The new office is basically one long hallway with offices on one side, and offices (and a conference room) on either end. One bathroom, and a wetbar. I lost my window, but I got a private office with a door, which will be good, I think. I like the camaraderie and ability to immediately share ideas which we had in the other office, i.e., I could just turn around and ask J.B. or Dave something without getting out of my chair, but it was sometimes hard to concentrate.
The offices all have windows out into the hallway, which is nice, since with a wall of exposed brick, they're kind of dark.
Simon should have fun on the hardwood floors . . . I hope he comes to visit me. Dave's office is next door to mine.
I couldn't get far enough away to take a really good picture, but the office is nice, with the aforementioned exposed brick and hardwood floors, and I have a bookcase, and I'm going to bring in a folding camp chair for the corner, and I'm considering buying a floorlamp--there's one overhead light, but the bulb is currently burned out, so I can't tell what it will be like. Cello said the one over his office was kind of harsh, and he plans on bringing in a lamp. I'll have to see.
I'm not sure how happy the plant (an ivy) will be with no outside light. If it doesn't do well, I'll probably move it somewhere next to a window. For now, it makes me happy sitting on top of the bookcase.
This office has something the old one didn't: an old (non-functioning, obviously) freight elevator. Folk art.
When I got to the old office in the morning, I packed up my desk and disconnected the computer equipment, then took my boxes out to the car and drove over to the new place. My plan was to empty the boxes and then bring back the empty boxes so I could start packing the kitchen, but when I got over there, I realized that I couldn't really unpack the boxes unless I just wanted to put stuff on the floor, since I didn't have a desk yet.
I did unpack the books and stack them on the floor so I could take back one box, but left the other stuff packed. As I was driving back to the old office (a distance of just a few blocks), a guy driving a forklift drove out of an alley across the street from the old building. He stopped, and I continued on down the street, and as I passed him, I heard "thump, thump" as my tires ran over something. As I looked in the rearview mirror, it dawned on me that the fork of a forklift extends some six feet beyond the actual machine. I thought, "Oh great (okay, actually it was a lot stronger than that), I probably have four flat tires."
I only had one, which was bad enough.
The guys were out loading the truck when I came back, and I got out of the car and looked, and cursed and stomped around, and Dave came over and changed the tire, and while I was trying to decide what to do, whether to go to a tire place nearby and see if they could fix it, or whether to drive home on the miniature spare and get it fixed nearer to home, Bob called.
He had a little bit of trouble understanding the problem ("You drove over a forklift?!?") and then he got mad at me for asking if he really thought I could drive all the way home on the spare ("Well, as long as you don't do anything else stupid."), but he was off that day and said he'd come out and see what he could do.
We kept on packing, taking stuff over to the new place, then unpacking, and a couple of hours later, Bob showed up. He moved some stuff around in the van and helped take several loads of furniture and boxes over to the new place, then we all went and had lunch at a barbeque place a block or so away, then packed, moved, unloaded, unpacked . . .
Then he took off, taking my broken tire with him, and then he came back with a new one (they couldn't fix the old one since it was slashed on the sidewall) and put it on my car for me. He didn't exactly have the day off he had planned, but I was very grateful that he fixed my blunder, and we were also grateful to have an extra pair of hands, a strong back, and another vehicle to help us move.
After he left for the second time, I unpacked my boxes and set up my office, set up the computer, then drove my car (with one new tire) home. [I'm only going to have this car until August--normally, of course, I would have bought two tires if I had to buy one.]
I felt like every muscle in my body hurt. I stopped on the way home and bought grocery store salad bar salads, and ordered a pizza, and after we ate I went up and took a hot bath and went to bed at about 10:00. I was a little stiff this morning, but not bad. I can tell I had a day of physical labor, which was actually pretty enjoyable. Except for the flat tire, of course.
Oh, and I also dropped a metal table leg on my toe trying to carry too much at one time, but it isn't broken, and didn't even bruise, so although it still hurts, I guess I got off fairly easy.
