Back from Alaska, and it was a fine time indeed. Saw lots of natural beauty, plenty of wildlife, and a few museums. A good trip. Much good food, in fact, too much – I came home at 193.6 and need to drop about 5 pounds now to get back under 189. But that’s not for this post.
You may or may not be familiar with the film “Trekkies”, and if you are not, I must recommend it as an enjoyable, if cautionary, tale. All you really need to know is that it’s a series of interviews with Star Trek fans, and at one point they interview a memorabilia collector who says (paraphrasing here) that what he really wants to do some day is build a really big shelf, a shelf big enough to display everything he owns.
It is perhaps unfair that I have, in the past, made fun of this man for having the construction of a shelf as his life’s goal.
I have, for several months now, been in pursuit of a similar goal. A shelf of my own, as it were. This has been a quite frustrating thing because, while I knew more or less exactly what I wanted – sturdy, wire shelving – I didn’t quite know where to buy the stuff. I tried Staples and Office Depot and they were unhelpful, I even went so far as to call restaurant supply stores since I knew what I wanted was used quite a bit in kitchens, I was generally frustrated at every turn. I found lots of places to order it online, but this stuff isn’t lightweight by any means – I wanted to be able to go into a store and buy it and it vexed me mightily that I was unable to do so.
Then I found the Container Store. And they had shelving, great stocks of it. And I felt as though a months-long quest was finally coming to an end.
That was on June 30th. We were going to leave for Alaska on July 7th. Buying and assembling shelving would have a) cut severely into our trip budget and b) taken way too much time. I had to put it aside.
July 14th we returned from Alaska, getting up at 4AM for a 6AM flight out of Juneau, returning home to beautiful northern Oregon at approximately 2PM.
By 4PM I was at the Container Store.
Today I sit proudly surrounded by a Shelf of My Own. I have loads of display space that is, as you will see, still largely unused, but I will be excavating many Cool Things from boxes and bins sooon.
Total:
2 “starter sets.” (4 x upright, 4 18″ x 48″ shelf)
6 18″ x 24″ shelves.
2 shelf liners. (1 x 24″, 1 x 48″)
2 packages floor protectors.
4 packages hanging hook thingies.
One massive pressboard entertainment center broken down and thrown away.
End result:
Left side and Middle: Laserdisc player, VHS deck, PC for capturing video, PC for downloading stuff, NAS, external drives, scanner, my main PC, a Dreamcast, monitor, etc:
Right side: CD player, MD deck, CRT monitor, Composite/S-Video to VGA adapter, switchboxes, receiver, consoles PS2 and older (newer consoles are in the living room)
It is… Glorious.
“Let’s Learn Japanese” Progress Tracker: 16/52
Baud Attitude 