In Today' News

Yesterday I had to buy a new desk chair. I didn't want to buy a new chair, and thus help enable Obama's economic recovery, but I was forced to. See what happened is this.

There I was Friday night, typing assiduously away on my blog post, and I leaned back in my chair. That caused the air piston to break out the bottom of its seat, down in the wheeled base of the chair and push through to the floor. since my weight was 70% behind the piston, it had the force advantage, and pushed me over backwards. One minute I am typing away; the next I am laying on my back, in my chair with my feet caught up in the knee hole of my desk.

I had no idea what happened or why. None of the kids were around- that would have been my first choice, blaming them- and whats worse; none of the kids were around, so I was kinda caught. It took a minute to wiggle around enough to get my feet out of desk, and then roll over so I could stand up. That's when I saw the air cylinder rod poking 18 inches out of the bottom of the chair.

Just so we are all on the same page, most modern desk chairs have a gas pressurized cylinder, like the ones that hold open your trunk lid or hatchback on a mini van, inside the base. This is what makes then adjustable. Usually the piston is bolted to the bottom of the wheel assembly, and the seat rides on the bottom of the cylinder. pulling on the lever on the side of the chair allows some gas to escape from under the bottom  of the piston to above the piston, so the chair will lower. Pulling the same lever with the seat empty allows the gas to go below the piston, raising the seat. Okay; that's probably more that you really wanted to know about office chairs.

So yesterday I went shopping. Wal-mart had a good deal on a chair. Like I said; I didn't want to buy a new chair, but my other options were a metal folding chair or an old bentwood chair with a 10-inch round seat; neither were really viable for long term sitting, like the hour or so I need to create a post.

I'm still not comfortable in my new chair. I had the old one better than 10 years. We were old friends. Evey paper I wrote for college was done in that chair. Most of my blog posts were written there as well. I spend a lot of time at my desk when I'm home; working from home on some occasions, or just writing and reading from the internet. That chair is custom fit to me, after 10 years of use. The new one; eh, not so much. But it might fit better eventually. After 4 or 5 years of use.

But you see what finally motivated me to contribute to the Obama Economy; I literally had to be knocked to the floor before I would spend a dime.