My Silent Battle With the Swedes

Since February of 2001, I have been actively boycotting a certain furniture company. Let me stop you right there...before you go searching the internet for why somebody would boycott said company. This boycott was not founded on any high moral standard. It was not because I discovered that their furniture was crafted by pygmies who were captured from the jungles of Papau-New Guinea and forced to work long hours in a poorly ventilated factory adjacent to the red light district of Stockholm. Nor was it because of their eventual plan for world domination. (In that area, I'm more wary of the Westfield company. Their rapid acquisition of shopping malls all across the United States is, no doubt, nefarious in nature.) No, my boycott of Ikea was the simple result of a personal vendetta spurred on by the shoddy, incompetent service I received from the store in Burbank.

Let me explain. Prior to February 2001, I slept on a mattress on the floor. Not only was this decidely uncomfortable, it also robbed me of the valuable "under-the-bed" storage space, which we so often take for granted. So, after a particularly painful night of sleeping on the floor, I headed off to Ikea, determined to make that my last night on the floor. I spent a good part of the afternoon browsing through the store, finally choosing a style of bed that seemed to fit me. I purchased the bed, and then loaded all the parts that they gave me into and onto my Volkswagen Jetta (which has since met an untimely death.) I drove home, and carried everything up two flights of stairs and into my bedroom in order to begin to assemble my bed.

It didn't take long before I realized that assembling the bed would be absolutely impossible. They had given me the parts for two different beds. Half of the pieces were for the bed I had purchased, and the other half were for a twin sized bunk bed. For a brief moment, I entertained the idea of trying to build some sort of freakish-bed-hybrid, but decided against it. I loaded up the bunk bed parts into my car and drove back to Burbank. Additionally, I had noticed that the headboard, or frame, they had given me was all scratched up. Rather than going through all the trouble of loading the cumbersome headboard back into my car, I requested that they deliver a new one to me, along with the rest of the parts. They agreed to do so (free of charge, since they had made the error) and told me the parts would be delivered that Monday. They also said they would call Sunday evening to let me know what time they would deliver the parts.

Sunday evening, at around 9:00, I still hadn't heard from them so I decided to give them a call. I spoke to the person in charge of delivery, and he told me that they had no record of my order. At this point, I was slightly perturbed, and I drove down there to talk to the manager who had booked my delivery. She apologized, said she didn't know what had happened and left her office to go find out what the problem was. While she was gone, I happened to notice my delivery order sitting on the table in her office where I had filled it out. She had never even given it to the delivery people.

She came back to tell me that they would not be able to deliver it the next day, and that the soonest they could deliver it would be the following Monday. I agreed to that, and returned home. The next Sunday, they called to tell me they would deliver the goods at around noon. On the day of delivery, they did not actually show up until about 4:00, but that's pretty normal as far as deliveries go, so I didn't let that bother me.

When I began to assemble the bed, however, I discovered yet another problem. The new headboard they had given to me had the holes drilled backwards, thus making it impossible to assemble. I called and spoke to the same manager with whom I had been dealing and let her know about the latest problem. She was again apologetic and said they would send me a new headboard at the next available delivery time...which was the following Saturday.

Friday evening, they called and told me that they would deliver the new headboard at 8 am. Three weeks after purchasing the bed, I assumed everything was finally going to be in order. The next morning, however, at 7:45, the delivery driver called to tell me that they had loaded the wrong item on the truck, and that they would not be able to deliver the parts that day. Normally, I'm fairly soft spoken, opting simply to seethe with rage rather than voice my discontent. I'm fairly sure that at this point, however, I was near my breaking point...minutes away from going on a Los Angeles-wide rampage somewhat akin to Michael Douglas's rampage in the movie Falling Down. I managed to keep my rage to a minimum as I firmly explained to the driver that I expected my order that day and would not be able to receive delivery at any other time. He told me that he would do his best to get it to me. That evening at around 9:30, after an entire day of waiting for them to arrive, I finally received my new headboard and was able to assemble the bed.

