So in part 1, I brought home a sad little lamp from our trashroom.

This is the post where this sad little lamp is sad no more! Now it's a graceful fancypants lamp!

I went to IKEA and picked up the parts: $4.99 for a GRUNDTON (table lamp kit) and $8.99 for two SPARSAM flourescent bulbs. I'm only going to count this fix as costing $4.99+$4.50=$9.50 because I only use one of the bulbs. We have another IKEA lamp that takes this size bulb so the extra will just be a household spare.

Anyway, I happened to be meeting someone to sell some old laptop RAM for $10 today. So today's net dollar spend is zero!

On to the pictures!

Make sure the lamp isn't DOA before I get my grubby mitts on it...

It took almost 2 hours to get to this far... the grundton wire was thicker than the original and it was really tough getting it through the neck. Oh! And I took a break to get my 10 bucks....

Me and electricity understand each other perfectly. I remain scared of it, and I remain alive.  If I really did mess up the wire while pushing and pulling through the lamp neck... I was wondering if those rubber tipped stanleys would really insulate me from 1.21 jiggawatts of instant teeth clenching....?

And now some glamour shots! Old Lamp, this is YOUR time to SHINE!!!!!1

"Why's that sticker there," you ask? Well, it's because.... Old Lamp is sitting on top of DialupPC's case!  DialupPC is now our Windows Home Server (simply the awesomest backup/fileshare OS. Ever.)

That's all, folks!

-Dean :)

I really need to stop bringing stuff home...

With Ying and Bonnie out of town, there's just no stopping me!

I found this today. It looked kind of sad in the trashroom. And I felt bad thinking that it might end up at the dump. The cord is frayed and it's all tarnished. The light part is easy... just go to ikea and get a little light set for a few bucks. 

But the metal part of the lamp... is it brass? How do I polish this up?

Does anyone know?

Read Part 2 - Old Lamp is fixed!

I just took out the trash and what do I find in our beloved trashroom? A couple of old empty digital camera boxes with manuals and other misc things. Sorry no cameras (I wish!).  But there were some things among the instruction manuals and bubble wrap that caught my eye...

Woohoo!!! Scored again. Ok, not as great as the TV I scored last month, but still! Man I love our trashroom.

Here's a picture of if unwrapped. Yes, it was brand new. I haven't bothered opening the universal screen protector package yet. I don't think I'll have a use for that... I'll probably just bring it to the office and put it in my junk drawer.

Until next time... :)

老爺這次又從垃圾間撿了啥回家?

答案是26吋平面液晶電視.你沒有看錯,是真的.那天他倒完垃圾回家的時候,很神秘的說,你看我撿了什麼,我正眼都沒有瞧,正準備開唸時,眼角一瞄....液晶電視??? 液晶電視!!!!!! 有沒有搞錯?!是誰說美國景氣不好的?!一整個傻眼.

我鐵口直斷,這電視一定是壞的,而且壞到一碰就會散開,一插電就會爆炸的地步,要不然就是一個空殼子來虛晃老爺這種喜歡拾荒的個性.(我的腦海中不停的閃過新聞畫面....房子裡一整間的垃圾,鄰居向環保局告發太臭了..)

我猜對也猜錯了,電視當然是壞掉的,可是竟然被老爺神奇的修好了,我實在是.........我無言了我!

p.s.雖然說平白無故"撿"了這麼一個好康的東西,如果修不好就算了,可是畢竟是修好了,害我有一種當小偷的感覺.

This past weekend was the best ever for trash room treasure finding! I don't think we'll be able to top this find the rest of our residency here...

The other night I was taking out the trash and inside the trash room was an empty box for a brand new 37" LCD tv. And right next to that empty box was a 26" LCD TV.  Needless to say, I didn't even bother asking Ying for permission to bring it home. (After bringing that cool hat home, she made a new rule that I have to ask her before bringing anything home from the trash room).

I didn't skip a beat; I dropped my trash bag down the chute, turned around, leaned down and picked up the LCD TV with my right hand and opened the trash room door with my left hand and made my way home. Triumphant. GRUNT GRUNT GRUNT!! ME MAN. BRING HOME TV. GRUNT GRUNT!

"Stoopid! It was probably broken," you say.  Well yes, it was kind of broken. The picture turned on, but within a minute, the display got all staticky and weird. So off to the Internets I go to search for, "Maxent 26 inch LCD TV fuzzy picture" and what is this I see??? ----> Maxent MX-26X3 picture problem Wow! The very same problem reported by many people about the very same TV! Figures.

But before trying the DIY method, I called Maxent to see if they would warranty the tv. I was going to just say, "I *ahem* got it as a ...uhhh... gift. Yeah, a gift!"  But it turns out that the tv was manufactured back in April 2005 which means it's out of warranty anyway. A 4 year old tv going bad huh? Well according to that link above, I (nor the previous owner that threw this tv away) am not the only one with the problem.  I asked their tech support how much it would cost to fix the tv with a bad heatsink... The support tech said, $90 examination fee, $150 materials for a new board (they weren't going to just fix the heatsink) and $90 labor for installing a bad board.  He wanted almost $400 to fix this thing!!!  Ok, time out-- YOUR company makes tvs that die in 4 years and you want someone to shell out $400 to fix it? You do realize that a new 37" TV costs about that much these days?.... What kind of company policy is this? Ok, so I got it from the trash, but what about everyone else stuck with a non working tv?  I won't bother looking at Maxent the next time we go shopping for a TV.

