Wedding gifts, part 1

Well, the loot is in. (I’m sorry, my wife has informed me that that’s not the right attitude.)

Sar and I got married in August and the good souls that attended (and lots that couldn’t be there personally) gave us many great things. Many people gave us gifts of money, which allowed us to pool together and get some great loot, er, household items.
In the next few posts, I’ll share some of the cool gifts that have changed our lives.

Despite the odd color choice, this little baby is an engineering marvel! It’s about 90% plastic and fits together like a Lego model.

Some of the immediately apparent advantages over traditional vacuums:

1. sucks real good
2. no bag
3. vortex-like dirt chamber of clear Plexiglas
4. lots of actually functional attachments

Above is the dirt chamber, which I lovingly refer to as the nuclear reactor ²Though it looks like it could house radioactive plutonium, the Dyson runs on good old 120VAC.. It vigorously swirls the dirt, e.g. copious pet dander, around and around. So much in fact, that Sarah has requested I no longer exclaim how much dirt and fur I’m sucking up (“Dear! You gotta see this!”). It gives me incalculable joy.

Perhaps that’s an understatement. As a picture is worth a thousand words, let me just show you how much joy we’re talking about.

As you can well see, parts of the Dyson double as lightsabers ³I’m wielding the upright aluminum tube there, the only metallic piece in the vacuum.. Yet it thankfully does not take a special sort of Jedi master to operate the contraption.

It all breaks down and can be reassembled with ease.

Thanks, everyone for your generosity! Our carpet (and bare floors, mind you) is better for it.

More pics here:

Footnotes

• 1
  …not to be confused with the physicist Freeman Dyson (whom, contrary to popular opinion, I was not named after) who first conceptualized the Dyson Sphere. “He theorized that a technologically advanced society might completely surround its native star in order to maximize the capture of the star’s available energy.” — Wikipedia
• 2
  Though it looks like it could house radioactive plutonium, the Dyson runs on good old 120VAC.
• 3
  I’m wielding the upright aluminum tube there, the only metallic piece in the vacuum.