Yeah, I’ve got nothing. The ten or so unused items in my notebook aren’t doing it for me (a wiener dog the size of a german shepherd? what??), and I can’t work up much enthusiasm for the retelling of some old tale. So, I’m just gonna describe the bunker to you — my little writing chamber/sanctuary.
The Surf Report bunker is literally a former walk-in closet, off our family room. In fact, the bar is still in here, where you can hang-up your coat or whatever. I have a feeling the family room was used as a bedroom in the past, because of this large closet, and the evidence of a locking door having been in place at one time.
But the woman who lived here before us also used the space as a home office. I remember being in here with all her junk, during our initial walk-through. There was a plastic shelving unit that tilted radically, and papers and files where everywhere. I can’t remember what she did for a living, but it was something from home.
Oh, it was a tragically dull office, but I fixed that problem. I went to Lowe’s and bought some babyshit green paint, and put two coats of it on the walls. Then I started hanging stuff on the walls, brought in a stereo and a ton of CDs. A dormitory fridge was placed in the corner, where I sometimes keep beer and Mountain Dew. Although it’s empty right now…
On the floor is some thin and very cheap carpet, beige in color. It wasn’t too old or worn, so I left it. And there’s a real door, and not some accordion deal, or anything like that.
To the left of my computer desk is a two-drawer file cabinet, with a copier/scanner on top. There’s a Nikon Coolpix camera on top of the copier at the moment, along with the earbuds for my iPod, and a 2 gig flash drive,
My computer desk has a shelf above the monitor, where I’ve got a vintage Budweiser bar lamp (purchased at a flea market for ten bucks or something), autographed baseballs from Mickey Mantle and Johnny Bench, my high school class ring, a British pound coin, a small vase from Kanawha Glass (located in Dunbar, WV many years ago), a Matchbox version of the Andy Griffith Show police car, and a whole bunch of writing books.
On the walls I’ve got all manner of stuff: an autographed photo of Dan Aykroyd (“Jeff, rock on!”), a 1962 West Virginia license plate, a platinum album award for REM’s Out of Time, and a giant plaque from the time I won the Video Inventory Manager of the Year award at Warner-Elektra-Atlantic, a former employer. And that’s just the wall behind my computer.
The wall to my right: Cincinnati’s Big Red Machine team photo from 1975, an autographed picture of REM (Michael just drew a peace sign, the hippie), a photo of me and Iggy Pop sitting on a couch, a DC Comics calendar, a vintage photo of Dunbar City Hall, an old picture inside Gillespie’s Barber Shop, (where I got my hair cut as a kid), an autographed photo of Soupy Sales, a soup ladle autographed by the guy who played the Soup Nazi on Seinfeld, and a shelf with an old 1940s radio that was used by a music-loving aunt who died in a tuberculosis sanitarium before I was born. Among other things…
The wall behind me: a framed poster advertising Michael O’Donoghue’s notorious film Mr. Mike’s Mondo Video, a reproduction of an old Topps baseball card ad, a Brooklyn Dodgers pennant, a signed poster for the Replacements final album, a vintage fallout shelter sign, a framed photo of the Three Stooges, and a gigantic metal sign advertising Yuengling beer.
The other wall: a framed Animal House poster (the one where the whole cast is flipping the bird), an old Rockpile poster, an uninspiring clock, autographed photos from Carl Reiner and the Olsen Twins (two different photos), and a picture of Bobby Thompson’s “shot heard round the world” home run, signed by both Thompson and Branca.
Behind me is a table piled high with CDs and books ‘n’ crap. My 80 gig iPod is plugged into a docking station/stereo system there, as well. The thing is almost maxed-out, with roughly 15,000 songs on it. It’s always playing when I’m at my computer, almost without exception.
And on the floor are a bunch of books, and my laptop computer, inside a Jack Bauer “Jack Sack.” On top of the fridge is a vintage-looking oscillating fan, which comes in handy when it’s hotter than a July scrotum in here. Propped beside the fridge are game-used bats by Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, and Ken Griffey Sr.
