I was up early and working shortly thereafter. Assembling furniture seemed like a bad idea with a wife still asleep (entirely appropriate at 4 a.m.) so I did church work. By 6:30 I was at work on the second dresser, then the second night stand and the bed. It's sad that I don't have to look at the instructions to put together a dresser drawer, but somewhere about #8 I figured out the pattern.
I think we should hire Ikea to run our country. As much as I dislike assembling furniture their system is nothing short of genius. How many gazillion Pflngrngs do they package and ship every year? And I've never come up a piece short or a hole mis-drilled. Every time I thought something was wrong it turned out to be Operator Error. Their stuff looks good (if you like casual, and we do), functions well and is priced very reasonably. I bought a mattress and box springs with a 25-year warranty for half of what I would have paid at Costco and I took it home with me instead of waiting 4-6 weeks for delivery.
Heavy sigh.
Tomorrow I'm going to install a new front door at the rental. I can get a pre-hung steel door for $120 or pay $40 for a jamb that I have to cut to size, drill & mortise...in short, spend more in labor costs than the price of the new pre-hung door. It's just that I hate hanging doors. They have to be set straight, plumb and level on every plane or they don't function properly. Get them aligned perfectly and it lasts until you hit the first nail. Start over. Repeat. Over and over and over.
McGowans arrived this afternoon. We had a GREAT time. They're headed up to Sedona tomorrow. Bruce and Debby drove over from Solvang (CA) with their youngest daughter, Beth (16 and a beautiful, sweet girl). Their son Scott arrived just before them with his girlfriend Carrie from San Diego. Two very bright young people with steep career arcs. Their oldest daughter, Laura, will arrive in the morning and then they'll head up north. Only son Matt can't make it because he's in the last few days of his schooling to be an EMT/Fireman. We all went to dinner at Babbo's and then back here for mint chocolate chip brownies.
I wish we lived closer to each other and could spend more time together.
I had some rock n' roll playing loudly on the radio while I worked on the furniture this morning. Some days and some projects need that.
I had to run up the hill to price out the door and get gas. Needed to wind down and relax before McGowans arrived, so I moved over to the classical music station. And that got me to thinking.
How come contemporary music, whether it's rock and roll, or country (blech!) or R & B or... uses the same tempo and volume through the whole song? Classical music varies all of the above. Even a short piece will have crescendos, tempo changes and even key changes.
We don't talk at the same pitch and volume throughout a conversation. OK, the mother-in-law does, but that doesn't count.
We use tempo, volume and inflection changes to express our thoughts and feelings. Classical music does the same thing. Why doesn't contemporary music?
4 comments:
You should listen to Sigor Ros or Sufjan Stevens.
Adding to Ikea's brilliance - instructions w/o words. They make up names for every product so that they can ship the same box and instructions to every country they serve w/o having to modify it for that language.
Jim, just listened to some of those two from iTunes. Uhm...I can see you enjoying that music. Me?? maybe not. Don't dislike it, but definitely Madcap music.
'Madcap Music' should become an official sanctioned genre!
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