Apartamente Nuevo!

Okay, since the last post has kind of left you all hanging for the last week, I'd better elaborate on it a bit.

Last year, I decided that I would move out and get my own apartment some time during 2007, since my car was going to be paid off in the summer. Well, then my car got totalled in October and things were a bit of a mess until the end of the year.

I gave it a lot of thought, and even though I will have a car payment for a while now, I decided that I would still move out in 2007. It is time. The question then remained: when? In the spring, before the crazy summer season? After the crazy summer season? At the end of the U semester, when things are available? After the IKEA store opens on May 23?

So I got an apartment guide and started looking around online, just to determine what was out there and for how much. I don't want to spend my whole paycheck on an apartment when I could still be at home for (almost) free, so I was looking at the low end of the scale. Trying to avoid a studio apartment, that got a little tricky.

So I was passively looking through stuff but not actually going to visit any actual apartment complexes when someone at work told me that a 1-bedroom unit was coming available in the house she lives in. I called for more info on it, and the landlord invited me down to check it out on the first. It was okay, but dirty because of the previous tenant. She was cleaning and repainting, and deciding whether to replace the carpet, and said she'd get back to me.

Two days later, she offered me the apartment. Quandary! I don't have any stuff! IKEA is still 2 months off! What to do?

Well, I decided to go for it. It would be hard to get that much apartment for that little money elsewhere, and it is actually (21 blocks) straight down the street from work. Hard to beat.

So the apartment will be ready after the 15th, and I need to get ahold of a bed and some other furnishings so I can move in. It's in a house, 807 S 500 East, and I have a bedroom, front room, bathroom and kitchen. I share the back yard with another apartment, and I have access to free laundry through my co worker's apartment. I can walk to the park or to Trolley Square, and Smith's is just 3.5 blocks away. People at work have already offered me a table and chairs, two bookcases, an end table, and a $100 couch.

Movin' on up, to the east side

Apartamento nuevo! Not very glamorous at the moment, but it's still being cleaned and repainted.

Put me on the DL

I pulled a hammy! I've always wanted to be able to say that.

Turns out that was a foolish wish, because it's really not fun to have a pulled hamstring. Particularly when you can't take any anti-inflammatories. Plus it's way awkward trying to find a way to stretch this particular muscle.

The fridge

Just your average day at work for us.

The saga of the ant farm

I got a nifty cool ant farm for Christmas. It's the same kind they use on the space shuttle! Instead of using dirt, it's filled with a cool blue gel that the ants can both dig in, and eat. A pretty nice all-in-one deal. They use this on the space shuttle because the tunnels in the gel don't collapse during takeoff.

Since I got it in December, I wasn't able to fill it right away. Ants are a bit thin on the ground in the winter, and they weren't able to ship any to me until the weather got warmer.

Then, in March, things began to thaw and I noticed that I had ants in my office at work. They ran around on the walls mostly, but soon found my tiny flower pots on my windowsill and attempted to move in. These pots are about 2 inches tall, so not much room there for an ant colony. They'd work all day, transferring one grain of dirt at a time out of the pot and onto my carpet.

These ants, being much larger and seemingly more industrious than the average sidewalk ant, seemed ideal for my ant farm. I began capturing them for relocation. Once I had about fifteen, I put them in my nifty cool ant farm.

Where they promptly fell asleep.

These ants were so boring. The first several days they just hung out, cleaning their antennae and attempting to escape when I'd add a new batch to the mix. The first eight actually did escape - I put them in and then went to a meeting, and while I was gone they crawled out the air holes and got away. A little masking tape solved that problem.

Eventually they did dig a tunnel, all the way down the corner of the container, straight down to the bottom. When they hit plastic down there, they must have been a little disappointed, but they didn't let up on their new found industry. Instead, they found that there was a tiny gap between the bottom of the container and the gel, and began wiggling their way in to explore. Unfortunately, it was a small gap - even for an ant - and the ants would become lost underneath the gel and weren't able to find their way back to their tunnel in the corner.

One by one, all of the ants ventured down the tunnel, never to return. You can see them there still, dead where no one can reach them.

Perhaps when it gets a little warmer I'll send away for the fancy mail-order ants. We'll see.

Citing irreconcilable differences, Suzanne and Elliott split amicably

Reuters - After 8 months of dating, Suzanne and Elliott recently broke up, citing irreconcilable differences. In the heartfelt discussion, Suzanne and Elliott decided that the relationship had been "strained" for some time.

The long relationship was the first for Elliott, 25, and second for Suzanne, 27. Her first relationship was with Justin and ended after six weeks. Suzanne and Elliott first started going out in August of 2006, after having worked together for a few years. News of the union stunned fans around the world.

One aspect of the breakup that raised a few eyebrows was that in spite of the fact both Suzanne and Elliott have vastly different ways in which they approach the world, they reserved the right to remain "close friends" and still see each other often. Elliott is the only child and sole heir to the estate of Paul Zgraggen.