I love the bunker, and spend many, many hours inside. It’s a true sanctuary, and subterranean base of operations. When I get up in the mornings I start a pot of coffee to brewing, and walk straight to my office. On weekdays I spend almost my entire non-sleeping, non-working hours there.
And that’s a casual description of my office. If you feel like it, please tell us about your home workspace. All of them are unique, I believe, and I’d like to know about yours. I really would, I’m a nerd about such things…
In fact, if you email me a photo, I’ll start a gallery of Surf Reporters’ home offices. Maybe help us put a name with a space… Get it? Pretty good, huh?
And this concludes another dispatch from the bunker.
I’ll see you guys again tomorrow.
Now playing in the bunker
Evil Twin t-shirts now only $13!
First? Yay!
First?!?!?!
What the hell is a Video Inventory Manager?
I managed the video inventory for WEA Atlanta. Movies, during the VHS era… My boss was the Audio Inventory Manager, and he handled CDs and cassettes. It was a different era, but a fun one.
Very nice description!
My home office is one of the four bedrooms, and is shared with the wife as she is just as busy as I am, sometimes more.
There are shelves full of kids books and financial papers and toys, a couple of filing cabinets, and two desks facing opposite walls.
It’s painted Duke blue, which is odd because we are Tar Heel fans.
There’s a computer screen on each desk, no desktops – we just lug the laptops back and forth and use big screens at home and work.
Above my desk is a bulletin board with all my concert stubs from this decade on it. Above her desk are a bunch of signed, numbered, limited edition posters by Casey Burns advertising shows at the Cat’s Cradle. Chris Stamey, Lucinda Williams, Guided by Voices, et al. are enshrined this way.
I like it.
My home office is shared with my boyfriend. It is actually the master bedroom of our 2 bedroom house. We figured we would only use the small bedroom for sleeping and occasional (and lately I mean OCCASIONAL) naughtiness anyways, so we should pimp out the computer room.
We have our own office desks next to each other but with an IKEA bookcase (8 large cubby holes) in between. We have a 40″ TV against another wall sitting atop an IKEA TV shelving unit. Next to that is a home-made deluxe rat cage, which houses our two rats, Boo & Ratley. The rat cage sits atop two cinderblocks in front of a window cuz Boo the Fat Rat loves to lay in his hammock (which dangles from the top floor of said cage) and stare out the window. Ratley hides all day in a Newegg shipping box we put inside for them to build their own “home”.
On another wall we have a third computer desk only because we don’t know where else to put it & it only has crap piled on it right now. Soon enough though I plan to get rid of the fucker.
On the wall across from our TV is an awesomely cool, funky ass IKEA loveseat ($199!) with a patchwork pattern of blues, reds, greens, blacks and browns. It’s a Swedish Clusterfuck so I love it dearly.
On the floor of our office is a green area rug that one of my dogs has decided is her personal toilet & atop the rug sits a $7 white IKEA coffee table.
It’s a cool room but lately I have been thinking that we should have a kid before my eggs dry up but I have no idea where we’d put the baby. I ain’t giving up my office! 😉
Oh yeah I should say our office is painted a soft yellow. Goes well with crazy couch.
Melissa: I can just see you in Ikea asking an employee, “Yes, could you tell me where I would find the Swedish Clusterfuck sofa?” LMAO!!
I guess my home workspace would be my “studio”. Studio is in quotes because it’s shit. It’s in what I suppose is a den. It has a closet like it is a bedroom, but it also has two doors. Two doors to an inside room. One set is a big French door thing leading directly into the living room, the other door goes out to the hallway.
There is a bar stool facing all my gear. Starting from the left, I have an effects pedal board on the floor, it runs two distortions and two wahs along with one of two modulation devices. To the right of that I have four tall feet of speaker cabinets and amplifiers. To the right of that are my guitars, one 6-string custom bass, one 5-string ESP Ltd bass, and one treble guitar tuned B-E-A-D-G-C. Further to the right is my digital recording console. It’s the shitty studio part of the set-up. I record into that and transfer wave files to a super computer in another room to poorly master and finalize tracks on a program I have no idea how to use.
