Carpet Replacement Epic Fail

About two weeks ago a small note was attached to the clipboard next to our front door which explained that Wymount was planning on replacing all of the carpet in apartments within our quad. At first I told myself that I didn't want them to come and then I convinced myself it would be okay since Holly and Jack were out of town as long as the process did not require me to disassemble my crib and treadmill that are in a back bedroom. Both of them had to be put together inside of the room because they were too big to fit through the door.

It took a few back and forth phone calls with Wymount to organize the best possible day, which turned out to be yesterday. I had to work all day because Roxy is gone for the week, so I was out of the apartment by 8:00am and after work went over to Shyla and Russell's house for dinner and games, so I did not return home until 10:30pm.

From the discussions with Wymount I was lead to believe that because I had emptied the entire apartment onto the balcony or into closets so the only thing on the carpet when I left was the bed, couch, crib, and treadmill that the crew would have more than enough time to finish the entire apartment in one day because I would be gone and nothing would be in their way.

Clearly I was mistaken.

When I got home late last night I arrived to an apartment with every single light on in the house. Added to that as I got to the top of the stairs I noticed that both the front door and balcony door had been left wide open and unlocked whenever the crew had left for the day. Walking inside I noticed new carpet in the living room, nursery, and living room closet, but no carpet, not even the old carpet, in the bedroom or storage closet/office. The floor had been stripped down entirely to the concrete base.

Furthermore, my bed was piled in a corner of the living room on its end with several pieces of furniture I had put on the balcony piled up to the ceiling in front of it (I still don't know how that happened) and my couch had been put on end in the kitchen with other things piled behind, effectively blocking me from reaching any food, dishes, or cleaning supplies.

By this time I was livid. I really needed to be able to move things back into the apartment from the balcony when I got home because I had certain things that needed to be done the next day. But no, it gets worse. While inspecting the mess I noticed at least four or five used razor blades littering the carpet throughout the apartment. If Jack were home and not in California he easily could have discovered one of those and sliced his hands up something fierce.

Wait for it... it gets even better.

After taking everything in I decided it might be worth it to try and find somewhere else to sleep for the night. I didn't have the energy or the time really to move furniture to somewhere else to make room for the bed or to empty the kitchen so I could get to my food. So, I tried calling Shyla and Russell back, but I'm pretty sure they went to bed immediately after I left. Shawn Saunders was unreachable as well, and all my friends in the ward are out of town on internships.

So, I tried getting online, but wait, my computer had dead batteries. No big deal right? Just plug it in and see what I can do. Yeah... there isn't a single outlet in my apartment that works right now. None, nada, zilch. The only electricity that works is the overhead lighting. No air conditioner, no microwave (even if I had been able to reach it), and I'm willing to bet I'm going to need to check the refrigerator for spoiled food because it likely lost power for about 24 hours as well.

All in all, a nightmare. I wound up pulling a few blankets from the top of our closet and sleeping in a corner of the nursery, and this morning at 8:00am I went over to the Wymount office before work and after listing off my complaints told them that if the power and carpet were not fixed before I get home today they will be giving me a credit for my July rent when it comes due in one week.

I don't know if they got the message or not, but they said it would be fixed by 5:00pm when I get home. We'll see if that is really the case, and if not I might have to pull a Dad or something, we'll see.

New Office Space

With the imminent arrival of our second child it has been on my mind lately as to how I am going to make room for another little one to live here in our small Wymount apartment. Space is sort of at a premium, and we have enough stuff that rearranging only does so much good in the long run. Add on to that the fact that we will just accumulate more stuff when the new baby arrives and I have my own little cocktail for living space disaster.

However, a few weeks ago I had an idea. This particular apartment has a rather "largish" walk in storage room attached to the bedroom, which we just had a bunch of stuff thrown into in order to get it out of our way. I thought that perhaps if I were to take the time to clean it out I could maybe alter it into a sort of half storage, half office type of area and free up a bunch of space in the second bedroom for a second baby.

After several hours of work this past Saturday the following results came to fruition. I think it turned out rather well, and after a couple of days "working" in my new office I'm beginning to wonder why I never thought of it to begin with.

My Perfect Workspace

I often go on and on about how I wish I had this amazing dream office that was filled with all sorts of wonderful things like a massive desk, four computer monitors, picture windows, and huge bookcases, but if I am 100% honest with myself, I really need much less to be happy when I am working on anything from paying the bills to writing code for a website and everything in between.

