A Teeny Tiny Place Called Home

Photo Safari!

This is a picture tour of my new apartment at The Vistana. It's located immediately adjacent to Christus Santa Rosa and El Mercado downtown, and is currently home to about 32 other tenants and 13 hobos. The objective of the tour is to catch all the Pokemon.

(click on the photos for extra super huge mode.)




So... say you were to walk through the front door of my apartment. It might look something like this.


Excited yet?

If you were to immediately turn around you'd probably then see this.



Nice.

Now supposing, just supposing, you had turned around on a slightly different axis you would have seen this.



My that chair looks pretty relaxing. And a coat rack slash hat holder? Brilliant.

Here's my kitchen. Or at least the part of it I could merge into one photo without it getting all wonky.




That white box has been there for about 2 weeks now. I have absolutely no idea why I have not moved it especially seeing as how it annoys the crap out of me every time I go into the kitchen. The box aside, though, as you can see I have some lovely black appliances to distract from the fact that I don't have a single drawer wide enough to stash my silverware.

Now if you were to keep moving by, say, oh six or eight inches you would now see this.



My kitchen table now sits three, but seeing as that is two more than it typically ever needs to sit that's just fine. Plus one chair has ready access to the dishwasher. Convenience is a must!

Turning 90 degrees to the right and...



My bathroom. With a hangboard on top of it. Does it go there? Probably not. Was there any other place for it? Certainly not.

Inching into the bathroom you see the antrum of the washroom itself.



Phenomenal. The laundry basket may or may not end up being a permanent fixture there depending on whether I can find somewhere else to squeeze a big yellow laundry basket.

A little wider angle now.




So we got some teals, we got some green, some cherry, some tan. Does it work? Maybe a little bit. This is as good as it gets people.

And at the distal end of my washatorium is the toilet.



What a lovely toilet. Unfortunately there was no room for a bidet.

And of course the shower itself.




The pressure is terrible, but I like my new shower mats. I wish more things were made of wood. This apartment would go from "pretty good" status to "pretty great" status pretty easily if there was just more wood. (that's what she said.)

Having completed the bathroom subtour we head back out.



Goodbye bathroom.

Skipping the kitchen we get to the living room/bedroom/office.




Much like the big white box and yellow laundry basket I really do not have the slightest clue as to what to do with the giant fish. As such its place of rest generally rotates between the bed or the couch depending on which I want to use at the time. In other words, its sole purpose at this point is to inconvenience me. I am taking suggestions though.

Now here's the bed/office from a slightly different angle.




You cannot appreciate it, but the bed, desk, and book shelf are pretty much all wedged together. I think it's a masterful use of space. And possibly a fire hazard.

Here's the window.



I am contemplating adding my hanging garden baskets to either end of the window and possibly even screwing in the window baskets below the window itself. Perhaps that will be plant overload, though.

Here's a Psyduck.



And the living room all altogether now.




Breathtaking. Simply breathtaking. The little picture gallery isn't completely done, and, yes, one of the pictures is upside down, but it's pretty spectacular nonetheless. Even from a distance. Note now the hand crafted coffee table constructed from American pine, refurbished couch with throw pillows imported from India, individually blown glass candle holders created in Greece, and a state of the art 19-inch television entertainment center with DVR. Truly this is lofty living indeed.

Quick look back at the kitchen!



Yeah the kitchen light is partially obstructed by the huge metal air conditioning duct -- yet another way in which this place was not designed terribly intelligently -- but too much light just makes bananas go brown anyway.

Here's the kitchen with the lights off!



The picture sucks, but I threw some Christmas lights atop the cabinets seeing as how there's enough space to support a small family of five up there and this is what it looks like. Amazing -- take my word for it.

And done. Didn't think the tour would ever end? I didn't either. There was just so much to see. Man what a blast.

So who got the Jigglypuff? and the Wigglytuff? and the Kookookachu?

Let Them Use Change

Something interesting. Perhaps.

I heard recently on the old radio that new studies in economics could suggest alternative ways to tackle the recession. Briefly detailed, the first study consisted of paying gas station customers $5 for filling out a brief survey before they went in to pay for their gas. Depending on how they were given those $5 determined how they spent it. More specifically, those given the cash in the form of a five dollar bill typically ended up placing the cash in their wallet and moved on with their lives; while those given five individual one dollar bills typically spent a small portion on drinks, candy, and corn nuts; while those given five one dollar coins typically spent the most leaving the store with nothing but Big Gulps, a handful of lotto tickets, and a receipt for their short sightedness. The lesson: either people just really hate one dollar coins and strive to relieve themselves of them as quickly as possible, or smaller denominations of currency leads to increased spending.

To further push this point home a second study was cited. In this study, women house cleaners in China were given a week’s worth of their salary in varying denominations. Those given larger bills tended to save while those given a giant wad of small bills tends to splurge frivolously.

So the practical recommendation? If Obama wants to stimulate the economy, or if Bush wanted to back in the day with his tax rebates, he should refrain from sending out bulk sum checks. Instead give everyone change. Flood the nation with Sacajawea dollars and people will be consuming again in no time.