No decoration. No poster or trinkets. Only utilitarian amounts of blank CDs and tuners scattered about the place.
My home office is an extra room in the basement (about 10′ x 20′) which I converted from an old-timer’s rundown work shop to a fully stocked BAR. Fully decked out with all sorts of memorabilia collected over the years, three HD TV’s, complete stereo system, full size fridge (beer, cold liquor(Jaeger) and mixers stocked), electronic dart board, Festivus pole decorated in Christmas lights. I spend as much time in there working as I possibly can.
Well, I guess technically, it’s my man-cave. And it’s painted completely in WVU gold and blue, with a giant flying-WV on one wall.
“BAR” meaning “Browning Automatic Rifle”, yes?
:^)
.
Yup, shoot anyone who drinks my last shot of Crown without having a replenishment supply !
Mine pretty much looks like Superman’s home office. The tall white crystal desk, cavernous, cold, full of echoes…
My sanctuary is one corner of the den. It’s off limits to dames. Actually, my wife won’t come in here. Every horizontal surface is covered by paper, whether it’s books, magazines, or mail that hasn’t been looked at. The bookshelves are crammed with books and hideous flea market finds. Among the items are a stuffed crocodile in a police uniform, a headless hula girl, skunk bookends, a Lambchop puppet, a ceramic duck head, 20 linear feet of math books, various loose CD’s, a Mr. Machine, and other assorted crap.
Do you work with the door open or closed? Anything hung on the door or ceiling?
I have worked from home since 2002 and my home office is a bedroom with the door taken off so I can roam in and out freely and without the annoyance of opening a door. My desk is a 3 x6 folding conference table with a desktop PC and a spot for the laptop. The closet also has the door taken off and this is my electronics graveyard and travel gear spot. I have stacks of charts which will never be transcribed. On the walls I have a pen and ink drawing of the president framed with my unused metro tickets to the inauguration, a painting of 6 kids flipping the bird, a World History achievement award from 10th grade. The floor is covered with rubble from projects and trips. It has great light.
Home office. Hmmmm. Well, there is a computer desk in my bedroom that has a Win-98 HP Desktop that probably hasn’t been turned on in a year or two. Stacked next to it are a couple of Letter Size Short File boxes with our recent bills and “important papers” that I need to go through and file properly in the “White Hutch Thing” in the unused front bedroom which I am working on turning into the Son and GFs “media room” where our really important stuff like birth certificates, marriages licenses and such wait to be sorted and alloted to permanent place in either Safe Deposit or Important Papers Drawer. My newest laptop stays on the kitchen island bar where it gets pushed out of the way when we eat (we’ve eaten in the dining room twice in the 13 years we’ve lived in this house) and the bills to be paid are in the bill bag (laptop bag) hanging from a shelf in the laundry room. My other laptop I occasionally see perched here or there in various locations around the house and has apparently been handed down to the next generation since it hasn’t been in my direct possession in several months now.
I don’t need no stinkin’ home office.
My “office” is the end of the kitchen table. My laptop is permanently there and I usually don’t even move it out of the way for dinner. I always have a book sitting on my bookstand next to the laptop, currently pre-calculus. Behind me is my piano bench that I have all my school books and important stuff on. In the dining room we also have the desktop computer on a big corner desk. That desk is always piled with so much crap you can’t find anything. But they all are important papers that we must keep. (sarcasm). Oh and my laptop sits on a rooster place mat. I’m a girl who loves cocks. 🙂 so I had to buy it for my end of the table when I seen it.
I put a built-in desk in my home office. It’s granite and is supported by black filing cabinets. It doesn’t look as bad as it sounds. A large bookshelf to my right is crammed with books. I have two computers in front of me. One is older and mostly for play. The other is for work. The walls are orange – that’s right, orange – and mostly unadorned. I’ll send a picture.
Organized Chaos.