Today is a slow day here at the office and I'm trying to keep up to speed with my blogging goals for this year, so I thought it might be fun to expound on my perfect "workspace" for a little while, using the constraints of the small apartment that I currently share with my wife, son, and soon to be second child. Obviously that means I don't have much space, perhaps barely a corner of a room to work with, so lets see what I can come up with that seems reasonable.

Computer: I currently own a nice 13" Macbook, which is more than capable of meeting my computing needs. If I need to upgrade my RAM or my hard drive capacity I can do so for a relatively small amount of money in the future without needing to replace the computer altogether.

Computer Monitor: The laptop I own has a very small screen which is fine for when I am on campus or working away from home, but when I need to really buckle down and be productive a bigger portion of real estate is much appreciated. For this last Christmas my parents gifted me a great 22" flat screen monitor which works like a charm and when connected to my laptop gives me plenty of space to work. Many days I will use just the external monitor, but sometime the dual screen is nice for whatever I'm working on at the time.

Printer: Doesn't need to be anything fancy. All I need is black and white printing mostly with the occasional color print, so the basic inkjet that we currently own works like a charm, no need to change anything in this category.

Desk Chair: I like a comfortable desk chair, especially since I spend a lot of time sitting in it. Right now I have a great chair that I received as a birthday present a couple of years ago, and it works like a charm, the only problem is that it is a bit on the big side and as more children keep arriving I'm a bit concerned it might be taking up too much space at the moment. Mostly my chair just needs to be good enough that I don't get sore sitting in it for long periods of time.

External Keyboard & Mouse: Already have both of these and don't plan on replacing them anytime soon. I like wireless for my mouse, and would prefer wireless for my keyboard, but the wireless keyboard available from Apple isn't full sized yet, so I'm current wired in that regard.

Filing Cabinet: I have enough papers and records that I need to keep on file that a filing cabinet would be a wonderful addition that I don't have at the moment. I don't need a large one by any means. One of those small two-drawer types would work just fine, or even one that has a small drawer for office supplies on top and a filing drawer below would work well.

Shelving: I am not sure that I need an entire bookshelf, especially not if I have a filing cabinet or a desk drawer of some type, but one or two medium sized shelves of some type would be nice. Just enough room to keep my reference books and perhaps some other random items that I use on a regular basis.

Desk: Right now I'm working with a $5 desk that I bought from the BYU auction when I first got married, but if I'm honest it is about twice as big as I need it to be and if I could find something smaller that had just enough room to hold my monitor and keyboard/mouse I would be alright. I don't do a lot of writing or "open desk" work so extra desktop space is not a necessity for me right now, if ever.

Office Supplies: There are a few things that I like having on hand so I don't have to go searching for them. They include: Pens, Scissors, Ruler, Three Hole Punch, Printer Paper, Rubber Bands, Paper Clips, Stapler, Lined Paper, Manila Folders, Highlighters, Mechanical Pencils, Labels, and a few other random things I can't think of off the top of my head.

So, I think that is a reasonable list of things, and the great thing is that I already own most of it, excluding the cabinet or a smaller desk. The only problem I'm facing at the moment is where to put my workspace because the apartment isn't all that conducive to me keeping it in the same room as the babies, especially not when the second one arrives, and I'm not a very big fan of having it out in the living room with everything else.

One idea I have been tossing around lately is to reorganize the oversized storage closet we have into a sort of makeshift office/workspace if I can find a table or desk small enough to fit. I think I could make it work for the time remaining that we have here in Provo, and it would allow me to shut myself off from the party crowd as well because of the small door it has. The only thing I'm worried about is whether it is too cramped, but when Holly is gone in June to visit her family in Redlands I think I may give it a test drive and see if I can find a way to make it work somehow.

Moving In

As many of you already know, Holly and I decided to move back to Wymount last weekend. The decision was based on a variety of reasons that I'm not going to expound upon, but it should suffice to say that having our own place is a benefit to us in both the short and long term.

The move went pretty successfully. Holly and I had everything packed by Friday afternoon and then I rented a U-Haul for Saturday morning and had a few guys from the Wymount ward help me load it and then unload it. All in all it took about 3 hours to get it done from start to finish.

We moved back into an apartment that has the same floor plan as our very first one, which meant unpacking took very little time at all. We knew where to put everything off the top of our heads and didn't have to sit and wonder where things should go. Along with that, we got rid of a ton of stuff, which means we have a lot more "growing space" for Jack as he gets older and starts accumulating some of his own stuff.

