Live from Austin!

At the weekend I cleaned the windows. A downside to a 2-storey house that I hadn’t considered is the difficulty of cleaning the windows on the upper floor. Rather than clamber on the roof or try to handle an 8m ladder, I bought a dispenser of window cleaner that attaches to the hose and sprays suds quite a distance. You then leave them for 15-20 seconds, and hose off. It did an adequate job. The ground floor windows I cleaned the old fashioned way, so we now have a much clearer view of passing arboreal rodents.

One day I may be rich enough that I’ll be able to buy furniture that doesn’t come in flat cardboard boxes and doesn’t need assembly. Not yet, though. So I also assembled our last remaining major piece of furniture, the sideboard for the dining room. The individual pieces were heavy enough that I had to be careful lifting them, so I carefully built the thing already in its final resting place. I also modified the assembly instructions to build it from the ground up, rather than build the entire thing and then have to flip it over to put the feet on the bottom.

As a result, pain. My back’s OK, but my legs are sore, which suggests that I’ve at least learned to lift things properly now.

Then on Monday, a woman in an SUV reversed into the Prius. Apparently her truck has a proximity sensor to stop you reversing into things, and it didn’t beep, so she assumed the coast was clear and carried on reversing. A great example of how a supposedly safety-enhancing feature can reduce safety.

So, tomorrow we need to go have the car looked at, and find out how much it’s going to cost us. I’m guessing it’s safe to assume a minimum of $500, as that’s our deductible. Also on Monday, rothko found out she needs some cracked teeth seen to.

So it’s basically been ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch so far this week.

I got my desk today. I’m starting to hate ready-to-assemble furniture, but really, who can afford any other kind? Plus, my desk is from Anthro, who are the Rolls-Royce of RTA.

I think the first time I saw an Anthro desk was in MacWorld Expo Boston back in 1997. It was a split-surface desk, with the Mac on the back surface, slightly higher than the front keyboard and mouse area. The guy demonstrating the desk pulled a small lever under the front surface, and lifted it higher with one hand. He started to show me the tilt control too, but I was already convinced.

The desk surfaces are extra-thick particleboard with the an industrial-grade wipe-clean coating. The legs are wide steel tubes, and the other metal parts are laser-cut steel. The carts move on rubber-wheeled castors, so as not to scratch the floor–no corner-cutting here. Their primary market seems to be the world of big business, where things like radiology workstations and industrial benches are expected to be able to stand up to years of abuse. The Anthro people like to demonstrate the strength of the furniture by having three people stand on a small computer cart without breaking it. Everything is made in Oregon, shipped in recyclable brown cardboard with all the necessary tools, and has a lifetime warranty. There’s just one snag: it’s kinda expensive.

I know that in business $800 for a desk is not a big deal, but it’s still about 4× what I’m used to paying. That’s for the smallest Adjusta cart; to be fair, the entry level cart without the fancy height adjust lever comes in at $300. But I really wanted that lever.

And then, a miracle happened. I’d been watching the special offers at the Anthro web site for a few weeks, when they announced an April Fool’s Day Special: 35% off almost anything.

So I’m writing this to say: if you’ve always lusted after a really ergonomic desk, go order an Anthro now before the prices go back up on the 30th.

Then when your credit card has recovered, you can order the extras–like the CPU rack and the industrial-grade coffee cup holder.