The next day I wrote a seething letter to the store manager, lambasting his store's staggering levels of incompetence, and telling them that I would never purchase anything from them again. Never once did they attempt to contact me to apologize or somehow make up for all the inconvienence.

In my mind, I often compare this experience to a time that I purchased a shirt from the Men's Wearhouse. I got the shirt home and discovered it was slightly dirty, as it had been taken out of its plastic in the store. I returned to the store and requested to exchange the shirt. The manager gladly exchanged the shirt and also gave me a ten dollar gift certificate to compensate me for my trouble. All I'd really been expecting was a new shirt...but instead, he went out of his way to make certain I was satisfied.

Ikea never did that. As a result, I swore that I would boycott their store forever. And I never did return...

Until yesterday. Yes, it's true. Yesterday, I caved in and purchased a chair from the Burbank Ikea. The thing is, I've been using this really uncomfortable chair at my desk that often caused great pain in my tailbone. It was particularly noticeable over the last few weeks, as most of my waking hours were spent in front of the computer working on school projects. Yesterday, I just couldn't take anymore. I would have just gone to Office Depot, but I also wanted to browse for a decent bookshelf, as I need a better system of organization than just having my books and CDs stacked in piles all around my room. I didn't buy the bookshelf yesterday, as I wouldn't have been able to fit it in my car, but I did purchase the chair. I guess it was just time to let go of my anger.

So, you know those "How to Draw Your Favorite Superhero" type of books where they show the first few steps and then WHAM there's the finished product? Like, they'll have the first step be a bunch of circles, then the second step somehow involves connecting the circles and then the third step is a picture of Spider-Man? Well, the instructions for assembling this chair were sort of like that. They showed two somewhat vague steps on the box and then WHAM, they had a picture of a fully assembled chair. Naturally, I was able to figure it out eventually, as I am now sitting in that very chair.

But I'm still unable to draw Spider-Man.

Boring Stuff For You To Read

I have now returned home from my housesitting gig in West Los Angeles. I thought I should write something on this blog. As you may have noticed, I have not been feeling particularly inspired to post anything lately. A large part of that was due to the stress of the rapid approach of the end of the semester. In the midst of all that, I was housesitting and last weekend I had to go to that wedding in San Juan Capistrano. As an astute reader commented recently, I do go to quite a few weddings. I'm not really sure why it happens that way. I think it might have something to do with the fact that I do a really good job of keeping in touch with friends. I'm still in touch with friends from high school, college, different jobs I've had...all of that kind of stuff.

I was thinking about it this weekend and I realized that I've only ever taken dates to two weddings. I took Kim Price to my cousin's wedding in Fresno back in 1997, and I took this girl, Robyn McElliot, to a wedding in 1999. I like going to weddings...not just for the free food, but also because I think it's a great opportunity to catch up with people and see people you haven't seen in a long time and whom you might never see again. I've been in a lot of weddings, as well. I've been a groomsman seven times and an usher twice. This weekend, I was an usher and also had to do a reading during the service. The ceremony was an Episcopalian-Catholic hybrid. It was heavy on a lot of the liturgy, but was blessedly short compared to some of the other Catholic weddings I've been to. In July of 1999, a college friend of mine got married and his ceremony was a ninety minute mass. I think the ceremony this weekend clocked in at just under an hour.

The reception was a lot of fun, of course. It was held at the Marbella Country Club in San Juan Capistrano. I'm pretty sure that I would never be allowed within a mile of that place under normal circumstances. There was a five hour open bar, of which I gladly took full advantage. My friend's dad owns a winery in Lodi, so there was also lots of wine. After the reception, I was even able to take a few bottles home.

So, yesterday was Memorial Day, but I didn't partake in any festivities. I spent most of the day just lounging around the apartment at which I was housesitting. I went for a walk, as well. Somehow, I tweaked my knee up pretty bad last week so I can't really run at the moment. So, I'm opting to do the walking thing until my knee gets better and I can start running again.

For now, I'm just working on getting my room cleaned up from the sorry state that I let it sink to while I was busy with school.

Perhaps tomorrow I will regale you with wondrous tales. Until then, you'll just have to be content with this.

