. Now, this is where I’m confused. If they are IN STOCK at my local store, I don’t really need to have them delivered, I can go pick them up. If they are NOT in stock locally, that seems like an ideal scenario for where delivery might be needed. Or, just taking a flyer here, maybe they could DELIVER them to the local store and I could pick them up there?
Ah, no. Apparently it’s a binary world. If they are at the store, I can have them delivered. If they are at other stores, I can’t. Huh?
Moving on. I notice that they have the same legs in black in stock. Okay, fine, I’ll take those. I do some weird mental math that makes me think I need three sets for awhile before I force my brain to function and note that I already have ONE set. Soooo, for those playing along at home, that’s THREE sets needed minus ONE set I already have. What does that leave us Trigger? One stomp, two stomps. Ah, yes, Two more sets. Very good.
So I ordered them and it asks for my credit card, no problem. Then it says, “Hey we’d like to verify you can use that MC that is IN YOUR NAME, so we want to send a text from PC Financial to your phone”. Umm, okay. Except PC Financial doesn’t HAVE my mobile number. I think they sent it to my home VOIP-line-disguised-as-a-landline. Sigh.
Fine, I’ll pay with PayPal. Same card, no problem. Dolts.
Okay, it’s IN the system. And I’m going for CLICK and COLLECT. I know, I know, I heard the horror stories! But I don’t want to wander around the store collecting boxes!
And they send me an immediate confirmation for 2:00-4:00 Sunday. Hmm…that’s interesting. No place did it ask me when I would like to come. What if I was busy Sunday? What if I was busy 2-4? No matter, who are we kidding, I have no life. But they warn me, “don’t come until we confirm your order is ready!”. Great.
So I got up late this morning, ran some errands with Jacob and Andrea (Jacob to Michael’s for school-like supplies for a course / online camp this week, Andrea to return some stuff in Kanata from an online order). Pita Pit for lunch, and I decided apparently that I needed a Pita Pit enema. I ordered the Western, fully knowing that eggs frequently insist on using the fastlane through my digestive system. Two hours, door to door, so to speak. And just for fun, I risk the Raging Cajun and chipotle sauces. I *expected* to tell them to go light on the sauce, but then I waited in the car with Jacob while Andrea grabbed the food since I had no customization to do, and so I wasn’t there for the admonishment to not kill me. Good news — a Western pita with sauces keeps the fun of a fastlane and adds the wonderful experience of a forest fire all along the tract! Good lord, what was I thinking?
Anyway, back home, playing games, waiting for my email to say “Come now!”. 2:00. 2:30. 3:00. 3:30. Ummm, that window is closing pretty fast. At 3:40, I phone the Ikea number and there are NO options even close to “Where the f*** is my order?” so I end up on a generic hold. At 3:45, I hop in the car and head to Ikea anyway. By 4:00, I’m talking to the woman running the collect area, note that I never received confirmation, and that I’m on hold for status. Since she can check status, I hang up and just deal with her.
Now, admittedly, I’m going in expecting the sh** show that has been heralded for months, and yet it seems strangely calm. They have a single driveway to pull in, and then a very large section of the parking lot set up for parking while you wait, with numbers on the stalls, and spaced every other stall for distancing. I wasn’t in line for the cars yet, and said that I had just parked until I knew if I should get in line. Nope, no worries, just pull around here, park over there, we’ll go get your stuff. Okay. I’m sure it won’t be that easy.
I get set up, I’m playing on my phone. Woman calls from the back of the car to let me know it’s all there. And it is. Very little waiting. In fact, they’re done so fast, I have time to run two other errands on the way home. Apparently ordering after midnight on a Saturday to get stuff end of day Sunday is a good time. I never got confirmation the order was ever ready, but they seemed super well-staffed and surprisingly chipper with still 2 hours to go.
Okay, home, unloaded, dinner, and then the fun began. I had an empty desk top and a set of legs. Should be easy enough, right? Hahaha yeah, that’s funny now to me too. Not.
I get the metal parts together no problem, that’s relatively easy, mildly annoying for one alignment. Then I go to put the metal part on to the underside of the desk and I see that they have completely changed the design from the previous version I have. THAT version was basically universal…you could line it up on ANY tabletop really, or board, and as long as it was thick enough, you could screw in your screws. Great.
This one? Noooo, that style apparently wasn’t good enough. Now they have anchors and plugs, and plastic bolts that go in. Which means the tabletop / desktop has to have HOLES in very specific places to hold the plugs. Which of course my old desk does NOT have.
Sigh.
