June 14, 2019
Dear Everyone:
It all started when my cardiologist asked me if anyone had ever told me
that I snore. He had the
idea that I might suffer from
obstructive sleep apnea.
The usual treatment is
Continuous Positive Airway Pressure
(CPAP). This is a machine
that blows air up your nose all night long.
On the Plus Side: It works.
On the Delta Side: It
uses up a lot of real estate.
There’s the machine itself, slightly larger than an average shoe box.
Plus the six-foot tube.
Plus the humidifier, which is technically part of the CPAP, but
which has to be removed every morning, cleaned out and refilled with
distilled water every night.
Then there’s the cleaning machine, which is actually larger than the
CPAP itself. And so on…
Obviously, the nightstand wasn’t going to be large enough.
So, I got a newer, larger nightstand.
And a TV stand, which originally was going to go in the bedroom,
but turned out to be so large that I repositioned it in the living room.
As long as I was purchasing all this new furniture, I decided to take
another look at my computer setup in the corner of the living room.
The laptop computer itself sits on a shelf built into the wall.
And the
printer, which used to be in the back bedroom, now sits
on another, lower shelf.
This was originally meant to be a place to put a few books and a
record
player and the LP* records to go with it.
There’s even a hole drilled into the corner of the top shelf to
accommodate the wires for speakers so you can place them as high up as
possible. This affords a
“better” listening experience as well as an optimum opportunity to annoy
your upstairs neighbors as much as possible.
I use a wireless external keyboard and mouse system, so there are no
problematic connections there.
However, the external 24-inch
monitor uses an
HDMI cable, plus a
power cord. Over time, I
have cobbled together a
hodge-podge of small horizontal surfaces to
accommodate all these apparatuses.
A table-tray here, an antique tea trolley there, and so on.
It all happened with very little intention beyond getting
something in place as easily and quickly as possible.
It was time to rethink things.
What I needed was a desk that was not a “standard” computer desk.
While browsing through the online desk/table inventories of
various office furniture suppliers, I stumbled (figuratively speaking)
across a small “student desk”, roughly 20 inches by 30 inched by 30
inches.
Its stated purpose is to help children in a classroom setting to work
either alone or collaboratively, depending on the situation.
If you spend a lot of time in elementary schools, you may have
seen something like it. It’s
basically a table for little people.
And it’s just my size. It
holds a keyboard and mouse (with room for the mouse to meander as
needed) and a copy holder.
And my computer glasses. The
adjustable height let me place it at just above the lowest setting,
which puts the keyboard and mouse at the “optimum” level where the elbow
is at 90 degrees and the upper and lower arms are more-or-less straight.
Very
ergonomic.
In the meantime, the antique tea trolley made a nice side table to hold
a set of stacking desk trays.
This helped to “verticalize the mess”.
Instead of a pile of papers on the desk, generally getting in the
way, not to mention burying the important stuff, there’s a place for To
Be Filed; In Progress; Action Needed; plus a tray for supplies and Just
Stuff.
The only hitch was what to do with that 24-in monitor.
I tried getting an articulated arm to mount with a clamp onto the
back of the child-size table.
Unfortunately, that didn’t work out too well.
I wound up using one of the tray-tables that I had originally been
using, but with a monitor stand on top of it to hold the monitor at a
better-for-me height. It
also holds a few desk items, like pencils and my glasses.
And it rotates.
When I get one of those annoying, and usually inconvenient, upgrades
from the computer company, I can start the upgrade, then turn the
monitor so I can see it from another location in the living room.
When the computer is finished, or requires some input from me, I
can see it without getting up until necessary.
Best of all, the tiny desk came with self-leveling legs.
I placed a carpenter’s level on the table and rotated the little
feet until the table was absolutely level.
Which confirmed something I had long suspected.
My living room floor has settled over the years.
Love, as always,
Pete
*LP stands for “Long Playing”, meaning a record that contained music
lasting more than about three minutes, and rotating at a staggering
33-1/3 revolutions per minute (RPM).
The record was about 12 inches in diameter and thus required a
13-inch-high shelf to accommodate it.
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