And I agree. Although likely not terribly practical to dispense sackfuls of coinage, it does make sense that if people feel that they have a lot of something of little value, say a handful of small bills, they will spend it more freely than if they feel they have a few of something of great value, say one or two Grover Clevelands. I can even say I have consciously experienced this effect myself, which is why I propose we go one step further. Let’s join with our transatlantic, Western brethren and adopt the euro! If economists thought people spent one dollar coins fast, they haven’t seen tourists go through shiny silver and gold two euro coins. Not only do they pack greater value into a single coin, but with exchange rates as they are we get even more bang for our buck. Hand a man a handful of euro change, and he will be poor and penniless again in no time. That, my friends, is some serious stimulus spending.

A Series of Poor Decisions

I have made... a series of poor decisions.

I could of had a V-8! *Bonk!*

Anyway.

I decided to pursue some research. Expand some horizons. Advance our collective knowledge. Enter endless amounts of data into an unwieldly sized Excel spreadsheet. It has, unfortunately, like the velociraptors of Jurassic Park, now escaped my control and started opening doors with its razor clawed hands. My research block ended a week ago, and yet I still find myself researching. I will still be researching next block no doubt, and likely researching to my grave. I did not imagine that I would like the whole empirical approach to problem solving -- much preferring the impulsive assertion approach instead -- and the rigorous testing of hypotheses never sounded like much fun to me, but I was curious and so I did it anyway. Mistake! Hours and hours and hours later, and I still have not effectively answered what the risk factors for Clostridium difficile infections in thermal burn patients are. In fact, now knowing how arbitrary the research process is, I am inclined to believe we will never find out. I will have an answer certainly, but that answer will mean beans to me. Plenty to the people who read the research perhaps -- ooh flouroquinolones do lead to C. diff! -- but I will know the secret. Research is madness. Truly it hasn't been that bad, I did get great delight from learning computer shortcuts that made my data gathering more efficient. I like to think I have made "data monkey" into a respectable vocation.

I also decided to assemble my IKEA bed frame a few nights back. At about 2200 hours. Unfortunately it took much longer than the anticipated two and a half hours I expected, and so two days later and some sleeping on the couch I was still assembling the dang thing. I would like to say once assembled, seven or eight hours in total, I had accidentally assembled a magnificent gazebo a la the Simpsons where Homer builds a barn instead of a pool, but all I had in the end was a simple wooden bed frame. With drawers. A simple wooden bed frame with drawers that I now had curiously hostile feelings towards.

And then I decided to use the restroom at work. Upon doing so my pager dumped off my belt and into the toilet. I will leave it up to the imagination what was in said toilet.

Good night ladies and gentleman, you've all been great!

And Now For Something Completely Different

The car! The car! It is here! And it...

is...

beautiful.

After a prolonged stay at the port where it took two weeks to change out four tires -- and likely retrieve 40 lbs of hashish from the wheel wells who knows -- my car has finally arrived. Without a bike rack -- the one extra aside from the "hot chocolate" paint job that I paid for -- but it has arrived nevertheless. And let me tell you, friends, it's pretty great. Driving out in the open air is the only way to drive. It's the way God intended it. Now it's the way it will always be. At least until the day the complicated, convoluted electrical wiring keeping the whole thing together goes haywire as all expensive technology is destined to do. Till that day, however, I will drive a little happier and a little sweatier. Sweet.

The coolest feature, though, was one I was entirely unaware of: the colored light palate. With the flick of a switch the in-cab lights rotate through an array of assorted colors from orange to red to purple to blue to green. The lights are all fairly small, mind you, and you can only really appreciate it at night in the country with a new moon, but I will still say it is rad. Radical even.

I will miss truck, though. Truck's been good to me, and aside from the jettisoning of it's passenger side mirror a while back it has held strong. Truck, if you're out there, reading this, I miss you man. You stay safe now you hear.

Let's Play Jeopardy!

We play two types of Jeopardy at Wilford Hall. One fairly entertaining and always educational. The other, well it kills a little bit of me every turn of the game.

The first version involves Morning Report. We break up into teams and do Jeopardy in the regular TV fashion complete with little hand buzzers. It's pretty great. 'Nuff said.

The second version involves the few pleasant rotations we have each year. In order to complicate them and instill a pervasive sense of fear we are periodically put on "jeopardy." For a number of days were are required to carry our pagers with us wherever we go in the rare case that someone cannot come in for work and a substitute must take his or her place. For some it is an uneventful moment in time that passes before it is even realized to have begun. For others the rare moments seem to rarely be rare. And for some, namely the married men amongst us, it is a chance to strike it rich at the Impregnate Your Wife Lotto. With enough planning, and enough of some other things as well, a beautiful new baby child can be brought into the world right in the middle of one's ward month or ICU block ensuring a garunteed week of paternity leave to, you know, assist the wife with child care and stuff. It is the scourge of childbirth that has created such a terrible taste in my mouth for jeopardy, and I blame paternity leave for all of it.

At this point I would go on about how when we cannot come in due to illness we either still come in or come in once the rigors have stopped while paternity leavers seem to always return 7 days later fully rested, I may then segue into how I rose from bed one morning vomiting and yet still reported for duty, and I could then follow that with even more raving about how every jeopardy I have been on this year, save the one I covered for a friend, has resulted in me being jeopardized, but I will instead end my rant here. Let me just say that Jeopardy sucks, I hate it, and come on people! Enough with the baby making already!

(or let me in on some of the baby making action.)