Robo-pipes!

This structure you see to the left is a result of a ongoing problem with my sink backing up. Saturday night, June and I were sitting on our couch enjoying a movie. We heard a gurgle from the sink. I found it odd, so I took a look. Nothing. But, to be safe, I put the strainer in the drain thinking that would help block anything that might come up the sink. How foolish. A minute later we heard a sound like liquid forcing its way through a tight spot. I ran over to the sink to see brown water rushing into it. BLAAARGH!! So, after bailing out the nasty water to the bathtub, I raised hell with the management and board of our coop. A crew of plumbers came in and busted out a hole to the main pipes and snaked it out with a large electrical snake. And, installed this industrial level piping on my sink. It has a check valve which is supposed to only allow liquid to flow one way. Overkill? Maybe. But, whatever helps water to no come back into my sink is all good. But, to be safe, I purchased this little baby as well. I highly recommend this to anyone that has any problems with backing up pipes. This is made to plug up pipes that have grooves that are too warn away for a screw on stopper. You just place the plug into your drain and turn the bolt. As the bolt tightens, the rubber expands. This creates a air tight seal. They're sold in all kinds of sizes and pressure ratings. I don't think that backing up drains would have that much pressure, so you probably don't have to worry about that. This thing cost me $3.50. Not bad for peace of mind. I got it at my neighborhood hardware store. But, there is much more of a variety online. Now, you know. And, knowing is half... something something. :)

I hear...

...helicopters flying off to the back and to the right. Finally, I have my surround sound. You would think that an audiophile like myself would have been had my surround sound system by now. Alas, I am also frugal, so it took me a long time to justify to myself that I should spend money to have sound surround me. But, as I watched movies, the desire to hear things happen behind me grew stronger. So, I began with picking up the center channel for the clear dialogue straight from the tv and not from a stereo position. And, as the experience was a success, my desire for the full experience grew. My wife sensed this desire growing. Maybe, she just heard me say enough. Either way, she knew I wanted the two speakers to finish my surroundedness. So, for my birthday, she bought me the final speakers to fill out the rear sounds. How awesome is that? Now we watch our movies in glorious surround sound... or we will once I pick up the cables to pull back to connect the speakers. They're fresh out of the box in the photo above. I chose to go with the Bose speakers. I tested Bose sets at many sound rooms and found that this set delivered the fullest sound. Now, I just need a tv and apartment big enough to hold the sound... June?

LEGO me!

I've always been a fan of LEGOs since I can remember. I hadn't played with them since I was small. A little while back I got a job working on some minifigs for LEGO. As I worked on the project I was reminded of how much I enjoyed playing with LEGOs when I was young. And, as I had to get reference for the project, I picked up the coolest set I could find... that didn't cost me too much. So, I got this series called Exoforce. I think its one of the coolest sets they have. I had one robot in this series. I recently found out that LEGO is discontinuing this series, so I had to pick up another robot. I picked up Aero Booster. Above, you see the before.


Here is the after. This series is one of the favorite robot products out there because it brings together two of my favorite things. LEGOs and robots. The fact that its super possible is huge. If you have space, I would highly recommend looking into picking up one of these sets before they are gone forever.

Aaaaand we're back

So, here's the dealio. As you saw in the previous post, we were packing to move to our new place...supposedly. The whole thing fell apart at the last minute. Coops SUCK! If you can do a condo, go for it. The situation is too long to explain. In a nutshell, our management and coop board screwed us. And, we ended up having to pull out of the deal because the board demanded something of us that was not a part of the original arrangement. And, ever since we pulled out, we had been trying to get our downpayment back. If you've attempted to purchase a place before...and had it fall through, you know that this is the tough part. In our case, the seller had good reason to be mad. It would have been aimed at the wrong party, but he still had good reason to be mad. So, we were sweating. We didn't know if we would get our entire downpayment back. The process was started by a termination of contract letter with the request of the return of our downpayment. Then, we waited... and waited. And, waited some more. Our lawyer emailed and called several times to no response. Finally, about a month of this, we threatened to report the seller's lawyer to the bar association. All of sudden we get a response that our check will be Fed Exed to us. With next day delivery even. Obviously, that rat bastard never sent out the check in the first place. Anyway, its all over. We got our entire downpayment back. It's deposited and its in the bank. Thank goodness.

packing up!