I say! Were you looking for me?

So, the question that has, no doubt, been burning in your mind these last 12 days is, "Where is Matt?" You have, most likely, dashed to work each morning and eagerly called up my site...hoping...praying...that I had updated. That I had placed another small, inane observation about some insignificant event in my life. And, each day, you have been met with utter disappointment. Your soul has been crushed as, day after day, you have seen the same headline on this page.

Well here, at last, is an entry. I do believe that I will spare you the details of my life since May 11. Things have been quite dull. I have spent the majority of my waking hours over the last two weeks working on final projects for school. In particular, I had to finish The Project from my Computers for Morons class. As I said before, everything involved in that project was simple. It was just arduous. The Project consisted of ten different assignments, each of which took about five hours to complete, and each of which was little more than busy work. Since the entire thing was so stupid, and I had other more important classes to worry about, I had saved almost the entire thing until the end. So basically, since May 12, I have done nothing other than work on the stupid thing. I finished it yesterday at about 4:30 in the afternoon...a mere three and a half hours before it was due.

So, I turned it in last night and thus completed my first semester in the credential program. I've got two more left to go.

This week I am housesitting over in West Los Angeles once again. Although, I've actually spent quite a bit of time back at my place, working on The Project. I had to do it at home because the computer here, as I'm sure you recall, is a somewhat archaic Macintosh.

Well, this weekend I have to go to a wedding in San Juan Capistrano. A friend of mine from college, Erik Randolph, is getting married. I'm serving as an usher and reading a psalm during the ceremony, so I have to go down tomorrow for the rehearsal dinner as well. I'm thinking I'll just stay at my brother's house in Irvine Friday night, rather than coming all the way back here. I'm sure the cats will be ok by themselves for one night.

Feeling the Pressure

I have barely left my room all weekend because of all the loads of school work I have to do. I am pleased to say that my portfolio which is due Tuesday was finished last Thursday, so I'm actually ahead of the game on that. Tomorrow, I have to turn in a take home final for my Educational Psychology Class. It's not that difficult, really. I just don't want to go through all the trouble of writing the damn thing. But, it is something that I must do.

I originally had an assignment due this Wednesday, the 14th, for my Methods of Teaching Social Sciences class (that's the class I ranted about earlier this semester) but my professor cancelled that assignment, so I don't have to worry about it.

What I am worried about, however, is my portfolio for my stupid SED 514 class, Computers in Instruction. I hate this class. I think that, in my entire academic career, there has never been a class that I have hated this much. Not because it's difficult. Quite the opposite, actually. It's just this stupid class that teaches people who have never been on a computer in their life how to use it. Unfortunately, there is no way to test out of the class, and everybody has to take it. Anyway, the reason the class bothers me so much is that it's so arduous. There are ten assignments in the class, and each one can take up to four hours to do. Again, they are not difficult at all...just a real pain in the ass. I hate this class more than I hate Corey Haim. Anyway, being the procrastinator that I am, I've still got about four of these assignments left to do before May 21. Granted, that's plenty of time. I just don't fucking want to do them.

Oh well...complaining about it won't change the fact that I have to do them. To make matters worse, next Saturday I have to take the CSET so that I can start student teaching in the fall. It's this really long pain in the ass exam. They used to require people to take the PRAXIS, but the state created their own exam and replaced the PRAXIS with that. It takes like six hours...from everything I've heard, it leaves you completely exhausted at the end of it.

Last Friday I went to do a classroom observation for a tenth grade World History class at John Burroughs High School in Burbank. Essentially, it was a little peek into my future. It's a new classroom, and I was amazed at the amount of technology available to the students. The students were giving Power Point presentations...I'm not even sure there was such a thing as Power Point when I was in high school. Anyway, as I was watching their presentation, it occurred to me how irritating all these classes I have to take at CSUN are. I mean...why not just let me do it? Do I really have to take Computers for Morons in order to be able to teach in the classroom? Seems like a better way to train teachers would be a supervised practicuum that actually takes place in the classroom rather than sitting around in a class discussing all this bullshit theory about how people learn. There's something to be said for trial by fire.

