Ex Bibliotheca

The life and times of Zack Weinberg.

Sunday, 20 January 2002

# 10:45 PM

Called a salvage yard to see if they'd be interested in my radiators, but they said they had plenty right now. Still, that bodes well for eventually being able to get rid of them.

In the meantime, I've shoved them into a corner of the second floor hallway (at the bottom of the stairs to the roof) where they shouldn't be in the way, avoiding the whole question of how to get them down the stairs. I am still amazed at how heavy the damn things are. Anyone have a block and tackle I can borrow?

There's also the nagging question of what the landlord will think. Odds are they won't even notice, but perhaps it would be best to dump the radiators in the basement rather than selling them.

With a little WD-40 and a big honking wrench, it was easy to unscrew the union holding each radiator to its valve, but the valves themselves stubbornly refuse to come off the steam pipes. This is no big deal—even if I could get the valves off, it would not free up any significant amount of space. And right now the valves are preventing the apartment from being flooded with steam should the boiler suddenly start up (as if). My sense of aesthetics is offended, but I think my sense of aesthetics will just have to deal.

In other news, I got half the apartment cleaned (the easy half), and fixed a bunch of bugs in GNU C++ (the easy ones).

# 4:45 PM

I decided to remove the radiators from my apartment. They're old cast-iron steam radiators, the one in the living room must weigh two hundred pounds. The building hasn't used steam heat in decades, so these things just sit in the corners of the rooms collecting dust and taking up space which I need for more bookshelves.

Right now they're in the second floor hallway, and I'm pondering whether this was such a good idea... how do I get a two hundred pound hunk of cast iron down the stairs without hurting someone? Having got it down the stairs, what do I do with it?

# 10:30 AM

frantically catching up

Friday: went to Sumana's party. The lasagna was a success. Met all sorts of interesting people. What's Going On was a success, too.

Saturday: did laundry. Observed other people doing laundry. A dialogue:

Somehow, this dialogue reminds me of a story I read...

Afterward, went and had dinner with my grandparents.

bend your mind

with some ambigrams. I particularly like the first stanza of Jabberwocky.

# 1:10 AM

Why am I still awake?