Second day of the blitz

RJM62

RJM62

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Geek on the Hill
The cleaning blitz, that is.

A few of you know that I broke up with my lady friend a month or so ago due to her substance abuse issues. We parted amicably, under the circumstances.

Since we split, however, I've been reminded that I'm basically... well... a slob. Not that I have pizza boxes stacked to the ceiling or anything like that. But the place was just... messy.

Okay, it was really messy.

So I decided to "straighten up" a bit. But in the course of doing so, I reached the bottom of a pile of papers and found some pictures of friends and family that I'd printed, but never framed. So I went and bought frames.

But when I took down the existing stuff that was hanging on the walls (sectional charts, cockpit posters, you know... that kind of stuff), I realized how dirty the walls were. You could still see the outlines of the old stuff. So I decided to wash down the walls.

But to wash down the walls, I had to move the furniture. And then I decided that I would like it better arranged a bit differently. So I started moving the furniture.

But when I moved the furniture -- AAACKK! It's amazing what you find behind stuff that hasn't been moved in a couple of years. So I decided to move all the furniture and clean every little nook and cranny.

Of course, moving all the furniture means you have to put it somewhere, which means nothing is in its rightful place, which means the place starts looking like a disaster area. It's like those little plastic puzzles we had when I was a kid where you had to slide the letters to form words.

However, I am closing in on the prize. I have finished the kitchen, and it gleams so much that sunglasses are advisable upon entry. The rest of the rooms are also getting there (mainly putting the furniture back, washing the floors, and shampooing the carpeting).

I've also framed and hung the pictures (about 20 of them so far).

And I've washed down most of the walls.

And I've changed the shower curtain and rearranged the closet in the bathroom.

And I've rearranged my junk storage room.

And I've organized all of my spare computer junk into plastic pull-out storage bins.

And I've spackled numerous holes, and I've started filling in the cracks in the baseboards.

And I've shredded two humongous bags worth of papers, some dating back as far as 20 years ago.

And I am pondering painting... nah, scratch that. I hate painting.

Once I'm finished, feel free to stop by for coffee. I'm right across the water from LGA. Just make sure you bring your sunglasses, because this place is gonna sparkle when I'm done with it.

Thank God for caffeine...

-Rich
 
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don't get it too spiffy. She may want to come back.
 
Crap, dude. I'd be abusing substances too if I was exposed to what you described. Maybe you shoulda' called a HAZMAT team. Here's to your health.:drink:
 
Richard said:
Crap, dude. I'd be abusing substances too if I was exposed to what you described. Maybe you shoulda' called a HAZMAT team. Here's to your health.:drink:
Click to expand...

Actually, I kept it neater when we were together (mainly not to have to listen to her nagging). Most of the stuff was paperwork and unsorted computer paraphernalia. I mean, it's not like I had dirty dishes piled up.

But yeah, the walls and the stuff behind the furniture were pretty inexcusable.

I also found half a sandwich in my goddaughter's beach bag that I think dated back to August... :eek:

-Rich
 
RJM62 said:
I also found half a sandwich in my goddaughter's beach bag that I think dated back to August... :eek:

-Rich
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OMG, you sound like my father. I mean, he buys all his foodstuff at Costco in big lots. The thing is, he'll leave lots of 'goodies' to be found much later. That's the bad news. The good news is there is plenty of it.:yikes:
 
I paid someone $30/hr to clean my place. Best $180 I spent.
 
The blitz is over!

EdFred said:
I paid someone $30/hr to clean my place. Best $180 I spent.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but then that person, not recognizing their value, may have thrown out the following treasures I found in the course of doing it myself:

  • Assorted FPRAM and EDO RAM sticks
  • A 14.4K modem (ISA Interface)
  • An ISA Sound Blaster card
  • Several 5.25" inch floppy disks
  • An AT to PS/2 keyboard adapter
  • A 733 MHz Intel Celeron processor
  • An AMD K6-2 processor (400 MHz), hopelessly stuck to its heat sink
I actually remember building the computer the K6-2 processor belonged to. The 400 MHz K6-2 had just been released, and I decided to build a machine around it. I maxed it out with 384 MB of SDRAM -- the max the mobo could handle, and an almost ridiculous amount of RAM for a home PC at the time. It also had an nVidia RIVA 128 ZX video card on the then-somewhat new AGP interface.

I remember testing the machine on some benchmark site. It ranked in the top 5 percent of all computers that had been tested on the site at that time, and was summarized as "an extremely powerful computer that should be able to handle almost any computing task."

