Sunday, January 27, 2008

FETC

The tech conferences are always fun and besides talking to vendors and learning about new technologies is collecting conference swag.

Most of my swag this year is a collection of pens and t-shirts. Each vendor wanted participants to wear their shirt with the enticement that you might be chosen by a secret shopper to win a set of clickers, ipod, smart board, Promethian board, etc IF you wore only their shirt.

I have about 13 different shirts. The TI shirt is really cool, but I had to sit through a high school math presentation to get one. Oh, the joys of changing just one exponent and seeing where it might be replotted on a graph!

Penguin had just taken one, but I was toooooo slow and had to suffer.




Finished Furniture

I went to Orlando for the FETC conference and it was a good time to check out that area's furniture stores. We went to Orlando's new IKEA. What a change from So Fla's. Parked right up front and there were PLENTY of parking spots. The store was not crowded and we went right through.

Next day we trudged through 7 different stores. The same problem of really dark finishes. I took pictures of any that might be acceptable. After awhile they all look alike.

Rooms To Go outlet had a nice unit, but no base. It would be very hard to match the finish color with something else. Blaine had missed the party atmosphere and drove up. We decided on a Broyhill unit we both like and sometime in the middle of February we will update from the 'Blaine Built' unite crafted from leftover lumber from construction sites of 30 years ago to a real piece of furniture.

Now this is going to make something else look bad.










Monday, January 21, 2008

Furniture

OK it's been years since we've shopped for furniture other than the 2 La-Z-Boy chairs several years ago, but we were totally unprepared for the current style of furniture available now.

Huge heavy furniture. People must have massive sized rooms as the furniture has massive tree-trunk sized legs and so much ornamentation that it would take a castle atmosphere to handle it.

In addition to being huge, it's dark. So dark it seems to suck the light out of a room. I find it depressing in oppressive. Where are the light woods and airy, spacious feeling? I don't mean that furniture should look and feel spindly, but it could be sturdy and uplifting.

Another annoyance. If the furniture is 'modern' it means it must be only 2 feet from the floor uncomfortable. I don't think people live with their furniture, but just use it for display only.

Entertainment centers available are only for their 'furniture' appeal. It's to display artifacts and match the other ornate pieces in a room. They are not to have DVD players, sound systems, etc cluttering up the view.

IKEA Madness

Today on MLK holiday, we went out looking for entertainment centers. The IKEA store was new before Thanksgiving, so we thought we'd browse for shelving.

Still the craziness continues. Rent-a-cops controlling traffic. The IKEA parking garage full. The only parking was several miles away at Bank American arena where you wait and take a trolley back to IKEA.

When we drove by the arena, we could see throngs of people waiting to ride the trolley. It reminded me of waiting for the trolley at the remote parking lots at Sea World.

Again we will wait. This frenzy has to die down sometime. Doesn't it?

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

To Do List


Christmas is put away, but......don't go into the spare bedroom. All of my silk flowers are in piles. Spring, Summer, Autumn, Christmas, roses and plastic tubs. They all won't go back into the boxes now.

Garden Ridge had nice stuff.

Saturday, January 05, 2008

Post-Christmas


I FINALLY got all of the Christmas things
together in one place. Things had been
stashed in 3 different closets. It's now all
together and will be easier to find next
year. It is secure and Krystal is guarding.




The weather has been damp and chilly.
The only bright spot is the poinsettias on
the stoop.
The rain hasn't stopped the ugly Muscovy
ducks from raiding the bird feeder.





Dixie has filled out. With her winter coat
and fine dining she is very comfortable
on my computer chair.