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| Wednesday, October 11, 2006 |
| Home, Theatre, Home! |
Mr Ata has settled on employment with his current client. After some deliberation and discussion with a workmate, a suitable fee was decided upon, and the client agreed to it. It is less than we wanted, but more than we would take, and didn't have to be argued hard for (and there is no on-call! Hooray!). Ata believes it is best if one's employer does not feel that they are getting screwed - besides which, Ata and Mr Ata are not hard-core negotiators. We probably wouldn't provide the bank robbers with a helicopter, but we might come up with a minivan. And pizza.
Anyway, having secured further employment (for the next year, at least), Mr Ata has turned his attention to What He Wants To Do with the break he has arranged between jobs. A friend recently acquired a projector. Projectors have received occasional comment from Mr Ata, and he was suitably impressed with the friend's acquisition. Then the thought occurred to him - if we moved all the A/V equipment into the family room (it's a family room on the house plans, but Ata likes to call it a library. Makes her feel classy), a pull-down projector screen could be installed at one end with the projector suspended from the ceiling in the middle. The lounge could be placed at the other end and a raised platform built to put a couple of chairs behind the lounge... and voila! Home Theatre! The library is a long, narrow room with a door at one end - suitably shaped for this purpose. And Mr Ata has four weeks holiday between jobs in which to build a platform! Ata can make curtains to hang on the walls to break up sound! (Hang on, says Ata, how did I get involved in this?) His beady little IT-geek eyes are positively gleaming at the thought.
Ata is... well... undecided. Yes, having a Home Cinema with Raised Seating sounds cool, especially if comfy reclining leather couches are in the offering. Even comfy reclining fabric couches. And hey, if you're installing a Home Cinema, you might as well have comfy furniture. On the other hand... the Backyard Project is yet to be completed. The airconditioner needs replacing. Ata's car smells alarmingly of petrol. Every wall in the house is opening up with cracks, Ata tries not to think about the state of the bathroom (which is not being replaced on the justification that the house is Not Worth a new bathroom), and incomes do not last forever, so surely the Redundancy should be put to better use than Projectors and Screens and Furniture. But, after all, it is Mr Ata's redundancy. He is the one who, last weekend, worked 15 hours of overtime over Saturday & Sunday. He is the one who gets calls at two am, four am, four thirty am. He is the one who has supported Ata while she has been unable to work full-time. His income paid for the courses and hobbies Ata undertakes even when she could possibly be working full time, without complaint from Mr Ata even when he still has to do the laundry. He is the one who took several weeks off work to play nurse to Ata after hospitalisations. And he is the one who is now electing to work the next 12 months straight, as a result of which we will not be dependant on Ata securing full-time employment, so Ata can temp and hold out for the carrot. So Ata feels it would be churlish of her to forbid him spending a percentage of the payout on the home cinema he would get such enjoyment from, and be so happy to show off to friends. |
posted by Ata @ 8:00 pm  |
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