I suppose I could go over and buy two new desktops to match the legs, but that wasn’t happening. I’d return the legs before I’d do that when I have two perfectly good desktops already. What to do, what to do.
Okay, well, if it was an anchor in a wall, you would drill a pilot hole first and then insert it. Could I drill holes for the plugs? Sure. Relatively easily I guess. I’m not handy, but I have a drill and a good set of drill bits that I inherited from my dad about 25 years ago when he was cleaning out his shed. I marked all the holes, slid the metal over, drilled six anchor holes and put it together. Great. All the anchors work. Of course, there are these other plastic plugs that are supposed to go in too, but they seem deeper than I have space for. Okay, I can get by without those.
There is also a netting thing you’re supposed to install on the bottom so you can tuck cords up out of the way, but it’s in a relatively stupid place and a terrible design, so that ain’t happening. I install four clamps that come with it to hold the wood more strongly to the metal, and with Andrea’s help, carefully invert it to regular orientation. I tested the stability and strength, seems good. We picked it up and I shook it side to side and up and down, no wiggling. It’s solid. Andrea helped me with the height of the desk, putting it at 28.75 inches for my working height (I type directly on it, so it’s a good height for me ergonomically).
One desk complete. So I installed all my computer stuff from work on it, and with a multiple-monitor stand from Amazon that arrived last week, it looks awesome for layout and setup. Way more functional than I had. I even installed my work tablet on a shelf in the middle of it and you would swear they measured it to the mm. It is a VERY encouraging start. And it all started with a decision to risk Ikea today. I’m going to do a “before and after” post later this week, and I’ll have all the photos then. For now, it’s bedtime.
Today I choose to brave the wilds of Ikea, despite all the negative press and commentary I’ve seen about their curbside services. And it was relatively painless compared to the horror stories.
Well, the second great migration of the year is underway. Migration #1 was me moving my desks from the office on the second floor to the basement. Yes, I said desks. I’ll post pictures when everything is done (sorry Matt, you’ll have to wait), but basically I have a desk for my personal computer, monitor, scanner, label printer, etc. It’s a pretty full space, unfortunately. More on that later.
In addition, I have a second desk that has all my work stuff on it — tablet from work, two monitors from work, keyboard, mouse, etc. Plus a bunch of dead space with miscellaneous crap on it.
But it’s in a good L, and it’s not like the desk surface is small — both are old Ikea desks that are 30″x60″-ish. I say “old Ikea” because I knocked them apart long ago and replaced the heavy wooden and non-adjustable height sides and cross beams with simple adjustable height legs.
So it’s a decent amount of space. The L shape isn’t really working well for me, it’s just what I had available in the space I designed. But a casual conversation with Andrea a week or two ago led to some interesting thoughts bouncing around my head in the “What if … ” category. Like, for instance, “What if I put my desk right in that far corner where all that other stuff is? Where would it go? How could I go back to maximizing floor space while finding room for my desks?”.
The solution in part is to take a bunch of Jacob’s toys (mostly Lego), and move them into storage space along the wall in the old office and bring another desk down. Yeah, you heard me. Another old Ikea desk with the same size top. Two sides down, everything cannibalized, and in theory, I might actually have the space for my dream setup. A giant U with desk all the way around the end of my basement. Space for printers and scanners, space for my computers, space for storage underneath, and most important of all? Simple space to spread out a project, work on it, and not have to pick it all back up when I’m done for the day. A workspace to do things like a Lego build. Or taking apart a set of binoculars. Or even just sorting a whack of magazines (if it wasn’t already done) or books.
I could, in theory, end up with desk space the equivalent of 30″ deep by 15′ long. I think my nipples just got hard. Could just be the cold in the basement. Andrea’s flexibility with the office is making a bunch of it happen, as the toys needed to go somewhere at least until Jacob might decide he no longer wants to keep them.
Three pieces of other furniture left the basement today too — two white tables that Jacob used for a while for his train sets (very large coffee tables, that I did think about cannibalizing for the tops hehehe). And if they don’t sell, I may still cannibalize them for something in the garage I want to do at some point.
And the old TV stand we had in the basement, recently replaced with something taller.
In short, we moved a lot of stuff around today. I have a small snag that I’m working on, which is the legs I mentioned earlier. One desk has four legs on it, simple adjustable ones from Ikea. Easy to find, easy to install, easy-ish to adjust. But, for the U, I would prefer not to have legs in the middle of a long desk. I just end up whacking my knees on them. Instead, I would love a set of legs like I have on the other desk.