So anyway, I took it apart myself and adjusted the heatsink and the tv is working now!  If it gets loose again, I'll actually go through the trouble of re-applying some real thermal epoxy. But for now, it's working and I'm happy! (So is Ying actually, but her rule still stands -- I'm not supposed to bring back anything else from the trash room. Bah!)

Here's a picture of it turned on -- great colors!

Here is a bigger picture of it sitting on our bedroom dresser. It has replaced an old 20" tube tv that we had there.

Talk about major score! Say what you want about taking stuff home from the trash... I'm already ahead by a TV!

Ying asked me, "Why would anyone throw away a tv if it's so easy to fix?" Here are my thoughts about the person who threw it away. 
1. They purposely left it right inside the door of the trash room, which meant they knew someone would take it home.  Very nice of them. 
2. The TV was out of warranty
3. They might not have been very handy with a screwdriver
and 4. They weren't comfortable around high voltage electronics.  I think they were all valid reasons for leaving the TV in the trash room. After all, look; it ended up in a good home!

I found this in our trash room today....

Apparently someone in the complex is moving out because there's a LOT of just-throw-it-away-because-we're-moving-and-don't-have-time-to-pack-it stuff in the trash room right now.

There were other, less practical items in the trash room like almost-new dust pans, designer paper waste baskets and brooms, suitcases... but I went for the most useful thing in there -- THE HAT!

As soon as I saw that hat, 50 images flashed through my mind of all the great poses I could make with this thing.  The above picture highlights some of the more glamorous of the bunch.  This was such a great find!!

Ying had a good laugh at my expense tonight. :)

Our other great find: http://www.deanying.com/PermaLink,guid,5e7b5968-1313-4a5c-8e5b-430b7eb06f6c.aspx and http://www.deanying.com/PermaLink,guid,da325696-9571-41a3-877d-c2422767eb67.aspx

Man, I love our trash room.

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老爺愛撿垃圾已經不是新聞.偏偏我們又跟全世界最浪費的民族住在一起,所以偶爾還真的會從垃圾間裡面撿回一些寶.

昨晚老爺倒完垃圾回來,他站在門口不停的對我喊:"我不管.我不管.不管." 我因為在跟我娘講話,眼睛也沒有往他的方向看,只是覺得很奇怪,為什麼老爺一個勁兒地喊我不管,到底是不管什麼.待我轉頭過去看到老爺帶著這個越南帽時,我開始狂笑,大笑,爆笑.....然後因為太激動,腳就抽筋了..........

你馬好了,撿那個回來幹麻啦!!!!

Woah. ... has it already been 2 whole months??!?!

We had originally... "adopted" a poor, unwanted piece of art from the trash room 2 months ago to the day. You can read about TRT Part 1 (that's Trash Room Treasure for those of you not-in-the-know) for a refresher course :) And aaaactually, our faithful reader,  eagle-eye Caroline, was sharp enough to catch a glimpse of TRT Part 1.5 in this post.

Well, we didn't end up getting a tree this year.  So Ying thought it would be fun to do a play off of the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree ... except with our Trash Room Treasure.

Isn't it beautiful??????

In-The-Making:
So how did we go about making our tree?  All it took was a pair of scissors, some tape, a sacrificial Saks Fifth Avenue shopping bag, and of course our Trash Room Treasure:

Oh! And I would like to emphasize that this was all YING'S idea!!! She really likes that Trash Room Treasure -- she also likes scissors and shopping (bags) ...  I think some of my bad habits are rubbing off on her.

-Dean :)

Tonight I was taking out the trash... most of you know that we just recently moved to a new apartment. :)

Well -- haha, tonight I went to take out the trash to the trash room and found something very funny!  Ying is always making fun of me how I have weird stuff that is pointless and doesn't even look good. 

I came home and remaining calm said, "Dearest baby, there is something I want to show you.  Please put on your slippers and let's go see it."

She looked suspicious but put on her shoes and followed me out.  The trash room is only a few steps diagonally across our hallway (don't worry; it's not THAT close -- we don't smell it, they're trash chutes anyway).  This is what I wanted to show her:

Here's another artistic-angle shot:

Ying laughed so hard that she started choking because she was trying to be quiet (it was midnight).

Here's the best part -- she said, "LET'S TAKE IT HOME!" .... so we did:

Don't worry, we'll probably drag it back out to the trash room tomorrow.  In case you're curious, the "treasure" had a label on it [Tony Almén/Peter Gest].  Ying did a google search and found this: http://www.almengest.com/ram.html  I think they make stuff for Ikea... yeah it definitely looks like Ikea stuff too.

-Dean :)