My office is actually converted from a very tiny bedroom. I think bunkbeds would be all it could fit. It’s probably only about 10′ x 8′ (?) with a tiny alcove just big enough for an antique painted table I use for my computer and various papers, reference books, and magazines. All of my jewelry supplies, tools, vintage/antique jewelry waiting to be transformed into something “new”, and my finished pieces are kept in an antique french painted desk, a 1930’s china cabinet (glass replaced with screen), and an italian wall shelf. Yes, I live what I do. I have all kinds of frilly, girly stuff around including a vintage manequin and lights to photograph my jewelry for listing on my website and Etsy.
When I am actually working on the jewelry itself, I carry a tray with all the supplies I’ll need to the diningroom table and work on it there. Our livingroom, diningroom, and kitchen is all one big-ass room. So I am in ear/eye-shot of the TV and the stove if cooking. I’m a multi-tasker…yessiree, I’m a regular Martha Stewart.
I’ll send in a photo of my pretty office too.
I’m curious to the dimensions of this room, or Narnia as it sounds.
My home office is the entir eliving area. When you walk into my house, you’re IN. I guess it’s a great room? Open floor plan? Towrds the right is the kitchen and a kitchen island. The left is the living area. STraight ahead is the dining table. My laptop sits straight from the door overlooking the bay window. Beloved’s is to my rigfht. The table is a 4 seater. SMALL.
On the wall with the couch are 2 signed pictures of Jeff Bridges and a limited lithograph of the Rolling Stones Voodoo Lounge. The wall acorss houses the big ass TV, a signed picture of Tony Benett and a hand drawn picture of my late cat, Pie Dude.
The window seat has a CD collecton, a wine rack and a filing cabinet on it.
The room is a jumbled fucklebug. There is no ryhme or reason to it. Our second bedroom, I refer to as the “warehouse”. The basement has all of our equipment for our second business (we have a sausage kitchen and smokehouse) so that’s taken up with grinders, stuffers, 2 freezers and boxes of spices, etc). I really need to win the lottery and get a bigger space.
I do butchering and sausage making myself. Not a business just for fun. Do you sell to the public?
No, we “process” usually work for hunters and Fish and Game clubs. It’s seasonal but it adds a few bucks for fun spending!
Come on down for Madz’ Jumbled Fucklebug Sausage – A delicious mix of pork, beef, turkey, acorns, apples, walnuts, llama, and squab.
LOL! We sautee the llama!
How about posting a photo Jeff?
Seems to me that he did at one time.
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My “bunker” is actually just a bedroom. Gray walls, vintage oak floors, a bed, a desk with a laptop and lots of guns and ammo laying around. Getting ready to start reloading shotgun ammo, so there are primers, wads, shotshell hulls, and powder laying in a heap on the floor. A pair of shotguns in the corner, a “Soviet Humbox” air conditioner on blocks, and a full cleaning setup. Smells like a mix of cosmoline, powder and Rem Oil/Hoppes #9 Solution. Typical gunner’s paradise.
Throw in three guitars and my son lives in the same room.
I spend most of my “office” time at an oak roll-top desk in the living room. Laptop on the desk, TV behind me so I can turn and check it out if something interesting comes up. Stereo is in the TV stand, with an actual turntable on top so I can break out my old albums (some of which date back as far as my distinguished military career). One of the spare bedrooms has an almost 8 foot work bench made out of an old conference room door and fastened to two walls. A couple bars stools completes that corner, which is almost totally covered in my wife’s stained glass stuff. That room also contains my guitars and amps (which I never put in the time to get good at and haven’t touched in too long to remember), my gun safe and another smaller safe full of ammo. The rest of my ammo stash is down in a storage container next to the garage. Most of my construction type tools are in the storage conainer, too. I’ve been intending to wire, insulate and sheetrock the garage for over 5 years now. No sense getting in a hurry. I have a 10’X12′ barn out back where I park the Harley and keep my big toolbox. So I’d have to say I have a few places to hang out and be non-productive, but the desk/laptop in the living room gets most of my time.
I know this is off subject but what the hell. Somebody mention stink bomb and then stink balm but was it supposed to be or could it also be “stink palm”? Man that shit is halarious.
sorry i must be a day behind.
Please join me in the Masterbatorium.