It has a wide base, and then only one leg coming up each end of the desk. More like an inverted T, it appeared. There was NOTHING like it on the Ikea website. But when I looked at the desk again tonight, I realized it is way more elaborate than I remember. It actually has cross beams running underneath for added support. That is a MUCH different design than I remember, and now I can’t even remember if this one ever HAD full sides. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe this is the support it always had. Well, pooh. Cuz I would LOVE two more. 🙂
I’m also trying to figure out what the space actually looks like when I put the desks in. I might, and this is just crazy talk, have a bit of room for corner squares to make a really complete U, leaving the desks almost as connectors. Or almost like getting another 5′ of space for things like scanners and printers to sit out of the way. Kind of like the angled corners you see for TV stands, ideally, or simply just blocking off the corner with a square 30″x30″. Which of course would require separate legs. If I can FIND the right ones that will work. I really don’t want the simple legs from Ikea.
Well, off to search. And to cross my fingers that my longer Ethernet cable arrives tomorrow. The new location is about 15′ farther than my current setup, and I’m going to need a bigger cable. But I’m optimistic everything will fit where it is supposed to in the end.
Today I choose to rearrange our office space to give me a potentially dream office layout. Yes, it is in the basement. Yes, it might be somewhat cold down here. But a shot at my dream functional space? That just might be worth it.
I have only written the title of this post, eight measly words, and already I’m wondering if I want to word it differently. I suppose it is more that I am choosing a new workflow, perhaps?
Here’s the deal. Frequently, I have a large number of pending posts that I want to write. And if they include photos of some kind, I frequently balk at the order. For example, suppose I went to a park today (I didn’t, but work with me). And I took pictures. So I might want to write about it tonight, but the photos are going to be a surprising sticking point. Obviously I will want to include them.
But my workflow is pretty sophisticated. Detailed. Oh, alright, it’s anal-retentive, batshit crazy time.
I have 1000s of photos, and I am slowly migrating them from a general folder (albeit well-organized) into a formal app called Mylio. Once in Mylio, photos get sorted generally by date first and foremost, but they also have tags, filenames, facial recognition and more tagging, and sorting between “things to post” and “things to archive”. I rarely delete photos, at least not usually, unless there is nothing of value anywhere in it. If it is a photo of four people, for example, and one of them isn’t very flattering, I usually won’t include it. But the photo of the second person might be decent. Since I often have 5-6 usable ones, I don’t really need to include the one with a bad portion, but on the other hand, I don’t want to toss it either. So I always have two sub folders — one for “active” posting, one for “extra” archiving. If I edit a photo, the original goes to Extras, the one for posting goes to Active. Clear enough?
Step two though is to upload the photos that I’m using, after saving their meta data of course, and loading them on to my website. I managed to get 2005-2008 up on the side before deciding to redo my entire website some time ago, and while all the photos are good, I realized the other day I need to edit about 50 pages for format and consistency of layout. Normally I don’t have to do that, so I just create a new gallery, upload the photos for a given month, and then bam, they’re available for inserting into posts.
Yet therein lies the rub. I normally do a month at a time, once the month is complete. And, to be honest, I am often using photos that I took, plus those that Andrea had on her phone, and now, Jacob is in the mix too. He took some really good ones of sunsets at the cottage recently, plus some other ones earlier in the year. If I’m going to post photos from an event, like an outing to a park, shouldn’t I use the best photos from ALL THREE OF US, rather than just from me?
Perfection is the enemy of progress though, and it has been for certain posts. One of my posts some time back was about my haircut, but since I hadn’t completed the month, and hadn’t backed everything up from Andrea’s computer to mine, with the photos she took of me, I didn’t have my workflow nailed for how to get recent photos in the queue and on the site without risking needing to re-upload them later, or swap out new ones, or generally just having to update it later once I have processed the other files. Or simply confusing myself to the point where I accidentally delete something or miss it altogether.
And even without Andrea and Jacob in the mix, I don’t normally back up my phone every night to my desktop.
Enter the change
I had to “let it go”, essentially. Some of those processes are great at ensuring nothing gets missed but not so good at ensuring I can stay current with something interesting in photos. Today I wrote a post about smartphones and astronomy, and to do it properly, I needed to do about ten screen captures on two different devices PLUS four more photos of my phone and tablet with the other device. And then sort the photos, upload them to the site, embed them in the post, all while ensuring that neither the place they are stored in the website nor the way they are stored in the program application Mylio causes me to duplicate anything. A place for every photo and every photo in its place.