I also remember my geek and non-geek friends coming down to the musty basement apartment I rented back then just to try my PC, and being blown away by its speed. I also had cable Internet, which was one of the reasons I lived in that musty basement apartment: The affluent neighborhood was one of the first in Queens to be set up for high-speed, but I couldn't afford a "regular" apartment there.

That computer also jump-started my getting into IT full-time. It had been a hobby and part-time business up until then, but as word got around the neighborhood, I gradually started making more money from my computer repair business than my day job. The work was mainly hardware upgrades, OS upgrades, and the occasional data recovery job back then. Simple stuff for the most part, but it paid the bills very well for a few years.

Nowadays, I'm not nearly as bleeding-edge as I used to be. The computer I'm using at the moment is about, oh, maybe four or five or years old, but has been upgraded often enough that I think only the case, the mobo, and the floppy drive (which was itself a carryover from a previous machine) are original. Maybe the power supply is original, as well. I built the machine on a then state-of-the-art Gigabyte mobo, which has been rock-solid and still serves admirably.

I did, however, upgrade the video card last week (to an nVidia GeForce 6200 with 512MB onboard, which was the best card I could find at Microcenter for AGP that particular day). I also upgraded to a dual-core processor just yesterday, because many newer video and graphic manipulation apps really do run better on a dual-core. I picked one up on eBay because the mobo has an AMD 939 socket, and I didn't want to replace a motherboard that has been rock-solid stable since I built the machine. So I picked up an Athlon 64 X2 4400 on eBay for $128, and a nice new ThermalTake cooler from Microcenter for about $15.

So yeah, I could have hired one of the neighborhood cleaning ladies to clean the place up, but look what memories I would have missed out on? By the way -- the cleaning is now done, so feel free to stop by for coffee.

-Rich
 
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We won't mention the bottle of pancake syrup with an expiration date in the last century...

-Rich
 
Re: The blitz is over!

RJM62 said:
Yeah, but then that person, not recognizing their value, may have thrown out the following treasures I found in the course of doing it myself:

  • Assorted FPRAM and EDO RAM sticks
  • A 14.4K modem (ISA Interface)
  • An ISA Sound Blaster card
  • Several 5.25" inch floppy disks
  • An AT to PS/2 keyboard adapter
  • A 733 MHz Intel Celeron processor
  • An AMD K6-2 processor (400 MHz), hopelessly stuck to its heat sink
Click to expand...

So, the question is: did you throw that crap out?
 
steingar said:
The question is, why would you even consider painting someone else's property?
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i have friends who just moved into brand new apartments and the first thing they did was paint the walls. i don't get it either.
 
My tenants used to do some projects, but I paid for everything and almost always came in to do the work.
 
RJM62 said:
We won't mention the bottle of pancake syrup with an expiration date in the last century...
Click to expand...
I had some food like that. A couple years ago I had the wild idea to clean out my cupboards. I recognized some things I had brought from my old residence... in 1992.
 
steingar said:
The question is, why would you even consider painting someone else's property?
Click to expand...

I dunno. But the cost of the paint is trivial compared to the $1,400.00 a month rent, and the landlord would probably pay for it, anyway.

It's the painting itself I hate.

-Rich
 
Everskyward said:
I had some food like that. A couple years ago I had the wild idea to clean out my cupboards. I recognized some things I had brought from my old residence... in 1992.
Click to expand...

That half-eaten sandwich in Kimberly's beach bag was a whole lot worse than the pancake syrup.
 
It's called leasehold improvements and is quite common. Always better if the landlord pays, but sometimes it doesn't work that way.

steingar said:
The question is, why would you even consider painting someone else's property?
Click to expand...
 
RJM62 said:
That half-eaten sandwich in Kimberly's beach bag was a whole lot worse than the pancake syrup.
Click to expand...
Yesterday I was rummaging around in the closet in the back of the airplane and I found some science experiments. We have a pilot who likes to save old catering to eat later. These were some fuzzy fruit cups which have been riding along for at least a week. Good thing we haven't hit too much turbulence. :eek:
 
Everskyward said:
Yesterday I was rummaging around in the closet in the back of the airplane and I found some science experiments. We have a pilot who likes to save old catering to eat later. These were some fuzzy fruit cups which have been riding along for at least a week. Good thing we haven't hit too much turbulence. :eek:
Click to expand...

Supposedly Henry VIII's corpse was so full of gas it exploded in his coffin. How they figured that out I'm not sure, unless of course the coffin wasn't closed yet.

Hope no one was eating lunch. :D
 
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