Moving Advice

When moving, do not lose the keys to the U-Haul. Thankfully I didn’t ignore this advice this past weekend. People showed up as planned around 9:30 and packing was underway. My mom did a great job of making sure that everything was well packaged and the guys did a good job of moving the big heave shit I wanted no part of. After a minor hang up with the tape, Nick ran and got more and we were back on track. We were right on the Will Read schedule so my parents treated everyone to lunch when I discovered, “I can’t find the keys to the U-Haul!”.

Now I didn’t lose them. I knew exactly where they were. I put them in my coat pocket. It just so happened that it was a different coat and that that coat had been packed away in the depths of all my belongings. Whoops. And as all things lost go, it was in the last place I looked (because then I stopped looking), lol. So we got on the road and a few Purdue-types helped me unload here in Lafayette. The house needs a lot of work that should have been done by my land lord before I moved in. But it is a good house to learn about houses in. And it’s just 2.3 miles from work!

The Internets!

Well I got the internet set up at roughly 11:30 today thanks to Mike the Insight tech. I managed to create some business cards and renew the RCF hosting account for another year since then. I also got to chat with Kris which made my day pretty great right there. Tonight is the first night of being at RCF for fencing. We’ll see how the numbers are. Mark only deposited funds for 2.5 fencers this month, wtf?

Aside from that, stuff is still in boxes, but I have a usable (and CLEAN) kitchen, a clean bathroom, and a bed to sleep on. The living room is still a war zone and the second bedroom and bathroom haven’t even been touched. But I can at least get in the basement now (two wardrobe boxes were blocking the way), and I can park my car in the garage, but it’s a pain to get out of the car, go around, open the garage door, get back in, pull in, get out, close the door, then walk tot he house. It may just turn into a shop until it snows again.

There’s a whole list of stuff that hasn’t been fixed/repaired that I’ll get to my landlord on Friday. It’s really kind of weak considering he’s had two months to fix this stuff and I started paying rent two weeks ago. But it is a house, and the location is great (I’m close to everything!).

I miss Kris though. Saying goodbye wasn’t as dramatic as I thought it would be, but that doesn’t mean I can’t feel the 180 miles between us. This weekend is Sectionals so I won’t get to see her, but the following weekend we’ll get to see each other again. Until then, there’s plenty to do around the house and at RCF.

Post Party Time

Last night I went to Jillian’s. Kyle took it upon himself to organize a going away party for me, so he was there along with Niki and his brother, Trent. The Funks came, as did Jess (which boggles my mind, but I suppose she came to see everyone else). Kris came of course. I was also pleasantly surprised to find that Brittany made the drive out from Louisville and Molly postponed her evening plans to drive down from Dayton and hang out. It really kicked ass to have so many people there to send me off.

Though if I look at it from a negative standpoint, only two people showed up to my house warming, so does that mean more people are happy I’m leaving than were happy I was here? From a positive stand point I like to think it means that I’ve created and strengthened friendships in the year I’ve been here. The truth is that this date was probably better picked than the house warming date ^_^

After dinner there was bowling. I love bowling. I think the best part is the waiting for your second ball where you’re front and center and you have to do something. You can either stand there and pout because you suck, or you can dance and entertain the masses. I elect to dance.

Someone once told me that I like to see everyone in a group happy and participating, and that’s exactly what was happening last night at dinner. Britt and Molly bonded over law, Jess caught up with the Funks, and Trent, Kyle, Niki, Kris, and I played the field most of the time. Everyone was involved, and I was beaming from ear to ear.

The Toilet Seat

One thing I will never understand is the timeless portrayal of women being upset at men for not putting down the toilet seat. It is true that I’ve never heard such a complaint in real life, but with the rampant comedy of this situation on TV and in movies I assume there must be some degree of truth to it.

Why are women so upset that men don’t put the seat down? Lets assume that these men are “lazy”. This is a fair assumption since if they were not lazy, they could lift the seat AND put the seat down and we wouldn’t be having this discussion. But since these men are lazy they only do half of the job and lift the seat. Now if they instead leave the seat down, then instead of the stray urine and fallen pubic hairs being on the bowl edge, they are now on the seat where you plan to sit.

