Pista likes it. :)
Cooking has become one of my favorite single-tasking activities. Tonight I made risotto with peas, chicken katsu, and salad of baby spinach, red onion & pepper and avocado. And washed it down with a beer.
7:45 PM, listening to Spoon. Last Thursday I’ll be living in SOMA. Pista walks over, wants to be scratched on her neck, licks my nose. The sounds of Essex street and the 1st street exit bubble through the open window. The sun has set over the skyscrapers out my window, and the city lights are coming on. The cranes have slowed for the night and the Cnet logo glows volcanic orange.
Every box is taped, every record crated. The turntables are put away, and the bicycles and books are not far behind. Last order from the SOMA Goat Hill Pizza. Tomorrow is the last 4 block commute to work. Saturday the lights will go dark in this concrete home and Spoon will be quiet here forever.
I finally got to some long-put-off reorganization of my home office. Part of my procrastination was related to the task of relocating my monitor. I have a very shallow desk, and for that reason the monitor is mounted on the wall with a nice aluminum VESA mount. If you need to mount a flat-panel on a wall (or other), I highly recommend the Sanus VM-1. I have two; the second is used to affix the TV to the staircase.
At any rate, my previous installation had left the screws affixing it to the wall in less-than-adequate condition. The top bolt was nearly stripped, probably because I’d used a cheap allen key with a lot of slop. Secondly, it was really stuck in there. I tried a half-dozen different allen keys, screwdrivers, pliers, and even tried prying the head of the screw off with a hammer & screwdriver. That only succeeded in damaging the mount. I then tried filing down the edge of the bolt head to put a socket on it. Failed.
A desperate rummage through my toolbox yielded a vintage wrench that I’d found on the street a few years ago. It was small, curved, and according to a stamp on the handle: patented. What the hell, I thought and gave it a shot. The first attempt failed, but then I realized that the wrench was not only adjustable, but had a pivot as well. If I flipped the wrench around, then the tourque of pulling the wrench around (or the bolt resisting said torque) would tighten the wrench’s grip on the screw head. Aha!
After a few turns, I had succeeded in getting the rotten bolt out of the wall, and salvaged the mount base. Success!