Thursday, August 16, 2007

 

Upgrading the cave

A while back I promised a tour of my new digs. So over the next few days I'll give you a glimspe of the Krystal Adventure Burgatory Outpost. Tonight lets start with the down side of the new place. To give you some idea of the layout, here's the room layout on the complex's website:
Not too bad until I tell you that is pretty much life size. This place is small. I know I got very spoiled with my place in Macon, both in square footage as well as low rent, but this is REALLY taking some getting used to. On the website they also provided lots of pictures, in particular of the pool and clubhouse. It's hard to make those look bad. But lets take a closer look at their picture of the kitchen:
While technically this is the same size as my kitchen you have to realize it's been "well staged." The picture shows you the ONLY drawer in the kitchen, and 80% of the cabinets. There is certainly room to put flowers and books on the counter, as long as you store everything you need to cook and eat in another room. I love to cook and I love to eat. It's darn tight in my kitchen.
If you were to read the website (and for obvious reasons I am not posting the web address) you'd read the following:
Floor Plan Amenities
16-19 Foot Living Rooms
Separate Formal Dining Rooms
Airy Chef's Kitchens
Luxurious Baths
The 16-19 foot living room is if you choose to count your "separate formal dining room" as part of your living room. The only thing that "separates" the dining room from the living room is your imagination. The "Airy Chef's" kitchen assumes your chef is a midget who only cooks pop tarts.
The "luxurious bath" also assumes you are a midget. In fact the "luxurious bath" is so small it has helped me to invent the next great bathroom fixture:
The Shinklet
The shinklet takes up the same room as a standard tub/shower combo, however under the shower head is a sink. So now you will have a three way knob to control if the water comes out of the tub faucet, the sink, or the shower head. At the other end of the Shinklet is a toilet. So it is an entire self contained bathroom. I figure if the bidetis such a big hit in Europe, then the Shinklet will be all the rage! Seriously my bathroom is so small I am reminded of when I went on my cruise about a year ago. Let's not dwell on the bathroom just yet. Let's return to the kitchen. Look at the picture above and carefully look at the locations of the electric outlets and switches. Lets compare that picture to my apartment:
For starters, the "additional wiring" was provided by a mom and pop home improvement company. My mom and pop. But we'll get back to that. You'll notice first of all the electrical outlet in the middle of nowhere. It took me a week to finally figure out why it was there. It is lined up with the outlet in the bathroom on the other side of the wall. (We'll see the bathroom in a moment.) The "outlet in space" is really useless unless you like running power cords all over. There is another power outlet over the counter, however it is directly over the sink. Note to people who design houses: electric outlets shouldn't be THAT close to a sink. One good splash and you'll light up like a Christmas tree.
In addition to the power outlet over the sink there's 2 light switches. One is obviously the garbage disposal. You might think it is the one right behind the sink (oddly missing in their "model" picture). You'd be wrong. The disposal switch is the one furthest from the sink. I can see that as a safety issue, so I don't have a problem with that. The big question is, "What's the other light switch do?" If you guessed the under-cabinet light, you'd be wrong. There is no under cabinet light. It took me a week (and a bunch of smelly dishes) to figure out that the light switch turns on the dishwasher. Yes, the dishwasher turns on with a light switch.
For now, I wont get into the fact that my brand new oven is off by 100 degrees. Wouldn't be a problem if it got hotter than the display, but instead it is roughly 75-100 degrees colder than what is displayed. Needless to say my first batch of pork chops was a bit more rare than I really go for. I think I heard it oink when I bit it.
Now lets go check out the bathroom. Another marvel of idiotic planning.
The one power outlet in the bathroom is over the toilet paper roll beside the toilet. Not a horrible problem, I suppose until they put the towel bar over them both. Imagine with me, if you will, I get out of the shower and dry off, then hang my wet towel on the bar. Which do you suppose will happen first: the wet towel hits the electric socket and shorts it out catching fire, or the towel drips all over the toilet paper making the worlds biggest spit-ball?
Thankfully, in both cases, Pops Electrical Services came in to reroute some wiring and provide electrical outlets in locations that make sense. Of course this isn't the first time wiring has been rerouted in the apartment.
Community Amenities
High Speed Internet Access
24 Hour Clothes Care Center in each Building
The "High Speed Internet" is not actually provided by the complex. It comes in through the cable tv or the phone line, like everyone else on Earth. That is, of course, if you can actually get the cable to the computer. You may recall my "McGyver Adventures" as I had to split and route my cable TV cable through 2 walls and a closet to get internet in the office and TV in the bedroom.
(As an aside, the "24 hour clothes care center" is a coin operated washer and dryer in the breezeway outside.)
After the fantastic electrical work I decided that I had one more task to McGyver. Again, whoever planned out the wiring in the place made sure there was only 1 cable jack in the living room, and phone jacks in every room EXCEPT the living room. So the dental floss, tape, and Chik'n Stik'n stick came back out and I ran a phone cord from the computer room back into the living room. This time was a bit more difficult as I now have a fully loaded bookcase in front of the hole in the living room and a filing cabinet in front of the hole in the office.
Finally, my new place is wired in a more logical manner. I have cable and phone everywhere that a person would expect to have cable and telephone. I still am pinched for space, but we're working on that.
And while all of this was going on, my mother was redecorating. But more on that tomorrow. For now I need to get back to prepping for classes. Monday morning swiftly approaches!
Krystal Lovers get more in the sack!.

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# posted by JasonJ1052 @ 4:57 PM
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