Content!
My furnace exploded yesterday.
No seriously.
The boiler cracked open, flooded the boiler room, seeped under the wall and into the adjacent kitchen. There are these industrial fans drying everything out and space heaters set up in the rooms. There's a large streak of black soot and dirt streaked across my carpet from the boiler room to the front door from workmen coming in and out. I've been told this will be shampooed later this morning and, should that fail, the carpet will be replaced.
All the crap we had stored in the boiler room is now out here, along with the washer and dryer (good thing I recenly did laundry). The furniture in the living room is all scrunched up into a corner so the carpet guys could get fans where the water had seeped into the living room. A gigantic pile of books that had been lying in one corner is now piled on the couch.
My landlord has handled the situation very well, so I'm not too worried. Looks like we're stuck with the space heaters for another week, though.
It's kind of been one thing after another the last few months. Not too long ago, all the lights in both the bathrooms burnt out at once (or close enough). Before that, the sink broke a seal and started leaking. The furnace was just recently repaired. (it had been making large and disturbing booming sounds) Our dryer has long required being run twice to get any reasonable-sized load of clothes dry. One of the doors has been slowly falling off its hinges for months. Dagan's door still has no knob and all the others only work if you turn them one direction but not the other. (it's different for each door) The dishwasher has never worked. The apartment is often cold (more so, now) and couldn't be properly warm if we wanted because of fuel prices. But hey, the rent is cheap, the landlord is a nice guy whom we never have trouble with, and it is a fairly large, nice four bedroom apartment.
Oh, by the way, our rent is going up. The afore mentioned fuel prices, which literally tripled after Katrina, never dropped again as my landlord had hoped they would. Apparenly, his ex-wife (and co-owner of the apartment) would like to raise the rent by as much as an additional $300 a month from the original $1200, though Andy says he'd rather not go that high. Andy is rather honest and open about these sort of things, one of the reasons I like him as a landlord.
As soon as we get this mess cleaned up and an actual quote on the future rent, we're going to make some flyers asking for new roomates. It's just me, Patricia, and Dagan at the moment, and the general consensus is that Dagan is probably going to move out soon, (he might as well, seeing as he has literally spent the night here maybe twice in the same number of weeks, hasn't really made more than a rare appearance around here for the last month, preferring to spend the majority of his time over at Old Soviet Russia (Oz's new place)) so we're looking for new roomies.
All in all, though, I'm not too worried about things. I recently adopted two kittens of improbable cuteness (Lucifer and Fancypants, pics to follow me getting some damn hosting) who immediately got sick and had to be taken to the vet, but are doing much better now. Iris and I are still together and doing well, though she's kind of mad at me at the moment, but that's just because I'm an idiot.
TANGENT: I have blood-red hair. Iris dyed it earlier today. It looks... a little different than I was expecting, but I am certainly not opposed to it! My boss will be slightly surprised when I go back to work tomorrow. Again, pics to follow me getting hosting. Photobucket still gives free accounts, yes?
In school news, I recently submitted an application for an omnibus private scholarship... thing. Need to get my taxes done and then I'll reapply for the damn FAFSA. If it all goes through and I get all teh fat loots for the fall, I may buy myself a nice laptop.
Current frivilous spending desires: Grandia III and a DS Lite when it hits states-side. Evidently, my buddy working at gamestop can totally work the employee discount for me.
In other news: it's been snowing, continuously and thickly, for the past 24 hours, slightly unusual for Fairbanks this time of year. It's also been quite warm, often well above zero most days.
I've been reading a lot of Isaac Azimov lately. Prelude to Foundation and Foundation caused me to draw parallels between the current goventment and Azimov's Imperial Galactic Empire. I'm about halfway through Foundation and Empire and plan to continue right through the whole series. I'm not certain why, but SF has been my prefered reading material the last few months. (Mental note: I should really type/finish my rant about Stephen Baxter, cognitive evolution, and Waking Life)
I recently picked up perhaps one of the most underappreciated (though often simply unknown) films of all time, American Pop. Excellent film, it comes highly reccomended.
Look for more updates here in the next week or so. I'm not saying there will be more, but look for them, just the same.
