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Written by Daniel Hienzsch
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Friday, 15 January 2010 |
 Goofy as it sounds, the mini challenge for January is to clean my apartment. Dive Emperor Brett and Buddy Rich can attest that my apartment isn't a dump or a mess, but there are niggling things on the edges of completion, and certain deficiencies that need to be addressed and I've put it off long enough. This goes to the top of the priorities for the year because it will facilitate everything else I'll be doing. Will I have a quiet place to practice guitar, will my office be a place I can actually work on the website, post stories, work on photos, etc. My gear situation is going to get a whole lot worse in about four weeks as I acquire a full trad rack and I refuse to do what a buddy suggested, "use your climbing gear to hang your diving gear from the walls".
My goal is to have a fully livable environment for myself. Peaceful and relaxing. Peaceful and relaxing doesn't include having my dive gear neatly folded and bagged in front of the bookcases of my living room. It doesn't involved a pile of half framed and un-hung art, and shelves full of DVD's that only sit there. So, I've put together an ambitious 21 step plan for reconfiguring my apartment into Dancentral: Hub of All Things:
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Remove DVDs: God these things are an eyesore. When I was a younger lad, I used to take pride in the large collection of movies I have. Now I take pride in them, but good Christ I don't want them on display anymore. Digitize that crap and stuff the disks into storage as backups!
- Sort and store paperwork: Bills, bills, bills :: taxes, taxes, taxes. No one told me growing up that paperwork was such a constant chore to manage! So, time to box that crap up and stick it under the boxes of DVDs.
- Inventory Storage: I gotta figure out what I can donate / give away / throw away / sell that's in that closet I rent, so I can make space for the other stuff I will be donating / giving away / throwing away / selling in 24 months time.
- Sell unused camera gear: I have a lot of vintage camera stuff. Part of my soul winces at the idea of departing with any of it, but it has to go, and I refuse to feel regret at the act. I have no reason to store a Rollei medium format slide projector and it's beer can sized lens when I don't even have a working medium format camera that would shoot transparencies that I'd wind up digitizing anyway. And really? A Bell and Howell 8mm film camera?
- Sell Dresser and Vanity: These damn things are beautiful but impractical. They take up too much space and I've had them since I was a teenager. Time to go.
- Patch walls: I have no freakin idea what the walls in my apartment are made of. I know it's drywall, but it's an evil form of drywall that confounds my not-insignificant-talents at drywall anchoring, shelf hanging and general organization. There are several locations where drywall anchors ripped out and I need to clean, patch and paint that over.
- Frame and hang art: No one has any desire to look at DVD slipcase covers, and I am rolling in art that I want to see regularly.
- Clean carpet: I've been in there two years and it can use it. It's not that bad, but it can use it.
- Shuffle office items into storage: My office is a disaster. With the help of Egg Shen I will finally bring order out of chaos!
- Redesign office layout: It needs to facilitate the things I need to do in there. Right now it's arranged to allow easy access to wood working tools and motorcycle equipment, when it really needs to provide ready access to photo gear, climbing and diving repair, and trip planning.
- Send sample film out for scanning: Time to digitize all my slides, prints and negatives and put the originals into archival storage. Hard disks take up so much less space than stacks of 3x5s.
- Archive and store photos: See above.
- Repair desired camera gear: So, if I'm going to have a Rollei TLR medium format camera and a Mamiya TLR medium format camera, I should at least make sure one of them works. Maybe I shouldn't sell that slide projector after all...
- Cable projector cleanly: An LCD projector, not a slide projector. I ditched my big screen TV and cable service and have now gone entirely to an LCD projector and retractable screen. I just need to get the cabling clean.
- Re-condition closet: Dan's office in clothing form. Bring order to the chaos.
- Equipment storage IN the apartment: This will be the gift that keeps on giving if I do it right. Quick, easy, organized access to everything from a scuba regulator to a trad rack to a one piece racing suit is the goal.
- Hang Vitruvian Man: I have a massive copy of Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man. It should be placed where it can be seen.
- Hang Turkish Carpet: I have a carpet that was given to me by my parents. It should be placed where it can be seen, but not walked on.
- Hang curtains/blinds/shades: There must be some sort of easy solution to darken my living room during the day a bit and keep the summer sun from jamming the heat down my apartments throat.
- Upper window solution: My apartment has a big open area that has a set of 4 foot sliding windows. 10 feet off the ground. I have to figure out a way to open and close those that doesn't involve me having to keep my extension ladder in the middle of my living room.
- Build home entertainment PC: something to put the scanned photos and digitized DVDs on.
It's an ambitious list. Let me know if you see anything on there that you want to take off my hands :) You can use the contact page on this website to get ahold of me to let me know what you want or to tell me you have an overabundance of cash you wish to alleviate yourself of.
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Last Updated ( Friday, 15 January 2010 )
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