There are still a few things left at Grandma Chatfield's house, like the crib which I'm going to go and take apart to move over this evening, and some of our pictures that we will certainly want to hang up over here at the new place, but we are almost entirely settled. I know that Holly is liking having her friends around again, and I feel like being closer to campus is going to be better for us in that I have more of a chance to come home if I need to some days between classes.

I'm sure I'll post some pictures soon once we officially have everything over here.

U-Haul Reserved, Now to Pack

Just got off the phone with the Provo U-Haul and it looks like they are good to go with giving me a 14' moving truck for this coming Saturday morning. I can only have it until 2:00pm however, so I will have to work fast. I don't think I'll need more than one trip though, we have already taken a bunch of stuff over to the new place, and the only thing left in the storage unit is the treadmill, which doesn't take up that much space.

With this development I think I'm going to refrain from using my car to take boxes back and forth to the new apartment because the truck will have way more than enough room. I would say that almost half of our belongings are already at the new place, so if Holly and I go over and empty a few boxes tonight to supplement the ones we've already got at home we should be able to pack just about everything and just take it in the truck on Saturday. That will be helpful with the workload of other stuff I need to get done this week.

I have a big presentation for my CHum 489R project in about 90 minutes, and I'm hoping that it goes well. I checked this morning and they only have VGA connections to the monitors in that classroom so I spent my morning transferring my database tables to my own server space so I could get to everything online and not have to use my computer. It was a hassle, but worked, so the problem is solved I guess. I could have used the time to get some other homework done I didn't do yesterday though.

Busy Week

Most of you know by now that Holly and I are moving back to Wymount this coming weekend, which means that we've been spending a lot of time packing and trying to plan things out properly. Holly packs several boxes each day, and then we take them over to the new place each evening when I get home from work. The goal is to get all of the small stuff over there without having to get a massive truck to do it. So far it is working out nicely.

On Saturday morning I'll get the smallest U-Haul available and have a few guys from the ward help me move the big furniture like the bed, couch, and crib, and then we should be mostly done. Thankfully if there are a few straggling items, Grandma Chatfield isn't going to care if we have to come back for them over a couple of days next week. That takes the edge off the stress of getting everything done right at once.

The weather has picked back up, which means I'm back on the Federation of Joy every day, which pleases me to no end. I like being able to feel like Holly has the ability to go somewhere if she needs to, and do things with her sisters or someone without needing to wait for me to get back from campus. The other plus is that by living in Wymount again I can come home for lunch if I have time between classes because the scooter makes parking next to the buildings I need to be in so convenient.

Also been working on a massive project for my CHum 489R class this past week or so. Russell is my technical advisor and has been very patient with me as I worked through a few hurdles. However, the past two days I've managed to clear the hurdles myself as I am finally understanding how a while() loop is supposed to work, and the proper ways to refer to objects and join database tables together. It is nice to feel like I'm learning something and having it stick, even if it seems like it is always a small piece each time.

I have to give a presentation on this project tomorrow morning and I'm hoping that I have enough done to keep myself from looking like a slacker/fool. Russell seems to think that I'll be much further along than anyone else, but until I see that I'm still a little bit worried. The core of the project site is working now, but I'm hoping to tack on a couple of "bells and whistles" before the presentation tomorrow to try and make it a little more complete. I do like the style that I've applied to the site though, I'm quite proud of that. It looks very modern and sleek. Once I have it up on an actual server (curse you slow BYU people) I'll post a link so people can see what it looks like so far.

Let's see, what else is going on... Oh, I was sick, then Holly was sick, and Jack wound up catching a little bit of it, but nothing too bad. He even learned how to shoot snot out of his eye the other day, which I told him was not a skill that we really needed to practice a whole lot if he didn't mind.

That's all of the big news for now, mostly just trying to get my list of things done each day and help Holly as much as I can when I get home in the evenings.

Commuting for the First Time

Growing up, there was never much of a reason for me to commute anywhere. Obviously my father did, especially when we were living in Broomfield and he would ride the bus to work each day. Even in Bartlesville he had to drive 10 minutes or so to the other side of town to get to and from work, but I know he liked that much more than riding the bus.

As for me, I went to school via bus or car each day, and I never had a job that took more than about 3 minutes to get to so I would never have considered myself as a commuter. Not even once I got to Provo and started school here at BYU have I had the opportunity to classify myself with the other commuters. Living on the edge of campus precluded that until now.

