Back to the Cubicles . . .

I've got my bag packed for work like some idiot schoolboy.

The bag contains the essentials: My ID card and lanyard, a collection of sticky notes with semi-important information on them, two cans of Diet Pepsi, a few reuseable plastic cups for said Pepsi, some file folders I swiped from work when work from home started 5 1/2 years ago, a few pens, the picture of Dad and his 1948 Ford that I had in my cubicle out at RMWC, and a ceramic container that my brother bought for me at a thrift store becaus he thought it looked like me. And he's not wrong:

What I really want to do is go in my first day wearing my pajamas, but I don't think they'd let me get away with that, and I really need this job, so jeans and some kind of shirt will be the order of the day.

I may bring more tchotchkes out there, as I don't want my cubicle to be completely sterile. Maybe some books to put on the shelves and such. Or a LEGO set or two. We'll see about those. I'd bring my plastic rat, but he's now living inside the wall where the house water shutoff valve is, and I'm pretty sure he likes it there.

The whole thing is giving off this kind of vibe:

A Few Updates on the Bathroom, and on the Fridge

I'm beginning to sound like a broken record here, I know. But the bathroom and the mysterious fridge recovery continue to dominate the week, into the weekend now.

First, the bathroom.

I got some drywall up, but that was about it. I ran out of drywall screws and had to go buy some more, and by the time I got home from that, Michelle and company were home from camp and that meant a lot of hauling stuff into the house and then taking the camper with really full wastewater tanks to the dump station. Fun times. And all the travel had really loosened up the black water tank, so the camper was rather pungent inside. Hopefully it's better now. I flushed a lot of water through the system.

Evidence of the drywall in place. I have a little bit more wallboard to put up, and I need to cut a bigger hole around the valve area so plumbers can get in there in the future though it might be easier going in through the closet on the other side of the wall. It's a good feeling seeing all those exposed studs getting concealed again. But the thought of moving on to the tile makes my lips numb.

Then onto the fridge: I enjoyed a big glass of cold milk tonight, straight from the fridge. Wow. Don't take a functioning fridge for granted. It's been nice having it working again. We just need to go to my father-in-law's house to retrieve the rest of our food now.

The Fridge is . . . Fridging

So I plugged the fridge in this morning, after leaving it unplugged for two days. It had stopped leaking water, or melting whatever it was inside its innards. I mopped up, at the end, about a gallon of water.

And the fridge appears to be fridging again.

I don't know what to think. Maybe there was a lot of frost deep inside that needed some time to melt before things could get feeling better again. But it seems it *is* feeling better again.

I'm still going to hold on to our appliance repair appointment for Tuesday, if only as insurance. Maybe it'll go south again. And why did it freeze up to the point the fridge part wasn't working? There still might be something wrong with it.

I have emptied the last cooler into the fridge, and will keep an eye on things overnight, but sofar, so good.

It Was Nice While it Lasted, Work from Home

When work ended Thursday, I shut off my work computer.

It's been a while since it's been shut off. I do restart it regularly so it can install updates, but it's rarely completely shut down.

I had to, though. Work from home ended this week.

Today, I hauled all my stuff to my new cubicle.

This is the only stuff I can show you; two monitors and a box of paper for the recycling bins (I used to be able to haul it to a local recycing dropoff, but the big recycling outfit in town shut it down*, so I've just been storing it, like urine on Apollo 13).

I just dropped stuff off at the cubicle; I didn't stay to set things up. I'm not getting paid for this trip, so I wanted to make it as quick as possible. Shouldn't take too long to set up on Monday.

That leaves my home work space looking empty and dusty:

I think what irritates me the most about this is the work I've put in this spring and summer on a wired home network -- I had to have a wired connection for the work computer; no wifi for it -- is kind of moot. I'm still going to finish it because by golly I spent a lot of time running cat6 cable so I'm not going to waste the effort. Besides, I like the faser speed I get on my own computer having a wired connection.

One bright spot: I've converted the work space into an actual space for my own work, plus one of the many "to be read" book piles and my Atari.

I'd still rather be working from home, but c'est la vie.

They suggested by omission that I could leave the dual monitors and the laptop dock at home for . . . I don't know what, because they really killed hybrid work but pulled the plug on full-time work from home to make those losing the hybrid option feel less bad about the situation. I figured, though, since I have my own storage problems with my own personal extra monitors and other electronics, I was not going to offer free storage for company equipment despite the vaguely-dangled carrot of occasional home use. It wasn't said explicitly, so I'm not expecting it.

One thing is true: I worked many days from home when I wasn't necessarily feeling well, but could continue working as long as I had quick and private access to a bathroom. Now that I have to drive across town -- still better than catching the bus out to the desert, mind you -- if I happen to wake up sick, I will be taking more sick days. One of the intangible benefits companies get from work from home employees that you just don't hear about.

