The fallacies of Living in a "Model" home

So the apartment complex where I will eventually be a tenant has graciously allowed me to stay in one of the model apartments. They gave me a rather large two bedroom unit decked out with nice furniture, wine bottles, and bed's made for a king. However there is more to this than meets the eye, and I am here to dish out the truth of the matter.

The bed I have slept on while appearing comfy, is actually nothing more than a glorified box spring atop a boxspring. This bed has exactly 72 sharp coils that violate me at night! It is so rough in fact that when you roll over at night you get burns, and I now realize that my elbows are scabbed up because of a bed. Another matter of fact is that these beds are a bit shorter than "normal" beds to give the room a larger feel about it - either that or I grew to 6'5".



Another interesting fact to note is that the shower has only a half curtain. Essentially to showcase the shower. Yet the functionality is pretty sad, as to take a shower and not wet the floor of the entire bathroom I must use my body as a makeshift shower curtain.



Finally, a couple random things...there are food items in the pantry. Yet they are unopened and hollow! I guess this is supposed to make you feel more at home. Yet they have decrepit food items that you would have found at Lucky's before it turned into Albertsons. I am not exactly digging the corn beef hash (aka dog food for humans) that is prominently displayed in the cabinet. They also have some fake deodorant in the bathroom cupboards. Don't ask me why.



I worked a bit less this week, only since it was a four day workweek. I talked a bit to an NPR reporter who is covering the regional climate change issue in the state of California. I am presenting a poster next week in Sacramento at a California Energy & Climate conference. We are trying to diseminant an objective way to classify regions of California into climate divisions (essentially by seeing how stations vary with one another). It is pretty tough to put together anything sound in such a short time on the job, so it is a work in progress. I'll let you know what comes of this.

Since I have been in Reno it has smelled like one big campfire here. There is essentially a fire every other day here (well not in Reno, but in the Tahoe forest, or surrounding environs). Not a bad smell, but certainly a bit scary considering that the hillside about 1 mile from my apartment burned in August.

Finally, unbeknownst to me, there has been an explosion of hot air balloons in the skies of Reno. I had no idea what was going on, it was as if these people in their balloons knew something that I didn't. Had the fires encompassed Reno, was an earthquake about to happen, was it the end of the world? No, it is the Reno Balloon Races, an event that has occurred for the last 20 years or so. It is a real float parade where balloons of all shapes (and crazy people who drive them) take to the skies in the early morning hours. Apparently they have races and also there are targets around town where they attempt to drop things into? Anyhow, it is pretty funny since these balloons tend to land wherever they please. I saw one about 200m from my office yesterday, and another one atop a Safeway this morning.



Link of the week: http://www.bobrivers.com/ Bob Rivers show: a great funny and informative morning show based in Seattle. I've been listening to their podcasts for the last 6 months or so, great stuff.