With a new place to live with Grandma Chatfield all the way up in Orem, Holly and I now have to actually make sure to leave each morning in time to make it to work and class. It's not a long commute by any means (about 15-20 minutes depending on traffic), but it does give me a funny feeling of being "official" in my daily endeavors. Silly, I know, but true nonetheless.

Holly takes the car to campus each day and I mosey along on my scooter, which has almost 500 miles on it now (it's saving a lot of wear and tear on the car). That allows her to get home when her classes are over at 11:00 and I can come home in the evening when mine are finished. The morning traffic is always interesting, and I've found myself trying to think of alternate routes to get to campus on days when the traffic is particularly heavy. For the trip home each day I've found a very scooter friendly route up Canyon Road that keeps me away from the majority of the cars on the road for most of the trip.

Living with Grandma is a blessing as it's saving Holly and I a boatload of money right now, and having Grandma around is pretty fun, but the commuting part is interesting. I don't get to come home for lunch as often anymore.

Move = Complete

Well, right now I am sitting here at Holly's office on the internet because Comcast cannot install ours at Grandma Chatfield's until next Monday, but that's okay, I get a lot of things done when I don't have internet access.

We are all moved in to Grandma's basement and have discovered that we have a lot more space for things than we had originally hoped, so that means we have a nice little cozy house downstairs and a nice cozy kitchen, bathroom, and living room upstairs. It is working out quite nicely so far.

Almost all the boxes are unpacked now; we only have 1 left that is filled with the photo albums to still put away, and then some organizing to do in the storage closet shelves that Grandma said we could rearrange however we need to fit some of our odds and ends.

It is so nice to have somewhere to come home to that is less than 80 degrees every night, and somewhere I don't have to listen to the loud drone of a window unit air conditioner or super loud heater while trying to watch some TV. Not to mention that real carpet, real walls (not cinder block), and a few ceiling fans. Better yet, we have a dishwasher and a washer and dryer so we don't have to pay for laundry anymore, which makes me very happy.

So far so good, and school starts in a week, so then things will get to be even more exciting.

Packing for the Move

I'm determined to be packed completely by the time I go to bed on Friday night this week, and so far I think Holly and I are doing a good job of accomplishing that goal.

Last night, we packed the entire bedroom except for the bed, a few clothes to get us through the week, and our alarm clocks. All the extra shoes, sheets, towels, clothes, and other knick-knacks got put into boxes and stacked with everything else in the office. I figure if I pile the boxes in one room it will make it less confusing than having small stacks all over the place.

We also have the hallway closets packed, the entire office, and most of the living room except for the TV and DVD player. The kitchen is the last big project for packing, but I need to finish the dishes first before I can undertake that endeavor. Packing the kitchen is interesting because we don't have to take any of it with us to Grandma's. She obviously already has a kitchen full of dishes that we can use.

However, I'm going to take my new popcorn maker, and Holly wants her bread maker, so it will be joining us as well. I'm also going to take a few of my big cereal bowls because Grandma only has the little ones and they don't work so well for how much cereal I like to eat in one sitting. That's it though, all the plates, pots, silverware, cups, and everything else is going into the storage unit until we move on to another location.

As it turns out, after having Russell, Joe, and Lee help me rearrange things over at Grandma's there is way more space in our little basement apartment, so we are excited about that. I think we'll be able to keep our daily routine pretty much the same except for having to go upstairs to get to the kitchen and bathroom, but that isn't a big deal by any means.

An Old School Saturday

This weekend, I was determined to get 100% caught up in things around the house. That meant getting all of the dishes done, the laundry done, the house vacuumed, the rooms tidied up, and anything else I could think of. Holly had to do a bunch of text for work, so I was left to my own devices around the house while she spent several hours doing that. I'm pleased to say that I finally accomplished it all. The dishes were entirely done, the house was all nice and clean and I got lots of other things done that I wanted to finish as well. It made me feel good to finally have a weekend where I did that stuff instead of just being lazy and then stressing out about it during the week.

I also go the Vespa to fire up again after a couple of days where it didn't seem to want to work for me, and made a trip to the Creamery for a few groceries and such. Riding a scooter really is a lot of fun if you ask me.

Holly also needed to get out of the house for a little bit in the evening hours because she had been sitting on the couch working all day, so we went to see what types of things we could find for her in the maternity clothes area. We wound up at the Motherhood Maternity in the Towne Center mall and she came home with a new pair of blue jeans that she seems to think are marvelously comfortable, so I guess it was a good trip.