It sat by the door of the shop. Discarded.

A fast food store drink cup that someone had finished with. Someone who was too lazy to walk the 2 extra metres to the rubbish bin.

In the corner it sat until, inevitably foot contact was made by someone leaving the shop and the cup soon found a new home in the heavy traffic area of the mall.

A lot of people saw the cup but some didn’t.

A lot of people side-stepped around the cup but two more people kicked it, the ice inside making music as it swirled around the cup.

The next foot to make contact crushed the cup flat. Icy water draining out of it and splashing over the pavement as the opaque plastic lid separated violently from the waxed paper body.

Now the half crushed cup was kicked away from it’s lid and, when the wind picked it up, it was carried even further away.

Then the pram came by.

The parents pushing were oblivious to the half crushed paper vessel that the wheel picked up and dragged up the mall until it was reunited with the lid.

Together again at last.

That’s what I did in the 15 minutes I was waiting outside a clothing shop for Lia yesterday. What kind of things do YOU do to entertain yourself?

The belated follow up post to the coffee machine.

When I got my new coffee machine there were three reasons behind the purchase.
Firstly, it was on special for a really good price, secondly it was available on deferred payments allowing me to spread the payments out over 6 months and finally it was to be used in my office and claimed as a tax deduction.

It ended up spuring on an extensive makeover of my office, making it look a lot more professional.

To refresh your memory, the office looked like this -

20447 My office. Jamie’s computer on the left, my computer on the right. Emily uses the notebook (currently closed) and the computer my housemate sometimes uses.	20448 Looking in from the “meeting area”
20449 Files. The orange files are a new addition. I printed proper labels for them and I intend to replace all the files to match and paint the archive boxes as well.	20450 Blue Glow. When I upgraded my computer Jamie got the old box. I got myself a new iCute case which included all the fluro.. Cool huh!

Changes

The first thing that was needed was a home for the new coffee machine. A local office furniture supplier provided me with a very nice and inexpensive mobile cabinet which also became home to some of the junk that was lying around. Because of the cost of this piece of furniture, a re-think about the whole office was done.

The previous owners used this room as a formal lounge and dining room. It was decorated by the wife and suited the decor of the room but it really didn’t suit an office environment. I have wanted to do something about the dusty pink colour that had been applied for a little while so I made plans to paint.

I decided to take the colour from my business cards using the blue as the main colour but also taking the orange as a bold feature.

I also went to the stationary store and got the new lever arch files that I wanted, the orange ones, as well as some other items. I hadn’t started the painting at this stage but in my mind I could see the overall effect and just adding these touches were a mild improvement.

A trip out to IKEA found me these tressel benches, unpainted as well as some very attractive and surprisingly cheap lamps.	The desktop used to sit on some chipboard and these old draws which were not in the best of condition

When I painted the room I also painted the tressels to match, keeping the existing desktop. The change of colour lifted the room conciderably and the orange items that I had added were now starting to complement better.

The shelving that had held my Doctor Who stuff was left off the wall this time and we ended up cutting it down a little to add more storage in the kitchen. I moved the toys and books out of the work area in line with the concept of having a clean and professional work area.

Next was a return to the office furniture supplier that I had got the coffee machine cabinet from, purchasing a new bookcase to match. The old wall units that had held my books were moved to the garage where they are now being used for storage there.

Four archive boxes were painted to match the walls with the lids painted in gloss orange. These now are home to various spare cables, power leads, network devices and other bits of junk I haven’t had the will to part with yet.

Next a typists return was added to the work area giving me space to store paper and my printer. I purchased a print server that plugged into the LPT port and untangled the 10 metre USB cable that was previously connecting it to my computer. This had the added advantage of freeing up my computer from acting as the network server for the printer meaning that the other computers on the network can now access the printer even if my machine is off.

I want to get Network Attached Storage next to take my machine totally out of the loop for LAN users.

My computer was relocated to where Jamie’s machine was, giving me extra room to work.

I found these vases in Mount Hawthorn and decided that they were perfect for finishing off the office. I believe I have reached critical mass for the orange now, anything more will start to make it all look distracting.

It took me around five weeks to get from the before image to the after.

After photo

After photo

Future Plans

I want to get a couple of visitor chairs for clients and extend the work bench along the window putting in a couple of extra machines for the kids to play on.

At 7am I write great posts for my blog.. Or at least, I would if I was not in the car delivering mail in the city.

Yesterday morning, once again, I had an incling of an idea in my mind for something to write about. As I continued to drive my mind was actively creating the nuances and subtleties that make for really good composition.

I couldn’t wait to get home so I could put pen to paper, at least in the metaphorical sense.

Around 10am this morning I remembered that I was going to write something on my blog but trying to revive the memory was fruitless.

It was going to be good too!

I am just not a sports person. Not being very coordinated in that regard I was always the one to be last picked or left on the sidelines during sport at school. As a result I have very little interest in most sports.

That didn’t stop me from yelling at the TV during the last minutes of the AFL Grand Final yesterday, cumulating in a heary “Yeeessssssssssss” when Emily’s favourite team, the local West Coast Eagles beat Sydney Swans by just 1 point.

Emily is much more interested in sport, something that she gets from her mother, and thankfully she is not as clumsy as I can be so yesterday when her team had made it to the final she wore her team clothes and was excited to watch the game.

I was just happy for her that they won.