Mopping Up Furniture Blogging

On my way to the office today, I swung over to IKEA to deal with bits and pieces -- literally! After a long wait for my number to be called, I gave them the extra "anti-earthquake" wall bracket and most of the Allen wrenches, and they gave me a replacement end-cap for the one that broke and also eight of the mounting pins for the extra BILLY shelves we bought yesterday. I then went and had another coffee and cinnamon roll.

So, after five or six store visits and considerable waiting, I think we finally have everything we needed from this round of redecorating. But it certainly was a lot cheaper than it would have been from a "full service" store, and the furniture looks really good. Indeed, the older bookcases left over from the Slan Shack or salvaged from Menlo suffer considerably by comparison. However, we need to spend some time paying for all of the furniture we bought this time around before considering buying anything else, I think.

Oh, and I finally got around to making an icon for all of my furniture blogging, and I went back and changed the older entries to boot.

Tire Go Boom

...fortunately, not mine, and fortunately, not too close to me.

While driving from IKEA to my office up northbound US-101, approaching the Whipple Avenue overpass, I saw about a quarter-mile ahead a large cloud of what looked like dust and a bunch of brake lights coming on suddenly. I joined the crowd of people slowing down, as I thought there had been an accident. Approaching the scene, I could see large pieces of what had once been a tire on a large vehicle (a crane-type rig), said tire obviously having suffered catastrophic failure. The big-rig limped over to the right shoulder, which was narrow at that point, which left it partially blocking the auxiliary lane.

Dodging another piece of "rubbage," I hit the voice-dial on my phone and called it in to KCBS. They dutifully reported it on the next "traffic on the eights," and I got another name check. That's two in two weeks. Still, I'm not sure I want to be close to accidents or near-accidents like that.