Halcyon Repose

I sit here drinking a glass of Earthquake Petite Sarah, and boy do I need a shower.

Rewind to a couple of days ago. My roommate Kenny announced that it was time to rearrange the living room, and he wanted to enlist my help to do so. We had danced around the idea and thrown some thoughts back and forth previously, but apparently he was ready to make the journey towards a new living room with or without me. It was decided that Saturday after my fencing classes were finished, we would move some furniture around to see what effect we could get.

I got up the next morning and did my time at the fencing center. Once I was done, I had a message from Kenny on my cell phone that we were going to meet the other roommate Ed and his GF for lunch, and then we were going to pay a visit to Ikea for some bookshelves and possibly a new coffee table (our current one is on it’s last two legs… literally). I ran home, and had just enough time to change clothes before we ran out to pick the others up for hot wings, and some wandering in the great store known as Ikea. We didn’t find any coffee tables that struck our fancy, but we did get some super cheap book cases to hold our DVDs. We hit another furniture store on the way home that was having a going out of business sale, but alas they were a little out of our price point. Had I the money, I would have done some shopping there, they did have some nice furniture, and a super cute sales lady that I wouldn’t have minded picking up.

After the bomb that was the furniture store, back home we went. Ed and Kenny had already moved some furniture around, so we got to work and cleared out the overly large entertainment center out of the room, turned the area rug around, relocated the TV, and put together the bookcases. While we worked, Ed’s girlfriend threw a Costco’s shepard’s pie into the oven for some late night munchies. Once all this was complete we had a completely new living room that makes the place actually look respectable. Better yet, the new setup is actually conductive to a 5.1 surround sound speaker set up. I have had the stereo to do it for awhile, but the old layout (TV in the corner) did not work well at all.

Last night I stopped by Fry’s to pick up some speaker wall mounts, and when I got home, I discovered that there was only one of the two mounts in the package. Some enterprising individual was kind enough to take one of them, and of course I did not check the package before I got home. Cursing the electronics god responsible for Fry’s, I had to make another trip this evening to return the mounts. Thinking ahead, I put on my work shirt to grease the wheels at the exchange counter. Sure enough when I got there I found one of the employee’s who I knew I could impress with my job, and lo and behold, he finished with his previous customer just as I got up there. I explained my situation to him, and he turned to his supervisor to ok the return. As we were waiting, he asked if I actually worked for the company so eloquently blazoned across my chest, and I smiled at him and told him I did. He then the went on to tell me how much he enjoyed our game, and started on with his in game stories and how he had applied for a position at the company as well, but had never heard back about it. I smiled nodded at the appropriate times, and soon had an in store voucher for a new wall mounting kit.

I quickly by passed the previous set I had purchased. All of the other boxes were wrecked beyond recognition, and plus they were rated for 20+ pounds, and all we needed was 5 pounds of support. I made my purchase, ran home and then started the arduous task of hanging the speakers. I not only hung them up near the ceiling, but ran the wires all the way around the room, so after two hours of playing monkey (on twirling bar stools to boot), I finally completed my task. I poured myself a glass of wine to try it out (it is definitely better have having aired out for about 30 minutes) and I basked in the sounds of the new set up.

There is nothing like the tangible result to a hard night’s work. I now sit here sipping my wine, and watching the lightening play across the sky. Man, I live for nights like tonight.