Whereas I used to do a month at a time, the major change in my workflow is adding a “status” tag to the folder name in Mylio. So, even if it is mid-month, I can create a folder called “22 Walk in the park” and then add a little acronym after the folder name to track the steps that are finished so far:
P = Files transferred from my phone
A = Files transferred from Andrea
J = Files transferred from Jacob
I = Photos imported into Mylio
S = Photos sorted
T = Faces tagged
M = Metadata saved
U = Photos uploaded to my WordPress site
G = Galleries grouped together in WordPress
B = Blogged
I don’t blog about everything of course, but most of the stages in PAJISTMUGB are common. Once all 10 are done, I can just rename the folder with a simple “_y” that yes, that folder is all done. It doesn’t solve my problem with not having Jacob or Andrea’s photos ready to go (A,J), but it solves MY photo processing (P).
I’ve been testing out various iterations of the work process and this one worked well today. I took the 10-15 photos, processed them, saved and stored them in Mylio, uploaded them to the site, and sent a draft of the post to someone in the local astronomy club to see if they want a copy of the article for their monthly newsletter. All of it turned out pretty well.
Anal-retentive? Sure. And that’s one of my good points! 🙂 But flexible anal-retentiveness apparently.
Today I choose a new approach or work process to blogging.
My “Today I choose” chain broke today after 12 updates. My previous records were 8 days straight, and then 9. But today, I don’t feel like I was making any real “choices”. More just trying to keep my head above water, and I’m not sure I even did that.
I slept badly, again, but finally got some decent sleep around 6/7, and woke up feeling like another 12 hours would have been great. Read some stuff for work while eating my breakfast at my desk, had trouble connecting to the network, but didn’t fuss too much until I realized my morning conference call was coming up, and then I couldn’t get it to connect at all, only to find out the call was actually on the regular conference line instead of a video call. Nice going, Mr. Planner.
Good conversations at work today, but for lunch, I was running late on the work stuff and so just dashed over to Tim Horton’s for sandwiches for Jacob and I, as I was too late to get one for Andrea. And she never wants anything for snackies, so I get back, and she’s still eating her lunch so could have had a snack with us i.e. doughnut or TimBit which of course I didn’t get her one. We split mine, all good.
By late afternoon, I was feeling like yesterday’s breakfast, so ended up taking a nap. I thought I would be an hour, if that, but I actually managed to sleep and woke up feeling great at 6:00. We need groceries, and our fridge was uninspiring, so we defaulted to food at the local pub and we actually went over and ate there. A whole section of the restaurant to ourselves, it seemed. But, tbh, that’s a default script, not a choice. Sometimes it IS a choice, this one wasn’t, it was just the path of least resistance to fuel.
Back home, we played cards for awhile which was nice, but that choice is now habit and routine, not a conscious “unique” choice to celebrate. Or rather, I made that choice a long time ago.
Afterwards, I thought about blogging about my new astronomy project, I really enjoyed some stuff I was reading yesterday, but I just wasn’t feeling it. I thought I would go to bed early, but it is now after midnight, and I’m still typing and screwing around on my computer accomplishing nothing. I was just randomly surfing and reading news stuff.
I tried being semi-productive, but I can’t get my tablet to synch properly with my desktop to transfer some pictures over and this glitch of connecting to the network is really beginning to piss me off. I think I’m going to have to switch Jacob’s phone over to synching with the cloud constantly rather than manually, since his didn’t synch, and since my tablet wouldn’t synch either, I’ll likely do the same for it. But that wasn’t a choice I made tonight, it was just me pushing a decision off to a time when I have more headspace.
About the only thing I felt was a “choice” today was that I started migrating my astronomy resources from my bedroom shelves to the basement to go with all the other astro mags. I would kind of like to move a bunch more stuff out of the bedroom shelves to the basement, if only to free up the space and let me move one of two large bookshelves to the basement for added storage. I might be able to move both, which would be nice. Neither one really belongs in the bedroom, I just didn’t have good options in the office previously.
But honestly, I just moved about 20 books to the basement. That’s it. Not exactly giving me goose bumps. Seems more like simple housework than a conscious choice about how I live my life or stay in the moment.
I know some of my blah feeling is likely a result of my sinuses going haywire with the change in temps, although I thought my BP was going wonky too. Except that I have tested it twice, and it’s actually lower than normal.
I toyed with the idea today of re-kickstarting my quote collection but even though it wouldn’t have been much work either, I still wasn’t into it.
Just a blah day. But I couldn’t feel even like making a choice to feel blah was a choice. It was just the lowest common form of existence I could muster today.
Hope you made conscious choices today…my daily streak ends at 12 days.
