ian_smith

Home again.

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 12:06:52 GMT

Things never go as planned. On Wed I had hoped to get the truck packed and head out by noon and arrive at my Moms in PA by 9pm.

Of course packing up my car in Framingham took an hour longer than planned. Then they asked me to stick around for an inspection, and the guy was late and by the time I got to the truck rental it was noon. Loading the truck took longer, as did hooking my car up so I finally got on the road at 4pm.

One mistake I made was not realizing the car carrier limited my sped to 55! Oops. I usually make the 500 mile drive in 7 hours, but this was yet another slowdown.

I did make it to Erie after 2am. Tired, but the drive was uneventful and pretty easy.

I spent all day yesterday unpacking, and went to bed around 8pm after setting up my computer and being too exhausted to do anything with it.

So now I have to get all my stuff organized, decide what to sell, what to give away, what to throw away, what to keep in storage, and finally what to bring with me to CA.

Busy busy!

My poor back.

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 02:03:59 GMT

So today I moved the majority of my boxed up stuff to Ashford, where it all sits in a giant pile until Wed, when I bring the rental truck in to haul it all to PA.

Being on the third floor did not help. Dee and Clay did help, giving me the use of their pickup and helping to carry stuff.

I got some great deals at the hamfest. But the whole time I was asking myself out loud, why am I buying MORE stuff when I am moving in 3 days? Because it was cool stuff I needed and cheap, thats why. :-)

Working with electronics as a hobby can be a pain. You need 10,000 different thins on hands because you never know what a particular project will require. And no matter how much stuff you have, you always need something you are out of, or never new existed. But you get to make cool stuff, so it ends up being worth it.

Of course 75% of my crap is just that, crap. Stuff that may or may not be neat, but is not really all that useful. I have thrown away, given away and sold a humge amount of things, and when I get to PA I'll be cleaning out my stuff in storage there, but I'll still have quite a bit.

I have a hard time giving away, selling or throwing away gifts too. I just this week threw out a STICK my Dad gave me for Christmas. (It was a joke gift, but I still kept it for 5 months!) I need to be put on a watch list for potential hoarders. I could turn into one of those guys who fills his house with newspapers. But mine will be filled with broken computers. :-)

Back to Framingham now.. to my empty apartment with a computer on the floor and some clothes. Cleanup time now.. packing the few bits left and tidying up.

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 02:16:10 GMT

Dining room table, an end table, two chairs are gone. Oh and they took my floor lamps too. It's now very dark in here at night. I plan to haul most of my stuff to CT tomorrow, and that will be the bulk of my stuff. Just need to finish up loos ends and then load everything into a truck and head to PA.

Tomorrow my desk goes as well. This will make using the computer somewhat difficult, but it will keep me from wasting all day web browsing when I should be packing, so thats good.

TV goes Monday if all goes well.

I have too much stuff. I look at all the boxes and think I should throw half of it out. Then I realize I already DID do that, and what is left are things I looked at and wanted. Too many hobbies that require lots of bits and pieces.

I am going to the MIT HamFest tomorrow.. last one... for evah! Sad.

More packing, and packing too.

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 15:29:41 GMT

Got more stuff packed yesterday. Plus I got rid of my sofas, dining table, end table and chairs. Might have a buyer for my TV. Almost had my bed given away, but the guy was allergic to cats and didn't want it. Go figure.

I also got rid of my cat litter containers. It comes in these plastic buckets. I just stick them in a corner until, well, the past several years until I move then I throw them out. I was taking about a dozen them to the bump and some guy asks, "What do you have, a tiger?" He then asks if he could have them, "Look guys, buckets!" I guess plumbers like buckets. Then two families come over to check out my stuff and take some, and BOTH say the exact same thing when they come in. "Look, a tiger!" What is it with Brazilians and tigers? Weird. :-)

On a bad note, I accidentally threw away all the connectors to my cat carrier, so off to Home Depot for nuts and bolts.

With the furniture out it actually looks like progress. Too bad even though I have taken many many boxes to the staging area in CT, it still seems like I have a thousand tons of junk lying around. It's multiplying faster than I can pack it up.

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 02:06:14 GMT

I got a carload of stuff down to Ashford where I am planning to get everything located so on moving day I just have to make one stop with the truck.

Books are heavy. Going to offload a bunch more paperbacks tomorrow at Pandemonium, a used bookstore in Cambridge. They only give store credit but I'm sure I can find someone who would buy the credit off me for 80 cents to the dollar or something like that.

Not a lot else accomplished. I need to fill out my lease application and send them a check. I keep thinking I should wait and find something better, but it seems to be an above average deal so I should just go for it.

I admit to being a little nervous about moving to Berkeley due to the high property theft rate. It's double the national average, and I *like* my stuff. I'd be pretty pissed if any of it got stolen. I will make sure to keep off-site backups of my computer for starters. Working for decades as a Sysadmin makes on security paranoid.

And another idea occurred to me.. sell my car and fly to Berkeley, and buy a car there eventually. I don't NEED one being work will be close enough to walk, let alone do a 5 minute bike trip. But cars are darn useful, and selling mien will mean taking a financial loss. But the idea of not having to spend 5 days in a car with my cats is appealing.

Choices, choices... better to have too many than too few I suppose.

It lives... again!

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 13:53:30 GMT

Ok, I am going to try this daily journal thing in the hopes it will help me organize my life a bit better. I keep 100 lists of things to do and what needs to be done to do them in my head and it's hard to look back over a week, month or year to tell what has been on the back burner too long.

So on with some boring entries!

First up, I am moving to California in a few weeks to start my new job. I will be working for Berkeley Communications running the database system for their massive warehouse. It's like an aircraft hanger packed with computers. I am looking forward to living in Berkeley where it doesn't snow and isn't too cold for me to enjoy myself outside 8 months of the year.

My time at Sports Mogul has been great, and I'll miss working with Clay and Dee. I'll still be consulting for them, and we spent more time talking online than in person anyway so I'm glad it's not a goodbye but more like dropping my job title but keeping the friend title. :-)

My apartment is half packed up, I need to keep working on it until there is nothing in here but boxes. And cats. I am hoping to head to PA mid next week. I would try earlier but I don't want to move before my last MIT hamfest on the 20th. :-)

A recent project I am proud of: A clock made from an old hard drive.

I rarely actually finish a project to my satisfaction, but this one came together really well. Once I am settled into my new place in CA I'll do some finishing work on it.

Ok, back to packing!

It Lives

Wed, 28 Jul 2004 20:21:28 GMT

Well, since a few pople have linked to me in their LiveJournals I guess I better put something here so it's not a blank page that might give the impression that I am just an imaginary friend that was created to fill out some loosers friends list. :-)

I should give some links too so visitors have something to do when they get here. So I present... kittens. And more kittens.