So, in the last post, we were starting to tighten up our budget with trips to Trader Joes. And, now, we are have begun the process that we were saving for. Actually, we're coming to the end of the process, but this is the crucial point. Approval, closing, and moving. We're still waiting for our approval meeting and closing. So, we do not officially own our next place yet. But, we have to move whether we get our place or not. A tenant is lined up to move in on the 1st of Feb. So, we are starting to pack up our little studio in preparations to make our move. It's odd how we've been packing a little every night for about a week now, but it still seems like there is so much more to go. There's just boxes piled upon boxes upon boxes. Good thing we have a good source for boxes. We have some good office boxes. Large and small filing boxes. I love how sturdy these are. We'll probably continue to use these for storage in our new place. We also have office moving boxes. Larger even sturdier boxes for moving heavier items. Hopefully, moving the apartment is all we'll need these for. :P Well, back to packing.

V-budget

June and I are planning to buy a place. So, naturally, we are freaking out about money. In this freaking out state, we have decided to take on a V-budget. What is a V-budget, you ask? We have a friend named Vanessa. She is what some would call a cheap ass or others would call frugal and yet others would call very thrifty. Whatever you want to call her, she knows how to save a lot of money. She's in her mid 20s and already a landlord. Not too shabby. So, the V-budget is basically a budget that Vanessa follows. Her system is pretty complex. But, at the very basics, its spending $100 a week on food and common needs (bathroom goods, cleaning goods, etc). And, if you have anything left over of the $100, you roll it over into the next week. And, if you go over, you take it from your next week's budget. June and I don't really spend that much in the first place, so it really isn't that hard of a change. But, we've started picking up groceries from Trader Joes. It's actually pretty fun. It gives us something to do together and actually puts our kitchen to use. Plus, it gives us a sense of where our money is. So, anyway, Trader Joes is a great friend to the budget conscious.

iPhone!

I waited a while to make the move to the iPhone. I wanted to when they first came out, but I usually avoid buying the first generation of anything Apple. There's usually some bug or some huge update that comes up. And, of course, this was true of the iPhone. So, once the G3 version came out, it sounded good enough to jump in. I talked about it so much that June bought it for me for my birthday. She wanted to surprise me with it, but they wouldn't allow her to buy it without me. But, its the thought that's important, right? The iPhone is awesome. There's only been a few dropped signals. That's annoying as hell. But, it doesn't happen enough to really complain about it. Another thing, the maps should be more accurate. I thought it would be like a GPS car system, but its not as accurate. Not bad, but could be better. Other than that, its been fun playing with apps and being able to access information when and where ever I want. Well, not in the subways. But, that's not Apple's fault. I'd recommend the iPhone to anyone that likes gadgets. It's the ultimate gadget. Oh, one other thing, you can't use it as a hard drive. That blows. But, you can buy a flash drive for $10, so its not that big a deal. Anyway, I still would recommend the iPhone. It's AWESOME!

Canned

The little trash can. June pointed out that an open trash bucket in the bathroom might be a little unsightly for visitors. That made sense, so we picked up this little can. It's a mini version of the trash can we picked up for the kitchen. We went with the white to match the bathroom. I picked this up at Bed Bath and Beyond. It's made by Simple Human. I really like their products. All their products have clean simple lines. It works well for small spaces. I guess I'm a simple human. :)

Sloppy Joes!!

Since I've moved to NYC I've always kept an eye out for sloppy joes. I had one at this place and they tried to fancy it up too much. I'm looking for old school cafeteria type sloppy joes. No fancy vegis or seasonings or wraps. Good old tomato sauce and ground meat on a cheap hamburger bun. Maaaybe, some variation in the sauce. But, its important to have the same consistency. It's been years. Finally, my girlfriend and I just decided to pick up some Manwich and some ground beef and make our own. Bought some cheap hamburger buns. Just make sure they're not expired. BAM!! Sloppy joes! MmMmmm, just like I likes em. So sloppy you can't eat it like a sandwich. It takes a fork to eat these if you don't want to wear it. The cheap buns soak up the extra sauce. Best and most important thing, the sauce is not watery. As you can see, the sauce is thick. We threw in some fries for good measure. Awesome!!! Now I just have to find that cafeteria spagetti...

New view

I waited a long time to pick up a new camera. My last camera was a point and shoot Sony that I picked up in Hong Kong due to my other camera being lost in Thailand. Yeah, I was dumb enough to leave the strap of the camera hanging out my pocket. Yoink, it was gone. So, I picked up a Sony that I really enjoyed. Its a great camera. So, I just couldn't find a camera that I wanted to move onto. But, I think the wait was worth it. This is the Canon G9. It's a hell of a camera. It has a full auto mode and there are many settings that you you can adjust manually. For me, I really wanted a camera, that wasn't huge, that I could attach lenses to. Plus, because I like taking pictures without a flash, an image stabilizer was very important. For the longest time, I had to be extra careful about shooting without flash. This camera handles that like a champ. There are so many functions and combinations of functions on this camera that it will take me a long time to even figure it out. But, the pictures are coming out nice. And, I look forward to continuing to learn more and more about this awesome camera.