The walls as you can see are painted blood red. This is to increase testosterone production and raise my blood pressure, giving me a psuedo-efficiency by mimicing the fight response. The paint is enamel to permit vigorous scrubbing as needed.
The window is covered with one way mirrored film so I can observe both the milf next door and her college aged daughter. They have no idea how many threesomes they have been involved with. Don’t judge me.
The carpet is a deep rich pile that feels luxurious underfoot but is treated to resist staining. See above paragraph.
I have chosen to furnish the room in the most spartinesque manner possible. Nothing is in the room that does not fulfill a purpose. Ikea is used throughout to ensure clean lines that do not distract in any way during observation sessions. Ikea also affords ambiance merely through the choice of simulated Nordic names:
fukt desk
kuntt chair
kok shelving
mennstrall credenza.
The room is soundproofed on all six sides to not disturb the others. The double doors are engineered to interlace when closed providing both noise supression as well as full security. The chamber locks from the inside.
This is my world. I am alone. I am sleek, luxurious and beautiful. I am purpose. I am energy. I shall be.
This is very funny but I think you may need to get some help. No offense or anything.
Hey Hot….Here’s another Nordic name for ya, darlin…
PHUCK DUP
Right now I’m using the smallest of the three bedrooms as an office. I have a big L-shaped computer desk that I got at Costco about 15 years ago, and it’s positioned so I can see out the window while at the computer. On either side of the window are wall-mounted shelves. To my right are four more wall-mounted shelves, all full of CDs. Behind me are two tall white cheap Home Depot bookcases full of (duh) books. There are computer parts and other random crap strewn everywhere. Oh, and a way-too-heavy laser printer under the desk, ideally positioned so I can crack my left kneecap on it.
Walls are about the color of Dijon mustard, floor is hardwood with no rug. The computer is an old Dell desktop I got from ebay. No stereo or TV. About the only decoration is a little analog clock that I made from an SGI installation CD.
.
I teach mostly online and my home office is the couch. It is a sectional (microfiber – hate that crap because even water makes rings on it that I eventually have to shampoo out) so it has a console to my left where I keep my pens and binder clips. The wedge to my right is where I stack papers (if I have any – I grade electronically too mostly).
My baby sits in his bouncy chair at my feet and when he isn’t playing on the floor he is there and I bounce him with one foot while I type.
I don’t really like sitting at desks very much. I think better when I am comfortable. I have a real office at my work, but I feel like I am in a 70s rec room because it is old (English buildings tend to be crap because they are low priority for many universities) and paneled in white trash faux-pine. That and the students do tend to come in and, you know, want help and suchlike. AT home I can pretend I didn’t notice the instant messenger.
I’m in the ‘Paprika’ room.
( I remember going to the DIY store and asking for terracotta coloured paint and the guy saying that that they didn’t have any of that, but they did have ‘Paprika’.
And low and behold its fucking terracotta!! grrrrr…..)
It’s my wife’s office/ treatment room. She’s a counsellor specialing in treating PTSD with EMDR.
-sorry about the acronyms.
Its pretty spacious with a big desk, two settees, an upright piano- which is basically a very noisy kid’s toy, and loads of books on shelves.
I am constantly being told to keep her desk tidy.
Here’s a link to a past subject about voices for sat navs. I wonder if they do Chewbacca?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ljFfL-mL70
My “office” is the entire garage, which is crammed with tools, projects, lumber, scrap steel, guns, hunting clothes, and chainsaws. I threw everything in there the day we moved in (5 years ago) and although I spend lots of time there cranking out various projects, I’ve yet to clear out enough room to actually park a vehicle in the garage. But who wants a car parked in their office anyway?
Briefs not box boxers. Most likely won’t be sending a photo.
So the teenage secrets came home yesterday, and I notice they bought boxes of Toy Story themed cheez-its. I just assumed they were on sale or something, but then I realized the truth: one secret proudly exclaimed, “Hey! I got a Woody!”
Sigh… apparently today at school there will be woodies all around the lunch table…
What? Who sent you? Who do you work for? Does the name “Chewy Montenegro” mean anything to you?
