Did you miss me?

Due to an ISP provider change, my web site has been down since mid-January. Now, the content had gone dormant anyway, but then I really didn’t have a reason to update it. Knowing that I didn’t want to live here forever, and knowing that my blog isn’t exactly the center of my online life, I left it be. I told the people on Twitter a few times that it was defunct, there was no real outcry for it. But, oh, how things can change in three months.

So, how is the site back online? Well, I’m moving. And the new home is on the old ISP (the one who lets me host this website from my home Internet connection). I’m in the process of getting all my stuff transposed, but my main equipment (my main computer and my server) and now up and running at their new home. So that’s cool. It’ll be fun learning to live somewhere else again. Six years is a long time to get familiar with a place. I wonder how many times I’ll take the wrong exit from the freeway.

Some routine has returned to my life. Every Saturday night, I’ve been going bowling with some friends. There’s usually about five of us, though this week there’s going to be 10. I wrote an article about this weekly bowling event this time last year. So, if you’re interested in joining me one week, let me know on the Twitter.

Oh, and I got a job. I’m working as a software developer for a web hosting company here in Bellevue. I was hired on the eight-month anniversary of my last day at my old job. Some advantages of the new digs: short commute, lower stress than my old job, and I’m not really working on anything that’s “customer-critical.” The environment is taking a little getting used to, so we’ll see how that goes.

Where does that leave this blog? Well, the “professional bum” bit is retired. I’ll go back to more of the long-form articles than the short-form daily posts, since the daily posts were growing old and stale anyway. How many times can you really say “Got up, made breakfast, bummed around, felt really angsty about things, yelled at some kids to get off my lawn, and went to bed”?

Yes, I did almost title this blog post “Friday, January 1, 2009.” Better than December 32. :)

Happy new year!

Probably due to the crap amounts and types of food I’ve been putting in me lately (not that the quality has been sketchy, just the balance), I didn’t really feel great today. I spent the day in bed watching TV and drinking water (and occasionally eating something like PB&J with dried apricots). By the end of the day, I was feeling quite a bit better.

Also in there, I filtered out the best of the previous night’s pictures and posted them privately out to Flickr, so some select people could see the set. I’m still waiting to hear back on that, to see if anything worked out particularly well.

Tim had asked me earlier in the week if I’d be their designated driver, with plans to do things like rent a minivan to go pick everyone up and drop everyone off. I’m not really a drinker anyway, and Tim and his crew are a fun group to be around, so I told him I’d be up for it.

The day started with lots of sleeping in and a fairly late coffee, as well as the occasional post on Twitter to let everyone know I was still alive, and trying to nail down the details of the plan. As the day progressed, the plan seemed to fall away, each progressive message knocking another peg out. You see, Tim and his crew have been working hard on some new project, involving many late nights and long hours. So, one by one, people said “Oh, we’re not going to drink that much, we’ll be okay to drive.” By the time all was said and done, no one needed a ride, and I was just driving out there to party.

The night was long, fun, full of conversation and pictures. After the place closed down, most everyone headed to Tim & Jenn’s for the “after-party.” As this was even further from home, and I was starting to get tired as it was, I decided I should just head home.

Once home, I cooked some after-party pancakes and broke out the laptop to look at the night’s haul. I pretty quickly figured out I didn’t have much the mind to process photos, and so I just headed to bed after finishing off my snack and cleaning up.

Another glorious day hanging out with my friend. I spent the morning and afternoon futzing about the house, getting cleaned up, and such.

Toad and I started with a nice game of Scrabble, our second of this visit. I was often a “STAN” away from some former Soviet state, but I put up a good fight. Toad still got me by about 50, evening the match at 1 game each (the first game was last week). From there, it was off to the opposite side of town for pizza. Having heard that this place does Chicago-style pizza right, we had to give it a shot. We ordered a “works” (without olives), waited for it to pop out of the oven, and dug in. It tasted good (I’d easily eat there again if it weren’t 10 miles away), and the sauce was atop the toppings (which all had good flavor), but the crust was not “authentic,” at least to my memories of Chicago pizza. It was deep and tasty, and definitely Chicago-inspired.

After pizza, we headed back to my place, where we turned on the Nebraska football game. Oh, what a routing that was. At halftime, we broke out the Scrabble board for a deciding game. Despite Toad’s best efforts to lock down the board (again), I somehow found room for “PlANTER” and “ATONERS” to pull out game 3 (and keep the board open enough to finish).

The boring day of the week. Nothing at all exciting going on.

Coffee and leftover banana bread, followed by more banana bread for dinner. Spent a good part of the day catching up on what’s happened with an old online community I once participated heavily in (sounds like the better days were in the past). Before I knew it, the day was over.

Yay, Monday! I’ve always loved Mondays. The freshness that comes with a new week, a brand new set of possibilities, a rested body and spirit. Of course, back when I was working, it all fell apart as soon as the first meeting came about, but until then it was awesome.

On this particular Monday, things started well enough. Ran out a cup of coffee to get things started (only one – I was out of coffee beans after that), received my Christmas gifts from my brother (which, happily enough, included coffee), sat down to Josie’s Monday Morning Chat (always a good time), and cooked some breakfast. A nice, awesome morning.