What about the complaint, “But if the seat is up and it is dark, I fall in the bowl.”? Well my first question is “Why are you peeing in the dark?”, honestly. My other point is that you have never heard a man complain “I fell in the bowl last night while taking a dump in the dark.” Clearly if these same lazy men who can’t put the lid down can pause long enough to see if the lid is down, then the women who are complaining the seat is up can do the same.

So while everyone spends some time getting over it, I’m going to stick to my pissing on stoops thank-you-very-much.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

Ah the day of green! I’ve been promised a St. Patty’s Day kiss tonight when I stop by Kris’s place ^_^. This evening the Funks and I are going to go out and have a beer or two at who knows where after I return the scoring equipment that Purdue borrowed. Meanwhile I’m sitting here at my desk with my green blinking bow tie in full action. Are you wearing green? If not, ::pinch::

Scared

Kris pointed out that I haven’t been myself these last few days. At first I thought it was the tickets, but that wasn’t all of it. I didn’t even post about how much fun I had meeting Kris’s parents and celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. I didn’t write about how the Purdue Open was finished in a parking lot.

It turns out that I’m scared. Scared that I’m leaving a good job, good friends, a great girlfriend, and a fencing club that needs help developing, all for a small business that may fail within the year if I don’t make the right choices. But I suppose if that is really the case, and the business does fail, then I can always find a new job, perhaps even come back to my current job since I plan to leave here on good terms. What I’m really afraid of is that I won’t be able to do it all without making compromises.

I’m going to do my best to maintain the friendships I’ve made here. I’m going to do my best in my relationship with Kris. I’m going to do my best with my fencing club. I only hope that by trying to do all three I don’t fail at all three.

New Contact Info

I’m moving on the 25th! Those of you who have said they’d help I’ll be sending out an itinerary today. I could use a few more hands in Lafayette if people are free. Here’s the skinny:

602 S 21st Street
Lafayette, IN 47905

(765) 412-1260 – all other numbers are no longer valid.

You can’t drive 45,000 in a year…

… and not get a ticket; but two tickets in two days is a bit much. Sunday coming home from West Lafayette I got one going through Indianapolis. I was doing 73 in a 55, whoops. Then yesterday I was feeling good after staying late at work and squashing a bug that had been bothering my department for months. Zip zip zip I go, and beep beep goes the cop hiding behind a hill. That one was 57 in a 35. So today I’m trying to avoid speeding at all. 3 for 3 would be not so great. I can’t wait till I move and I’ll be driving an estimated 5,000 miles per year instead of this madness. I spent 12% of this past year on the road. My car is nice, but not 12% of my life nice.

The Sad Truth

Aside from the headaches of dealing with people while on contract for web development, there is another reason I got out of that free lancing business. That reason being that I no longer know enough. When the internet was just HTML and images, I was teaching myself JavaScript and I was hot stuff. Only a few people were doing things server side and no customer of mine wanted any such web site. Then I learned PHP and database design and I was king of the hill. But now there’s all kinds of technologies and browsers to meet all kinds of demands. There are tools to syndicate your content and even to get your media on to people’s portable music players. You can create different web sites for mobile devices and interact with phones and PDAs.

It’s too much for one me to handle. And to top it all off I’m not a great designer.

If I were to get back into it I’d need a team, and by being on a team it makes the business end so much more complex. Besides, people will tell you I don’t work as well with others as I’d like to think I do. I love the internet, but there’s too much to stay up to date on. Maybe when I clone myself I’ll have a solution. Until then I think I’m out of the web biz unless someone else needs me for a project here and there, but they can handle the business part, not me.

Kris Comes Back

Kris has been off enjoying her spring break in chilly Toledo, Ohio. Though it must be on the outskirts of the city since she has no interwebs nor phone service. She did give me a call last night (much to my enjoyment), though we kept it short because we both hate the phone. Days at work have been noticeably slower without our usual AIM conversation around lunch time and as I’m wrapping up for the day. I’ve missed her these past few days, and with any luck I’ll get to see her tonight or tomorrow.

it makes me wonder if she missed me while she was on her trip. Not that I want her to miss me, more that I remember being off doing fun things myself, and virtually forgetting about my significant other waiting for me at home. I’m just curious if her brain works the same way as mine.