Well… This is going to be a really big blog entry. I haven’t updated it for a while and a lot of stuff has happened since the last update.
First off, on Wednesday the family went to the Chanhassen Dinner Theater and saw ‘Annie’. I was expecting something much more sappy than what we got. It was quite entertaining and not at all what I was expecting.
Then the next night Liz and I went to the Jungle Theater and saw ‘Recent Tragic Events’. As you might expect it was about the September 11th terrorist attacks. It was set on September 12th and was very good. The first act was quite amusing and the second act was very sobering. There was a lot of stuff about free will vs. predestination and freedom to act vs. feeling that you have to do certain things. I enjoyed it very much.
Friday we decided to go to IKEA and look at bunk beds. We all thought it would be cool to get bunk beds for the kids so they could have space underneath for a desk or dresser or such. We wandered around, looked at beds and talked about it. We didn’t buy anything because the van was in the shop. The van was in the shop because the ABS pump was acting up again (for the second time since we bought it) and it was under a recall, so it was free (again.) The shop manager told me that they had the van idling in the shop when the pump just started smoking! Glad it didn’t do that while we were driving it.
Anyway, we didn’t get a chance to pick up the van on Friday, so on Saturday we picked up the van and then we went back to IKEA. We bought two loft beds and a wardrobe. The loft beds could be picked up in the warehouse but the wardrobe had to be brought out to the ‘Furniture Pickup’ area after we bought it.
Why? I don’t know.
Anyway, we loaded up the loft beds and got in the checkout line. Liz and Steph had to be somewhere at 1:00, and it looked like we weren’t going to make it through the checkout in time for that, so they took off in the car.
Roz and I stayed behind to pay and load the van. I assumed that IKEA would have people to help you load your stuff. That turned out to be a bad assumption.
Have I mentioned that all this stuff is made out of particle board? It’s f’n heavy! The loft beds came in two boxes each. Each box was about 3 foot by 7 foot and weighed at least 70 lbs. Liz and I had fun just loading it onto the cart.
So as Roz and I checked out, I asked the cashier if they had anyone to help load the stuff into the car and she looked at me like I was insane. No, they don’t. Boy, this is going to be fun.
Then Roz and I headed over to the Furniture Pickup area. Where we waited. And waited. And waited. It must have been at least half an hour before our stuff appeared. Roz was great. (She’s eight.) She sat around for a while, then she noticed a kid area where she went and hung out while we waited.
Finally they called my name and wheeled out another cart with two more boxes on it. Oh boy. This is really getting fun.
So I wheeled the two carts over to the elevator area and started to move the wardrobe boxes over to the cart with the bed boxes.
No way. The small wardrobe box was fine. It was pretty light. But I couldn’t even pick up the bigger one. There was a man sitting there and he helped me shift the boxes to the other cart. But how to get them into the van? I was just going to have to go down and hope a nice stranger would offer to help.
So we went down the elevator and Roz stayed with the boxes while I went and drove the van over to the loading area. Then I started trying to load them up. Sheesh.
A very nice woman saw that I was having trouble loading the stuff up and helped me out. She didn’t really know how to lift very well, but we got it done. Man that stuff’s heavy. I hate particle board.
I’m going to send a letter to IKEA (not that they will care) telling them that I think they need to improve a couple of things…
So Roz and I drove home and I backed the van up to the garage. I had some saw horses in the garage and managed to wrassle the loft bed boxes on to it so we could open them and unload the pieces into the house.
Then I got to spend the rest of the day assembling two beds and a wardrobe. I must say they stuff is pretty well designed and went together well. But man it’s heavy.
Today was more heavy lifting. The company that I work for is moving out of our old colocation space and they are to cheap to pay someone to move the gear. So they rented a U-Haul and all the sysadmins got to go shlep servers and racks. More really heavy stuff.
I’m getting tired of typing, so maybe I’ll rant some more about that in the morning.
Night night.