*They also shut down their own shop, saying they're building new digs and have been really catty about where it is and when it's going to open. I suspect they hope to increase their curbside recycling customer base through devious means. Not going to work on me.

WALLBOARD UP!

That first photo is significant, in that it shows the wall board I've had stashed in the hallway is finally (mostly) in place in the bathroom. I really lost my steam on this project this summer, but I'm weary of not having a functional bathroom in the basement.

Thanks to Tina Renee Cleverley I have a piece of drywall to hang up as well to finish roughing things in, but that'll be tomorrow. I'm beat.

I don't know that I'll start on the tile this weekend, but I certainly want to get things to the point that I could begin laying things out. Mostly because I want the toilet back, but also because I'm really tired of the bathroom sing being in the study and blocking my bookshelves.

Second Life is Still A Thing?

So way back in the late 2000s, I earned a masters degree in English with an emphasis on technical writing.

In the intervening years, that degree has led me to a side job of teaching online English courses and thus has helped me earn back the money invested in the education and then some. (Not that I should justify education by increase earning power or return on investment, but here we are.)

Part of that degree included a semester spent in Second Life, for some reason. It was an elective class that fulfilled a degree requirement, so I took it. I remember we had the goal of making an in-world business, so you could call me an early metapreneur. Or not, because the business we put together went nowhere, but I got an A in the class and earned my degree, so it served its purpose.

Recently, I thought I'd look to see if Second Life was still a thing.

Regrettably, but not surprisingly, it really isn't. Or is too confusing of a thing for my addled Gen X brain to decide is worth pursuing further.

I think the interface confused me. I recovered my username and password (luckily I used an email address I still have access to when I registered the first time, rather than my student account which is now defunct).

But upon entering, I discovered I had to create a new username and password to enter the individual areas of Second Life. After a bit of confusion and Googling, I did so, and decided, after having to reinstall the software and drift into the new area which seemed to be completely unpopulated, that it just wasn't worth the bother.

There are probably places I can go online to find out where the "activity" is on Second Life, but I just can't be bothered.

The Fridge Isn't Fridging, Day 4

Today's surprise: Water. About half a gallon on the floor underneath the fridge. The fridge that I'd unplugged the night before.

No idea where it came from, unless there was more frost deeper inside the unit that needed more time to melt than I gave it.

It was not from the icemaker, or at least I don't think it was a leak, as the amount of water didn't grow as I mopped it up.

I don't dare plug it in now, leastwise until whatever was leaking dries up a little more. I can hear water sloshing somewhere when I move the unit.

Tuesday just isn't coming fast enough. I hope I don't have to call a plumber in the meantime.

This poor man full on had a heart attack on a kids' show, and we loved him for it.

Why is the Save Icon a Vending Machine?

When I saw this comment on a random Facebook thread, I felt my age:

I mean, I understand that we tend to identify images with what's familiar, so seeing the save icon as a vending machine at least makes sense in the "that thing looks like another thing" way.

But what, I wonder, does the vending machine have to do with preserving a document or image so it can be used later? I just don't know.

I know for me, floppy discs are a ubiquitous part of my computer-related experience, from the AOL 3 1/2 inch floppied I'd salvage from the mail and use (can't imagine doing that now with viruses and such) to the massive 8-inch floppies I used on typesetting computers I used in high school, viz:

I've used all three of these; owned computers that used the mid- and smallest variety. And I remember the day I filled a 3 1/2 inch floppy COMPLETELY FULL with data. No one in the world had ever done that before, I imagined.

Also: It really bugs me that the 3 1/2 inch floppy shown here is oriented upside down in relationto the other floppies displayed. But the younger generation, looking at this photo, will likely not notice the discrepancy because they've never used these things and the youngest don't even know what they are.

It's best to remember young folk, that we Gen Xers grew up with technology. Because of that, we have the ability to both adapt to new technology like you young folks and to complain about it like Boomers. That is our unique niche.

The Fridge Isn't Fridging, Day 3

So yeah, the fridge is not working in its current configuration.

I called to set an appointment with a repairman, and he can't come until next week. That's okay. It's just two of us at home right now and we're living out of a cooler which is kind of a pain but it's working.

Whether we buy a new fridge out of the deal isn't yet known. I'd like to find out what's wrong with the one we've got and see if can be repaired. I don't want to instantly throw it away; we already throw away way too much as a society. If it can be fixed at a reasonable price, with a reasonable chance of lasting at least a few more years (say, five to seven) I'm happy to get this one fixed and keep using it. We're too primed to toss something and replace it with something new rather than fix what we've got these days.

Not to Mention KERMIT the Damn FROG!

I'm glad YouTube is now promoting their very overplayed ads as standalone videos now, because how many times have I gone to YouTube and thought, "I really hope they play that commercial featuring the dog with the stoopid human voice."

Just in case Jimmy James is listening, I'm sitting here *enjoying* some advertising, not involved at all.