The new sofa arrived from Bassett’s on Saturday afternoon. That was cause for a fair amount of scurrying around to make room for it, as all of the AcoustiSound equipment was stacked in the living room. I had been meaning to get out all last week and get a sheet of heavy plywood to “floor” the van, and so that had to be done early Saturday morning.

I got lucky at the Home Depot, and found someone to lop 6″ off the end of the sheet so it would fit. Seem’s Ford’s better idea (Ford marketers coined the “better idea people” phrase for their advertising some years back. Notice that you haven’t heard that for a while) for the Windstar was to make the floor area behind the seats too small for a full sheet of plywood or drywall, limiting its usefulness as an actual van.

Anyway, with the sheet of plywood installed, it’s a lot easier to load and unload the sound gear, as the wheels on the racks don’t fall into the seat mount holes, and the big, heavy, carpet-covered speakers can be slid in and out much more easily. Sliding carpet against carpet is almost like trying to move a sleeping elephant (don’t ask. It’s early, and I’m very tired).

Anyway, the couch is exactly what we wanted. It was a little hard to be sure in the store with just the little fabric swatches to go on, but it works so well in the room, and it’s really, really comfy!

UPDATE 4/24/08: I’ve uploaded a new picture that may be more representative of the actual appearance of the sofa on most monitors.
 
We ordered a new sofa today, and in 4-6 weeks, we’ll be sittin’ pretty on a new living room sofa that looks vaguely like the picture above (the colors aren’t quite right, but that’s as close as I could get on Bassett’s web site). I think we drove Miss M. at the furniture store bonkers. Of course, it’s the company’s fault — they have far too many choices of fabrics, colors and patterns.

We looked at a butt-load of furniture between Friday night and yesterday, but nothing except this quite fit the rather eclectic look we were going for — something kind of like an old English parlour/reading room. Of course, completing the “look” will require another couple of purchases — a comfy chair; a new, probably chunky-looking coffee table of some sort; and some new curtains.

And, of course, that calls for some minor redecoration in the dining room … and then new floors … and … and … and … Ah, the joys of home ownership …

For those interested, the new PC arrived yesterday — a week earlier than expected, and a day prior to Dell’s estimated shipping date. I’ll have to admit that was fairly impressive. Last night, we went out and picked up a couple of external 500GB drives.

So far, the machine itself ain’t too shabby, either. I’ve managed to load all of the Adobe Production Suite CS3 onto the machine, and verify that all the components load, as well as Adobe Audition from CS2 (Adobe have dropped Audition in favor of a relatively crippled application called Soundbooth in CS3). The installation claimed to have failed, but Audition is running just fine. I suppose I should have loaded the CS2-level-application before loading CS3.

This evening will find me loading more applications and migrating my image library to the new computer, as well as the production music library for video editing. I’ll also be packing the church’s iMac back up, hopefully in time to return it on Sunday morning.

Kiah – The bird. Remember her? Shortly after we got her, I took her down to the avian vet for a check-out. It seemed to the vet that she was generally healthy, but, a bit under-weight. She weighed about 76 grams that day, and a bird her age should weigh at least 85 grams. Well, I’m happy to report that Kiah now tips the scales at 92 grams.

Kiah’s favorite thing now is attempting to rip the keys off the laptop keyboard.

Fish – Remember the aquarium on the dresser in the bedroom? Well, it’s not there any more. The whole crew (8 Tiger Barbs, 2 Dwarf Cichlids, 3 Corydoras and a Pleco) spent a couple of days in a resort tank in the kitchen pass-through, and are now settled in to their new permanent home in the dining room (in their tank, of course, not on the table. There’s not even enough meat there for hors d’oeuvres!).

The bedroom was becoming a problem for a couple of reasons. The dresser was beginning to show the strain a bit more than I had hoped (no “I told you so” needed, please and thank you), and it was difficult to maintain a good environment for the tank there. The bedroom has a southern exposure, and so it tends to be very bright and warm. Bright and warm, coupled with water, makes a great recipe for runaway algae, among other things.

The dining room is where the thermostat for the whole house is, and the aquarium has been placed directly beneath the thermostat. The temperature there never varies by more than a couple of degrees, and the light is quite a bit more subdued, so, control should be much easier.

