It's been a busy few days.

I flew into LA on Sunday and managed to find and move into a nice apartment by Tuesday afternoon. I started work on Wednesday I set up my work computer with OSX , X11, and Fink. I actually got my feet wet in some code yesterday.

The office is debating which coffee machine to get. We got a demo yesterday of a spiffy one that makes strong, though uninteresting, coffee by the cup. The grounds and a filter come individually packaged in something akin to a large half-and-half container. The technology is cool but it's fifty cents a cup rather than “basically free” for normal coffee.

Wednesday night I had an endless trip to IKEA. They are in Burbank and close at nine. Knowing exactly what I wanted I left at eight. I got into the store at about 8:40. I took the shortcuts to the warehouse, grabbing a few small things on the way. I asked for help finding what I wanted, a 46.5" table. The guy in the warehouse said he needed an exact description and sent me back through the maze to the showroom upstairs (about a quarter-mile away). With the exact information I came back and asked for it, but alas the “Effektiv” series comes in components that need to be ordered upstairs for pickup. By this point it was closing time. I ran back upstairs, finding the table again and got it ordered. By the timeI payed and went to get my car it was probably 9:30. I waited a bit more and picked up my table at about 9:45.

Then the fun began.

A 46.5" tabletop in it's box does not fit into a sedan.

A 46.5" tabletop without it's box still does not fit into a sedan.

I decided to put it on the roof, but first the car was dirty and I didn't want togrind a few months of LA grime into my roof, even with cardboard on hand to pad it. The only source of water was the windshield wipers. Fortunately I had an old newspaper in the car I could use to wipe with. Eventually I got the roof cleaned off.

As for attaching the table, at this point IKEA was closed, locked, and had no lights on. Fortunately I had a length of rope in the car which was there totally by accident, but which I will always keep on hand in the future. Now the problem: how do you secure a round table? After a few tries tying it directly, I put the tabletop back in it's box and on the car. Even then, geometrically constraining it seemed a long shot. The final solution was to put dozens of holes along the edge of thebox and lace the box onto the car. The stability of this depends on thin rope notripping cardboard. I decided City streets would be the best solution. The trip back took about an hour; Sepulveda a nice drive late at night.

I still need to get at least 2 chairs, 1 bed, 1 couch, silverware, and maybe a coffeetable.