At any rate, as I'm sure you know, today is Mother's Day. I've got to call my mother at some point. Last year, on my blog, I think I bemoaned the whole idea of Mother's Day. As I said then, it's not that I mind calling my mom. In fact, I rather like calling my mom at times. I just hate HAVING to call my mom because Hallmark tells me that this is the day that everybody must call their mom and if I don't call my mom on this exact day then I am a horrible son because they are Hallmark and they say that this is the most important day on which to call your mom.

I'm just waiting for the part where I get an e-mail from my dad admonishing me for not calling her yet, even though it's only 11 am in Hawaii.

He's A Real Stand Up Guy!

Last night saw my first ever performance as a stand up comic. It was a simple affair really, as part of a fundraiser held at my church for this summer's trip to Kosovo. We had this dinner and a show type of thing last night. There were a total of five people doing stand-up last night, and I was one of them. I must confess that before I went up I was extremely nervous about the whole affair. I pictured myself standing up there telling lame joke after lame joke while crickets chirped in the background.

I am pleased to say, however, that that was most certainly not the case. We had a fairly large crowd...approximately 250 people. And man...did I floor them or what. I'm trying to say this quite modestly, but I was really quite good. The crowd was busting up...and countless numbers of people approached me afterward to tell me how incredibly funny I had been. I doubt that it's something I'd pursue... something in my gut tells me that it's easier to make a room full of church people laugh than it is to make an improv crowd laugh. So, it's entirely possible that that was my first and only performance. Sure, I killed 'em...but I'm not sure I have the tenacity to make a career out of it. And I'm fairly certain it was an easy crowd. Or maybe that's just my lack of self-esteem talking.

At any rate, I've got loads of school work to do over the next few weeks. It's really hard to concentrate on it. At the moment, I am finishing up my paper on the girl I interviewed on Friday. Technically, I was supposed to turn it in today but I wasn't quite satisfied with it, so I am going to e-mail it to the professor. (He let's us do that for any assignment, so it's not considered late until this Friday.) This week sometime I've got to do a classroom observation at a local high school and then write a paper on that also. I've got an assignment due this Wednesday, two papers due next Monday, a portfolio due next Tuesday, another assignment due next Wednesday and then a really big ass project due on May 21...then I'll be done with the semester. For now I've just got to finish this Case Study...then I'll worry about Wednesday's assignment. One thing at a time, I guess.

So, it seems as if everybody is making up summer reading lists for their weblogs. So, I thought I'd post one on mine. I did this last year and, as you know, I only got through one of them. No matter...perhaps this summer will be different.

Here it is...in no particular order:

The Doctor Is Sick-Anthony Burgess
Sometimes A Great Notion-Ken Kesey
Visions of Gerard-Jack Kerouac
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius-Dave Eggers
We The Living-Ayn Rand
Catch-22-Joseph Heller
Name of the Rose-Umberto Eco
Undaunted Courage-Stephen Ambrose
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix-J.K. Rowling

Currently, I am in the middle of Undaunted Courage, as well as Name of the Rose. I started reading Name of the Rose back in January but haven't really read much of it during the semester. I'm a little more than halfway through it.

I should also explain the addition of Ayn Rand. A number of years ago, my brother was reading The Fountainhead. When my dad saw that he was reading it, he scoffed and remarked that all Ayn Rand books should be banned. Since then, my curiosity has been piqued. Surely, if my dad feels that a book should be banned then it MUST be worth reading. However, since The Fountainhead is so arduously long, I decided to choose a shorter book by her...just to get an idea of what has so disturbed my father.

Also, I'm trying to incorporate "other works" by authors who are most recognized for one particular book. I once read an interview in which Anthony Burgess complained that all people ever wanted to talk to him about was A Clockwork Orange. His sentiment was something along the lines of, "You know...I did write other books..."

Anyway...that's all for now. Happy Cinco de Mayo.

There And Back Again

During the weekend, traffic to this weblog slows down noticeably...not surprisingly, of course. It's nice to know that my blog is a decent work timekiller.