Just had to post this anecdote. I don’t really know how those ads work on the WVSR site – presumably they are supposed to mean something based on the content of the site. Anyhoo, I hit the comments section and the ad that popped up was:
BIG GIRL BRAS
hehe. keep it up!
Jeff, I know you have worked in the industry.
Has anyone else worked in the record label industry, particularly on the legal side of things?
Home office, nothing special, just a desk, lamp and my favorite commemorative plate. Here’s a video of me in my office.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWsV5EmgVbE
Sorry Jauncho, I just couldn’t resist.
I think this deserves special recognition:
http://www.genito-urinary-surgeons.com/tapper.shtml
You can’t make this stuff up – a genito-urinary surgeon named Dick Tapper.
Paging Dr. Dick Tapper! Go Bucks!
…and then I just got an email from Peter Harden!! Too many dick jokes today!
I telecommute, and I have two offices. The “official” office is the 3rd bedroom. A desktop computer, the main satellite modem, and a truly ballsy wi-fi router designed for 300 Home Depot employees to use simultaneously –a friend who owns a vacation rental property (we live on the water) down the street bought it for us if we would agree to let his guests piggyback on our killer signal.
That office is mainly my library — over 6,000 books in piles everywhere, including the entire closet, because I have been too lazy to build the used-bookstore-like wall-to-wall floor-to-ceiling custom bookshelves i designed when i bought the house new 6 full years ago.
But I don’t spend much time there, because I like to smoke while I work, and I don’t smoke in the house. The man cave is the garage. I got married this year for the 1st time at age 47. Prior, the whole house was decorated from Bass Pro, Cabela’s. and the taxidermist. New wife made me take all of my “dead animals” out to the garage, and most of the artowork. She allowed me to keep ONE of the three bathrooms as a freshwater fish theme, including some of my nicest mounts.
But out here in the man cave is where I spend 80+% of my waking hours, using my laptop. I’m sitting at a round table often used for poker. Chesapeake Bay bushel crab baskets are spaced between multiple chairs to use as drink surfaces for myself and guests.
There’s a cat named Molly sleeping on a pillow on top of a 54-quart cooler next to me. In front of me is the second-biggest HD TV with DirecTV and DVD player. A microwave, two electric heaters, our medium-sized freezer, a wireless phone with docking station, and a stereo round out the electronics. There’s a dartboard that actually gets used from time to time.
The place is a gawd-awful mess right now. A motley assortment of stacked bookshelves and chests of drawers line every wall. All are jammed packed every which way with hunting and fishing and camping gear, plus the Christmas stuff. That cat-cooler is only one thing is a huge pile of camping gear on the floor I haven’t put away since a trip in early October, making it hard to even walk around, much less park a car.
Besides all the mounts on the walls, there’s a reloading bench that’s actually on top of a huge chicken wire and wood ferret cage from years ago, with a four-foot four-shelf bookcase as a backdrop above it to hold supplies and ammo cans. A gun cabinet, but it only holds a handful of rifles, so most are in the second master bedroom closet. Tools, fishing rods, trolling motors, paddles, and the umpty-billion coolers (I gotta have every size available) are everywhere.
Until recently I had a 55 gallon aquarium running, specializing in bizarre things (especially loaches), but I broke that down this year due to spending months out of state before moving new wifey here. The tank and all of the related gear are still here, taking up even more room than when it was running.
This is truly the sanctum sanctorum, and I do organize it once in a while. I have come to believe that only married men realize that a man cave is a necessity for sanity, rather than a luxury. Whether or not it’s used as an office like mine is.
Damn grubthrower. Impressive.
Yeah, well, thanks t-storm, but maybe if I can get a holiday season poker game up, I’ll get off my lazy ass and at least get all of this gear out of people’s way.
Interesting nugget of the day: Here in Virginia, as long as the “house” doesn’t take a rake or cut or any other type of profit, poker is perfectly legal. It’s a statutory exception to the anti-gambling laws that is known as a “gentleman’s game.” (But that hasn’t stopped me from having my butt kicked by some superb female players.)