On 17/10/2013 11:34 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> Ah, now if I'd known that, I could've sent you some bookcases we just
> gave away. ;)

My mother has a shelf obsession, not me! My flat is quite full of 
furniture as it is; I don't need any more.

The walls are made of cardboard, so you can't actually attach anything 
to them. (Not if you don't want the entire wall to crack in half, 
anyway.) So everything has to be bookcases and the like.

> Good curtains are a good thing - we've got some windows in the back of
> our place that don't have interior coverings (we have exterior shades on
> three of the bigger windows - they help keep the place cool in the
> summer).

I'm hoping this place will be cool in summer - the Sun never faces it. 
But it's not very warm right now with no curtains... I'd turn the 
heating on more, but without curtains I'm just pouring money down the drain.

>> I especially enjoyed that the paperwork for the flat contains the manual
>> for the previous boiler, and not the one presently fitted. :-D
>
> That sounds familiar.  When we moved in here, we found several old
> instruction manuals for all sorts of stuff that was no longer here.

The flat comes with an owner's manual of sorts - a folder with sections 
for everything you would ever need to know. Trouble is, it was clearly 
compiled by the builders. So it contains the manual for the boiler they 
installed, not the new one it was replaced with.

But I think the thing I most enjoyed was the section entitled "meter 
locations". It is entirely empty.

> I don't know about in the UK, but here in the US, it's been my experience
> that with that type of gathering, people tend to come and go.  Put some
> music on, get some light snacks (chips, dip, pizza, that sort of thing -
> and drinks, of course) and invite people to come over.  Get to know and
> invite your neighbors as well - that's a great way to reduce the chances
> of a noise complaint from them. :)
>
> People tend to just gather and socialize, have a drink or two, and then
> may wander off.  My son did something like this when he and his SO got
> their place - with only a couch, they got a bunch of pillows/cushions so
> people could sit on the floor.  They played video games and such as well.

We'll see what I can set up. According to the terms of the lease, I'm 
not allowed to play music though. (Which is unsurprising, given the 
walls are made of cardboard. If the guy next door takes a dump, I can 
tell you if it's one lump or two!) I'm also not allowed to use a TV, 
although I'm damned sure I've heard other people doing so. Oh, and I'm 
not allowed to play a musical instrument OR SING!

>> My last bank statement was scary. It's alarming to see the money out
>> column has MORE DIGITS in it than the money in column. :-S Welcome to
>> never having any money ever again. ;-)
>
> I know *that* story. ;)  It's been over 2 years since I was laid off and
> started working for myself.  While I could make a lot per month if I put
> in a full work week each week, I tend to work about 4 hours a day on
> average, really just enough to keep paying the bills.

No matter what your woes, somebody else always has a bigger problem. 
Why, I just spoke to my ex-girlfriend, and her sister died yesterday. 
What do you even SAY to something like that??

>> Oh, and my boss tells me I might want to update my CV, because the
>> company *may* go under shortly. O_O
>>
>> (NOW you tell me?!)
>
> Eep.  Always a good thing to keep the CV current, just in case.  I wish
> I'd done that in the years leading up to my layoff - it was much harder
> to remember and provide specifics on projects I worked on (things like
> savings, revenue impacts, that sort of thing - if you work on stuff where
> you have that information available).

Fortunately, I now have a goodly list of stuff I've single-handedly done 
here. And more to the point, last time around everybody who interviewed 
me was wowed by the stuff I put on my CV, but then completely lost 
interest when I said I have no commercial experience. Now I have a year 
of solid experience, so...

> We're looking to probably move to Seattle by the end of the year

Sometimes I like to think of moving from one American state to another 
as being like moving between European countries. I gather they're 
approximately the same size...

> That's one of the nice
> things about owning a place and fixing it up - you can make money on it
> when you sell it. :)

Interesting. I assumed that you always lose a huge chunk of money when 
you sell a property - pretty much like anything else you can buy...

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