Got cleaned up, then set to work putting together a loaf of banana bread. I think I need to refine the recipe a bit (I think it uses too much leavening, at least the way I put it together; it’s better fresh and warm than refrigerated and eaten the next day), so when I’m 100% happy with it, I’ll post it. While that was in the oven, I set to work cleaning off the driveway and the car.

The driveway was easy enough to clear, but to allow full swing with my door, I needed to move the bank of removed snow from the edge of the driveway. Two blizzards’ worth of snow plus some ice made for very heavy work (it was in layers – the light and airy “top snow” that was the last to fall, from Friday and Saturday, the heavier snow from the beginning of the latest blizzard that had been removed from the driveway on Friday, a layer of ice from melting and refreezing as well as the freezing rain that fell Wednesday, and finally a layer of heavily-packed snow from the first blizzard). This wall was at least 2 feet high, and I probably cleared a lot more than I needed. But, I won’t have to worry about parking at “that one specific spot” in the driveway to get my door swinging right.

With the banana bread cooled, sliced, and packaged, I headed off to the local coffee shop to meet with a friend. She wanted to talk about some projects she’s working on, air her thoughts, get some feedback and ideas; you know, general conversation. The conversation evolved from her project to a full-on chat between friends, which was great. We were there for like two hours.

Afterward, I went over to the folks’ house to see what was up with them. We sat around chatting for a bit, then I collected my Christmas gifts (deftly left behind Friday night) and headed home. I didn’t head straight home, I spent some time just driving around first.

The last football day of the year. There’s one more week next week, plus the playoffs, but those are all after the first.

Day started with some coffee and breakfast, then the standard Sunday fare of hours and hours of football. The roommates finally came home around the beginning of the afternoon.

Speaking of roommates, one of them insisted on digging into my tweet stream to post this reply:

Didn't know your roommates made you so unhappy. There's a solution for that.

Umm, yeah. That upset me quite a bit. The original post I had made was that I was “somewhat thrilled to be alone right now. Specifically, without roommates.” So, wow, I get to spend my first day completely alone since whenever their last vacation was, and suddenly that makes me hate my roommates? Well, no.

It wasn’t like it was my idea that she move in. But I knew that it didn’t matter if I’d said yes or no to her moving in, she’d be spending most of her time here anyway. The only real difference it has made is that her cats are here. Her presence has made my home become a room, my world continually shrinking for the last year.

But that wasn’t even what I meant by throwing in the “without roommates” comment. I’ve made it pretty clear that I’m a lonely man out here, and I was trying to make it clear that I wasn’t talking about that with my comment. Guess what? Everyone needs time by themselves. Time where they can just stretch out and not worry about anyone else. Even with all the time I spent on the road this summer, I spent none of that time just alone. There was always someone else I was going to stay with or driving time. When driving, I was too busy driving to really be alone. So, yeah, to have a day with no other people whatsoever? Where I had no obligations, no expectations, and was wholly unseen by the rest of humanity? That thrilled me. It’s not something I’d want forever, but it’s nice to have a day every now and again.

Maybe it’s time to end the bum life just so I can move out. Without the income, it’s tough to move anywhere but back to my parents’ house, which is far from alone. But there’s a lot of stubborn “I was here first”-ness that comes with living somewhere for six years.

But, hey, at least there’s still football on.

This was the first day in a long time I literally did not see another person all day. Unlike the first blizzard of the season, I was here alone. The roommates were out, all day long.

I started the day realizing I’d left some groceries out yesterday. This upset me, but the loss wasn’t too great (some eggs, a can of whipped cream, and a carton of buttermilk). Of course, I still wasn’t in any rush to go anywhere. I settled in. Cooked some breakfast, played some Rock Band, watched Doctor Who, and generally enjoyed myself.

Day 2 of the blizzard. More snow and wind.

Spent a large portion of the day in bed, relaxing and enjoying a lazy day. With about a foot of new snow, in addition to the half foot that was already on the ground, leaving the house wasn’t an attractive option. The car was buried, the driveway was blockaded by the street plows, and I haven’t really driven the car in this kind of weather yet. All of this adds up to me hunkering down, letting the outside world happen.

Around 7, my mother calls to see if I’m coming over. I told her I didn’t trust getting there safely. She offered to send a ride, but I said I thought I was better off at home. I’d never been apart from my family on Christmas before, and I was having no issue doing so this year… until she called. After I got off the phone with her, the guilt started wrecking me, and a little while later, I called back to ask if that ride was still available. It was everything I’ve come to expect from a family gathering.

Sometime around 2, I get a ride home, where I just call it a night and turn in.

Blizzard 2, Day 1. Let it snow.

I didn’t leave the house all day. Spent a lot of it in the kitchen. First, pancakes in the morning. Lots of hanging out on Twitter and such, too. Dinner was cheese fondue, which I followed up with some cookies made to be a present for my Dad. When I bring cookies to family gatherings, he tends to eat a lot. Not that I blame him, I’ve been known to polish a few off myself, but it always breaks into what I thought were going to be leftovers. So, to simplify things, I baked a whole batch for him (save one small experiment for me).