I'm extremely exhausted at this time, for several different reasons. Last night, I wasn't really able to sleep all that much. Not for any particular reason. It's just that I have several different school projects due in the next two weeks as the semester winds down...one of which will require approximately 20 hours of diligent work on my part. The fruits of procrastination are beginning to catch up with me, it would seem.

I think I fell asleep at about 3:00 this morning, and then woke up at 7:00, because I had to meet Shane Ross, John Lin and Ryan Cox at Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles in Pasadena at like 7:30. As it turned out, they didn't open until 8:00, but we still ate there, nonetheless. In the three and a half years that I have lived up here, I have never eaten at Roscoe's...although I'd heard it spoken of with great reverence by many a Caltech student. So, I decided that today was my day to try it.

There's something...well, odd...about eating fried chicken for breakfast. The restaurant has a real Southern feel to it, and I'm certain that my mother would love it since she was born and raised in the South. I had fried chicken, grits and eggs. I used to eat grits all the time as a child, most often at the behest of my mother, who eats them like candy. (Keep in mind, she's from Lubbock, Texas.) I think it'd been almost seventeen years since I'd eaten them. I guess when I turned twelve I was finally able to tell her that I didn't want any more grits. Anyway...today, whether out of guilt or nostalgia for more halcyon days, I ordered some grits.

They are quite bland, unless one scoops loads of unhealthy butter and salt and pepper on there. With those additives, I rather liked them. I can't really remember if my mom eats them plain or dumps all the stuff on them. I'm inclined to think the latter. We actually ended up spending almost two hours at Roscoe's...quite the productive morning.

And speaking of procrastinating...on Monday I have to turn in a case study of an adolescent. Naturally, I delayed in locating an adolescent to interview. Ideally, one is supposed to contact a high school and ask to be set up with a student to interview. However, I didn't feel comfortable trying to arrange such a thing on such short notice. So, I picked my brain to think of who might have a teenager I could interview. Ultimately, I decided to call some friends of mine in Oceanside who have three teenage daughters (they have a total of four, but the oldest one is 21 and in college.) So, today I drove down to that area and met the 17 year old (who is a senior) at Rancho Buena Vista High School in Vista. Her dad teaches German there, so I also got caught up with him, since I hadn't seen him for quite a while. (Incidentally, for those of you who are mindful of such things, they have painted the school and it is no longer that horrible pink color.)

Anyway, we went over to Starbucks where I conducted a forty minute interview. Now, I have to write a three page paper on her. In one sense, knowing the subject so well was a little strange, but it also gave me an advantage of knowing which questions I should ask. One could also argue that the fact that I have known her since she was ten doesn't really allow me to be objective, but I don't think that will really matter for this particular assignment.

After finishing the interview, I drove right back here...so it was a really quick trip. I arrived home at about 7:45 and then got ready to go for a run. Yes...you heard correctly...I said run. I've recently taken up running. So far, I've been doing a pretty good job of it. I do it three days a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday)...at least I have been doing so for the past two weeks. It's kind of funny but, in just two weeks, I have noticed improvements. On the first day, it was awful. The original plan was to try to run out for ten minutes, then run ten minutes back. On day one, however, I was barely able to run for five minutes, so I just walked to a point that was about a mile away from my house.

Tonight, however, I was able to run for a full seventeen minutes, without stopping. It was somewhat encouraging, because Wednesday of this week had been pretty bad, based on a variety of different factors. Because of Wednesday, and the fact that I was completely exhausted from lack of sleep and driving all day, I almost skipped tonight's run, but ultimately decided that would be a bad idea.

Completely off topic, but just as important, my friends Shane and Erika will be touring Europe this summer. They have started a weblog on which they are seeking advice from any of us who may have travelled the Continent. Any advice you could give them would be much appreciated, I'm sure. They are looking for information like which cities should they visit, what sites are cool, what sites are tourist traps, which hostels are good, which hostels suck, and so on. I'm certain they are also looking for some "off the beaten path" type of things...things that aren't your typical tourist fare. So, go there and leave them suggestions or I'll kill you.