Yaay, Blueray!

I finally did it. Took the dive and picked up a PS3. I picked up the 80Gig version. We do the Netflixing, so the Blu-rayness of the system was the biggest plus. I have to say that our first Blu-ray experience wasn't a very good one. The video stuck at crucial points. Thank goodness it wasn't one of those movies that it mattered for. But, the video and sound quality is amazing. I'm hoping future movies play smoother. Of course, the PS3 can play games as well. I don't like sports or RPG games, so that really doesn't allow me to see the systems full potential in gaming. But, I do enjoy my driving and racing games. But, mostly, this system will be used to watch movies. I really bought a Blu-ray player with gaming capabilities. The system itself is heavy as hell compared to other systems. It's pretty big too. I'm sure the size will be halfed in a month or two. It comes with one wireless game controller. And, amazingly, it was bundled with a game. Unfortunately, it was a RPG game. So, I picked up a used driving game for $20 in Chinatown. Nice! So far, I'm still loving it.

we got mail

Like a lot of people, we had our mail "organized" on a flat surface. It just gathered and gathered and overflowed. It just looked a mess. On one of our days out we came across this little item. It's a magazine organizer. We decided to use it as a mail organizer. It has seven slots and a small pocket. We have three slots each and one outgoing slot. The small pocket is used to hold a mail opener. We decided to place it in my "work area". My walls are concrete, so I decided to use Command adhesive utility hooks to hang the slots. So far, so good. They haven't fallen, yet. The mail/magazine organizer is made by Reisenthel. We picked it up at the Container Store for $15. Not bad. It comes in three color variations. Brown/tan, green/gray, and orange/red. We decided to go with the orange/ red so we could add a little color to the area. It's been a great purchase for us. It has really helped us organize and keep our mail from adding to the clutter. And, that's extremely important in a studio. Every inch makes a difference.

FINALLY!!

YES!! I finally got a new laptop! My last laptop lasted me almost seven years. I didn't do too much heavy work at home, so the power wasn't so important. But, when I couldn't upgrade to the latest OS because my processor was too slow, I decided that it was time to upgrade. Of course, I picked up the most powerful laptop available. And, yes, this will probably last me another seven years. So, this is my setup. There are three new items in this picture. There is the laptop stand by Griffin that holds the laptop up to meet my inclined drawing board. Then, there is the wireless keyboard by Apple. You wouldn't think so, but reaching out to type on a keyboard for an extended period of time does strain your shoulders. So, I use the wireless keyboard with my Wacom. It's works out great. I had some doubts, but I've really enjoyed the function. So, now, I have to say bye to the Titanium. It's kind of sad. It's been with me for a while. Through relationships, pursuit of relationships, travels around the world, helped me built portfolios, helped me through countless projects, and tons more. It's been with me for seven years. But, all good things must come to and end. But, at least its followed by a laptop that is in the same family.

trashy

This is my new trash can that I picked up for my place. The old one I had was okay, but a little too large and open. What's wrong with that, you ask? Too large makes it hard to fit shopping or take out bags into. Open basket leaves trash open to spread smells. Not that we left all kinds of nasty trash in the bin, but any smell is not good. Especially, when city roaches have an amazing ability to track smells. Yah, the big bad ones, not those small ones you see in restaurants. So, that is why I decided to go with this smaller bin with a lid. This one is by Simple Human. The bin comes with a removable bucket that you can place your bag into. And, the bucket has a hole to tuck the loose bag into. So, you lock the bag into the bucket and place it into the bin. Once the lid closes, you don't see any extra bag. This makes for a cleaner outer appearance. Sometimes the bags do peek out. But, for this picture, its totally clean. I like the stainless steel-ness of the can. :)

Posture-Pedic?