Model Trains – Still on my sabbatical from the hobby. I am going out to play with some fellows on Saturday. But, there’s still just no inclination to wander into the basement. I have been thinking about it, and I am keeping up with what’s going on in the world of On30 model trains, at least somewhat. But, still, no real activity on my part.

Work (GTV) – Yeah, I do a bunch of that. TV-land is, as always, just a little crazy. And, working for a government TV station makes it all the stranger. I think the last I said anything about this was that we were getting ready to be picked up on Verizon’s FiOS network here in Howard County. Well, we’re on. But there are some issues still to be worked out. Specifically, our closed captioning is being stripped out somewhere. Discussions with Verizon’s people and with engineers at other local TV stations have brought some conflicting information. It boils down to Verizon handling the caption data in a completely non-standard way, and it’s likely to cost us (meaning the station) a chunk of change to compensate for the fact that Verizon insists on doing something that is completely non-standard. And, in the mean time, we’re beginning a transition to digital and at the same time, adding web streaming to our mix!

More Work (Orchard Studios) – Orchard Studios is undergoing some changes, it seems. We’re becoming more wedding- and portrait-centric than I really wanted it to be. Subsequently, the web site is going to have to be completely re-designed — something that I just have all kinds of time to do. Yeah, right. Nevertheless, I’ll be starting in on it soon, along with new marketing strategies. Gotta pay off all that new gear (past and future) somehow.

Yet More Work (AcoustiSound™) – No, I don’t really sleep all that much. AcoustiSound™ is getting busier and busier doing exactly the things that AcoustiSound™ was intended to do — live sound and recording for acoustic musicians! But, we decided last night that it’s time to sorta duplicate some services from Orchard Studios at AcoustiSound™ — specifically making AcoustiSound™ a one-stop-shop for the acoustic musician’s sound, recording and collateral needs.

Huh? What’s that?

The thought is that it may be confusing for me to be handing out multiple business cards when talking to a musician (not that musicians are inherently more easily confused than other folks) about all the things I can offer — sound, recording, photography, artwork, web site, etc. This, essentially, means that AcoustiSound™ will start to be what I wanted my old AudioGenix Productions to be. The problem then was that I was severely under-funded (not to be confused with the rather under-funded that AcoustiSound™ is). That, of course, means a re-vamping of the AcoustiSound™ web site, too.

Music – (Not to be confused with AcoustiSound™ [see above]) Moving the aquarium displaced the [digital] piano from the dining room, which really wasn’t all that good a place for it anyway. I’ve been entertaining the idea of playing some keyboards with some folks again, but, my gawd, when??? I even went so far as to start looking at a second keyboard. What was I thinking?

Of course, this kind of thinking always opens up the whole “I could just kick myself” thinking. Over the years, I’ve had some really nice instruments — and sold them all off. I regret selling almost every one of them — there might be two that I really don’t miss at all.

Anyway, the keyboard’s getting moved upstairs to my little, tiny office, which I share with Kiah. I may get an inexpensive controller so play with software synthesizers, and do a little composing again. But, I think that would be enough. More than enough.

Which brings me to the subject of guitar playing. I can’t. Basically, my wrists are shot. Specifically, the carpal tunnel issues are so bad that I can’t hold the instrument for more than about 5 minutes without my left hand going numb, then going into spasms, then severe shooting pain. So, the guitar lives in its case in a corner of the living room, next to Donna’s viola. Fat lot of good that’s doing.

Miscellany – I still hate the post office, for all the same reasons.

I can’t really think of anything else to ramble on about, except maybe things that you, as readers, really don’t care about, don’t want to know about, or shouldn’t know about. So there. I’ve written about something other than toys and site hacks. But then, this was really never intended to be one of those really heavy statement-driven things. It’s a “this is our life” blog — what blogs were supposed to be in the first place.

Ugh. That was pretty bad. Ah, well. Whaddaya want fer nuffin! Anyway, among other errands last night, we ordered Verizon’s FiOS service, finally. We got the letter in the mail earlier in the week that indicated that the complete service package was finally available in our neighborhood, and, I know that it really is, as our next door neighbor’s installation is already in progress!

We went for pretty much the full service — TV, data and phone. We’ll be starting out with one HD/DVR box, and three SD boxes, and the 5MB internet. We can always add features later, just by picking up the phone and calling.