No seriously.
The boiler cracked open, flooded the boiler room, seeped under the wall and into the adjacent kitchen. There are these industrial fans drying everything out and space heaters set up in the rooms. There's a large streak of black soot and dirt streaked across my carpet from the boiler room to the front door from workmen coming in and out. I've been told this will be shampooed later this morning and, should that fail, the carpet will be replaced.
All the crap we had stored in the boiler room is now out here, along with the washer and dryer (good thing I recenly did laundry). The furniture in the living room is all scrunched up into a corner so the carpet guys could get fans where the water had seeped into the living room. A gigantic pile of books that had been lying in one corner is now piled on the couch.
My landlord has handled the situation very well, so I'm not too worried. Looks like we're stuck with the space heaters for another week, though.
It's kind of been one thing after another the last few months. Not too long ago, all the lights in both the bathrooms burnt out at once (or close enough). Before that, the sink broke a seal and started leaking. The furnace was just recently repaired. (it had been making large and disturbing booming sounds) Our dryer has long required being run twice to get any reasonable-sized load of clothes dry. One of the doors has been slowly falling off its hinges for months. Dagan's door still has no knob and all the others only work if you turn them one direction but not the other. (it's different for each door) The dishwasher has never worked. The apartment is often cold (more so, now) and couldn't be properly warm if we wanted because of fuel prices. But hey, the rent is cheap, the landlord is a nice guy whom we never have trouble with, and it is a fairly large, nice four bedroom apartment.
Oh, by the way, our rent is going up. The afore mentioned fuel prices, which literally tripled after Katrina, never dropped again as my landlord had hoped they would. Apparenly, his ex-wife (and co-owner of the apartment) would like to raise the rent by as much as an additional $300 a month from the original $1200, though Andy says he'd rather not go that high. Andy is rather honest and open about these sort of things, one of the reasons I like him as a landlord.
As soon as we get this mess cleaned up and an actual quote on the future rent, we're going to make some flyers asking for new roomates. It's just me, Patricia, and Dagan at the moment, and the general consensus is that Dagan is probably going to move out soon, (he might as well, seeing as he has literally spent the night here maybe twice in the same number of weeks, hasn't really made more than a rare appearance around here for the last month, preferring to spend the majority of his time over at Old Soviet Russia (Oz's new place)) so we're looking for new roomies.
All in all, though, I'm not too worried about things. I recently adopted two kittens of improbable cuteness (Lucifer and Fancypants, pics to follow me getting some damn hosting) who immediately got sick and had to be taken to the vet, but are doing much better now. Iris and I are still together and doing well, though she's kind of mad at me at the moment, but that's just because I'm an idiot.
TANGENT: I have blood-red hair. Iris dyed it earlier today. It looks... a little different than I was expecting, but I am certainly not opposed to it! My boss will be slightly surprised when I go back to work tomorrow. Again, pics to follow me getting hosting. Photobucket still gives free accounts, yes?
In school news, I recently submitted an application for an omnibus private scholarship... thing. Need to get my taxes done and then I'll reapply for the damn FAFSA. If it all goes through and I get all teh fat loots for the fall, I may buy myself a nice laptop.
Current frivilous spending desires: Grandia III and a DS Lite when it hits states-side. Evidently, my buddy working at gamestop can totally work the employee discount for me.
In other news: it's been snowing, continuously and thickly, for the past 24 hours, slightly unusual for Fairbanks this time of year. It's also been quite warm, often well above zero most days.
I've been reading a lot of Isaac Azimov lately. Prelude to Foundation and Foundation caused me to draw parallels between the current goventment and Azimov's Imperial Galactic Empire. I'm about halfway through Foundation and Empire and plan to continue right through the whole series. I'm not certain why, but SF has been my prefered reading material the last few months. (Mental note: I should really type/finish my rant about Stephen Baxter, cognitive evolution, and Waking Life)
I recently picked up perhaps one of the most underappreciated (though often simply unknown) films of all time, American Pop. Excellent film, it comes highly reccomended.
Look for more updates here in the next week or so. I'm not saying there will be more, but look for them, just the same.