Nope, its a Tempur-Pedic. That's a little joke between my girlfriend and I. She likes to call it a posture-pedic. Anyway, I had been sleeping on a futon for... too long. So, I finally took the next step and bought a grown up bed. Even in a grown up size. Yup, queen sized! And, with the mattress I picked up a tatami platform frame. I chose this frame for its low profile and its simple clean lines. The frame itself does not require screws, but it does require screws to keep the slates in place. The tatami mats do have a bit of a funny(not funny bad, just funny unexpected) smell when you first open the box, but it does go away after about a week. The Tempur-Pedic also has a smell when it is first delivered. But, both of these smells are expected. The bed was a bit on the pricey side. But, I figured it would be worth it since it is used every night. And, hopefully, will be used for a long time. Plus, its worth it if it helps my back feel better. Can't clearly say that its done that, but the bed is much better than my futon. One step closer to being a grown up. Now, I just need a larger place...

scootin along

Whew, its been busy and I haven't been keepin up with my space blog. I have a few items to post, so here we go. This is my new scooter. Its a Xootr. I went with the original with the wooden plank as the base. The wooden base is supposed to have a little give for a smoother ride. I don't know about that, but the Xootr has a pretty nice ride on its own. It's smooth and fast. Great way to get around town. Plus, folding is quite fast and easy. So, getting onto a subway or a bus would be quite easy... maybe not at rush hour. But, when is it ever easy to get on public transportation at rush hour? So, other than rush hour, its all good. And, unlike folding bikes like to claim, its small enough when its folded up to get around in stores and restaurants. So, I would highly recommend the Xootr to those that want to get around town or just scoot around for fun.

New Curtains

I finally got new curtains. I had Ikea curtains for the longest. Yep, the ones moved to my wardrobe. They didn't block out light very well. And, with June not liking light shining in the morning, we needed new curtains. These are from West Elm. They're a little bright, but I thought my "room" needed it. After I confirmed the color with June, we picked them up. :) I think they work well. They keep the light out nicely, which allows sleep to continue just that little bit longer without being disturbed by the morning light. Like when you spend a night in a hotel and you get up in the morning. You open the shades and the blazing light comes through. It's nice to have that at home. They were a little expensive compared to Ikea curtains, but also not as expensive as other heavy curtains. These were a good set of mid ground curtains. Now, sleep goes on. :)

covered up

Yay, I finally put up some curtains on my wardrobe. Open wardrobes only look good on TV and in product shots. In real life, like many other things that look great on TV, a open wardrobe becomes a mess. Shirts and pants start hanging all lopsided and sticking out. Boxes aren't exactly spaced. Shelves aren't perfectly lit. It's just not the same. So, I decided to put up some curtains. I wanted something with clean and simple lines. And, the sliding doors that go with this unit take up too much space and are too rigid.  I ended up getting some small curtain rods from West Elm that matched my larger curtain rod over my windows. And, I moved the Ikea curtains that were on my windows over to the wardrobe. They're a little short now. But, I plan to get another panel and adjust them all to the same length. The appearance came out better than I had hoped. It accomplishes a soft clean look with very simple clean lines.  

creating space

I keep on buying things and my place remains the same size. So, until I can afford to purchase another room, I have to just make room. So, I have a Dahon folding bike. It folds small enough. But, in a 500sqft apartment, it's a little challenging to find space for it. I wanted to hang it off the wall or the ceiling, but that requires drilling into concrete. I'm not ready for that. So, I had to sit it somewhere on the ground. I decided to put it by the entrance. BUT, I can't place it directly on my bamboo floor because it would mark it up. I had some extra FLOR tiles left over from when I created my "lawn". So, I decided to extend a 14" wide strip out from the lawn for the bike to sit on. And, this is what you see in the picture.

laptop stand

So, here's the situation. I use a Apple laptop. I still run the Titanium. Yah, old school. The thing runs hot. Like, cook an egg on the surface hot. It's okay sitting on a desk or on my drafting table. But, it was always a problem sitting on my lap. I'd use pillows, seat cushions, and all sorts of contraptions. So, one day I was looking for stands to elevate the laptop on my "desk". You know, just simple laptop stands. I came across an item that was interesting. A table that had a adjustable height. It really looked like a table top attached to a barber shop chair's base. And, it hit me. I have a spare drafting chair. And, I've been looking for a way to sit on the couch and work on my laptop as I'm watching TV or movies with my girlfriend. You know, have to find that balance. Can't neglect the girlfriend too much because of work. Anyway, this little contraption is wonderful. It may not be the most visually appealing item, but it was made from pieces I had lying around. The functionality of it is great. It adjusts to different heights for different sitting situations. It reaches in close enough to work comfortably, and swivels out of the way when not needed. And, if you replace the wheels with flat legs, its really stable. Again, this is a very no frills idea. I just wanted to see if it works. Now, I'm thinking of finding nicer pieces, so I can make a more appealing stand. But, for now, this works beautifully. So, its a drafting chair base with a Ikea cabinet panel. Bolt it together and you got yourself a nifty laptop table.