One feature we decided to wait on, for now, is the whole Media Center thing, which allows you to view shows you’ve recorded on the DVR on any TV in your house, and also manage music, still image and video files on your PC. It’s another $20 for them to enable that part of the software, and I really don’t know how much we’d use it. We’ll see. Anyway, I’m supposed to firm up all the details sometime this morning — the Verizon rep’s supposed to call me. But, at this point, we’re looking at about a 2-week installation time-frame.

[UPDATE: We have an installation date of Wednesday, June 13, sometime in the morning!]

We also trundled down to the Guitar Center in Glen Burnie to pick up a replacement for the monitor amplifier in the AcoustiSound amp rack that failed on me at the last gig. On the one hand, I was really annoyed that the amp failed. But, on the other hand, it’s given me 10 years of good service — and it was used when I bought it! Anyway, the monitors got a nice, shiny, new Mackie FR-800, which will be more than ample to drive all four monitor speakers.

* Yet Another Hobby — or two.

We seem to have gotten pretty gung-ho in the birding department, with a new feeder to be permanently installed, and a stronger support for the old one. An, all ready, Donna’s talking about another new feeder out in the front. If nothing else, it’s fun for photography.

At the same time, I’m getting ready to set up a fresh-water aquarium. No, it’s no longer enough for me to peruse the tanks at the local pet emporiums. I’ve been wanting to do this again for several years (I almost did it at my apartment, but just didn’t quite get around to it).

It’s interesting how much the hobby has changed in the past few years. People running the more modern manufacturing companies, such as Marineland, have doctorate degrees! Filter systems are commonly three stage varieties now, and water conditioning has gone far beyond measuring pH and temperature. Now, there are nitrite, nitrate and ammonia levels involved. Bacteria has to be cultivated to keep all of these things in balance. Hell, it’s not just a hobby — it’s biology and chemistry now!

After a lot of research, I’ve figured that I’m going to go with a 25 gallon “Eclipse combo” kit from Marineland. It’s got one of the fancy three-stage filter systems built into the hood. And, I’ve found a nice, local, independent store to buy it from — their price is better than the big chain stores in the area!

The Eclipse systems get excellent reviews, and the store has been around for a long, long, long time. To those of you who are local, no, it’s not Aquarium Center or That Fish Place. It’s the local pet store in The Mall.

Anyway, more than anything at this point, we’re struggling with where to put it. I think we’ve narrowed it down to two or three locations: the dining room or the bedroom would be best for the tank (and wouldn’t require buying additional furniture), but there’s a space in the living room where it would look really nice. I’ll probably get the tank in the next couple of days, and get the location sorted out.

Of course, we’ll keep you apprised of the progress. We’re actually quite excited about the photographic prospects of the project.

… and not the computer kind.

We decided last night on a vendor for our new windows. Yay! In reality, the process was not as brutal as I had expected it would be. I had scheduled four window companies to come out and do their pitch. I cancelled the fourth, because, frankly, I didn’t get a warm fuzzy feeling from their scheduling people — they were insistent that we schedule their sales rep when both Donna and I were available — even though that was just plain inconvenient for us. And, this even after I explained that we would not be making a decision at the time of the appoinment. The other three companies were happy to schedule the appointment as close to my desired time as possible.

Also, in the case of the other three vendors, there was absolutely no pressure to buy immediately. Two of three offered a “buy today” price, but without pushing, and the other only gave a “ballpark” price during the appointment, instead preferring to defer the actual pricing to office staff.

In the end, we were able to choose between three vendors and two brands of window. We decided on a locally manufactured window at an excellent price — the price was so good, in fact, that we were able to add a storm door to the quote for several hundred dollars less than the other company’s quotes on the windows alone.

The windows are made in the Laurel/Savage area, and will be installed by factory-employed team, not the company selling the windows (although the crew will be wearing uniforms bearing the logo of the selling company). An interesting concept. Anyway, the next step is the HOA ARC approval process.

We also got a company who’s supposed to come in and cut the lawn every couple of weeks, clean the gutters, mulch around all the bushes and trees, prune a good-sized oak in the front lawn and remove a couple of nasty bushes around our front porch. I’m still trying to work out the scheduling of all this work, but it should all start pretty soon.

This afternoon, the heating and air-conditioning people are coming to quote a new heat pump and duct sucking.

Hi, Everyone!

We’re in the market for:

• replacement windows
• new heat pump
• gutter cleaning or gutter cover system

Anyone out there have any experiences you’d like to share — whether good (to go with) or bad (to avoid)?