no, really

After a rather turbulent year on all fronts, I’ve gone and done something life-changing.

I moved.

Some of you knew I was working on this for a few months, but otherwise I’ve kept it pretty private.  Not sure why – on some level I was afraid I was making a mistake.  On another level, I was afraid of jinxing the process.  It really had the potential to be a full-fledged nightmare, but only turned out to be a short bad dream.

In short order, I managed to find a tenant for the house that I really liked.  They’re very sweet and funny people – very up front – and more importantly, they loved the house.  About two weeks later, they were moving in – that was yesterday!

Somehow, after finding them and agreeing on the house, I had to find a place to put myself.  I shopped like crazy everywhere.   Finally I found a place in Williamsburg that I loved at first sight.  The potential was huge, and it was already almost there.  I crossed my fingers and told no one, and ended up getting it!

Those two steps, while stressful, were the easiest parts of the process.  It was the timing of everything else that stressed me out.  Packing all the stuff in the house, dancing around Vin’s feelings, getting a closet built upstairs, cleaning up/out the basement… the list was huge.  Somehow I got most of it done (including finishing and painting the closet) just under the wire.  Even after my movers canceled, I found a replacement and made due.

After getting mostly set up last night, Jim and George came all the way in to visit.  I can’t take all the credit, tho – George had this hot loaner 535i with nav he wanted to play with.  We went to alligator lounge for pizza and metropolitan for a hot second.  I was exhausted and needed sleep.

I slept like a rock.

Today I went to the ‘depot and bb&b and got the finishing touches.  I got on my hands and knees and scrubbed my (yes, my very own) bathroom.  I vacuumed.  I set up my wireless speakers and tv.

Long story short – I live in Brooklyn.  And I feel like I’m home!

I mean, they can’t be an inherited monopoly without some underhanded crap.

I’ve had FIOS at home for a couple years… pretty much as soon as it was available. I figured – if the choice were between Verizon and Cablevision, I’d pick the one that had the better service. Not exactly the lesser of two evils, but at least I get something out of the deal.

So now (long story I’ll elaborate later) I’m moving. While going through and canceling all the utilities, I get to Verizon and can’t figure out for the life of me how to do it. I look through every page of “My Account” online. Plenty of docs on how to switch to another service, complete with contact numbers and practically home telephone numbers of cancellation agents. But not a peep about how to cancel Verizon.

Then I go to their “email us a question” section. After filling in a few bits of information and getting thoroughly frustrated by how the form keeps reloading, I notice a message that this form will send me an automated response, and that I won’t ever hear from a human.

This blows. I’m terrified to know what’s going to happen when I call on the phone. The old AOL “we’re not going to let you cancel, even if you move to Nairobi” method?

What sucks is that I’m considering yelling at AT&T for the service crap I’ve had lately so they let me out of the contract, and who can I go with that’s any better? Verizon. Just pray I never have any troubles with them…

In today’s Newsday there was a news brief:

Fuel frenzy

Drivers made a rush for cheap gas after an employee closing Trig’s Minocqua Shell in Minocqua, Wis., for the night entered the price as 32.9 cents a gallon instead of $3.299 Monday. He left about 10 p.m., but drivers could still use credit cards to buy gas. Forty-two people bought 586 gallons in an hour and 45 minutes before the store manager pushed the emergency stop.

What makes this remarkable isn’t the fuel prices.  But that I’ve been to that gas station.  Many times.  It’s in the tiny little town in northern Wisconsin where my grandparents lived for 20 years.  The place where I spent my summer vacations as a child.  It also happens to be the town where my 9th grade English teacher’s parents live – a fact we discovered on fateful morning at Pamida when her glasses had broken the same day as my mother’s.

Such a strange and lucky place!

It’s that time of year. November 8th. AKA “Christmastime at Starbucks”

I’m not a huge coffee drinker, but occasionally I need a good cup.  Starbucks has its place, but sometimes you need *real* coffee.  The kind you get at a place like Tarllucci e Vino.

The area around Bryant Park is totally lacking in java goodness.  I’ve hunted and hunted.  Once we found a place… Crestanello Cafe on 5th ave, but now it’s closed.

Having some faith in technology, I decided to turn to my friend, the Internets.

First stop, Yelp.   Nothing useful.  It works nice, but the user generated content is sorely lacking.  Plus, it turned up results when something had the term “coffee table” which just isn’t useful.

Second stop, Citysearch.  Once upon a time, it was useful.  It was quick.  It was the new yellow pages, with some great additional features.  Then it got old and stale looking, so the owners decided to do a redesign.  This was probably one of the worst executions of a redesign *ever*.  It looks better, for sure.  But now, it’s totally useless.

Sidebar: New York has so many extra layers of geographical taxonomy, that in order to find that needle in a haystack, you need to be very discriminating when it comes to neighborhood.  The selection of neighborhood has to be better than the taxi map, which would have confused tourists believe that Manhattan is made up of six areas: up, down, left, right, Harlem and Wall Street.  Citysearch once did a passable job of letting you pick from the ever growing list of neighborhoods, including those absurd real estate gimmicks (e.g. “west chelsea” or “east williamsburg”).  Results were limited to those neighborhoods, and you could even see a map of the resulting locations.

I dare you.  Try to search for “coffee” in “Murray Hill”. Unless you do things in a very specific way, it is useless.  Next I tried something different:  Midtown.  Surely there is no place in the world other than the one Midtown I know of.  Nope. At what point was my search at “newyork.citysearch.com” confused with “northcarolina.citysearch.com” or “tennessee.citysearch.com”?

There are so many truly wonderful web products out there that work so cleanly and elegantly, producing the results you hope to see.  Why can’t a cash laden site like Citysearch get it right?

It’s probably run by a dinosaurl.

I know that it’s no coincidence I feel this way after a NY Tech Meetup, but I’m so far behind in getting things done.  There are so many things I’ve wanted to do in the past year that have ended up being done by someone else and done well.  I don’t feel bitter or jealous, I think it’s great!  I just wish it were me showing off the fruits of my brain labor.

The good effect that this has on me is it makes me focus more on my ideas… streamline what I’ve got, and make sure that the work I’m currently doing is as focused as it can be.

I need to find a quiet corner and apply all this focus now before it wears off

I think I have… once or twice.  I can’t remember the situations, partly because of my current lack of sleep.

Unfortunately, I am a little afraid for my life right now.

Across the street, one house is owned by a kid.  His father died a few years back and left it to him.  Until he’s 18, his former-drug-addict mother has to move back in with him to be guardian.  A year ago, a former boyfriend came to live with her (in her son’s house).  The boyfriend brought with him a massive RV, which he parks on the front lawn.

For a year, the neighbors have been nicely trying to get him to move it.  Attempting to find other places to store it, offering suggestions of how to park it so it isn’t obscene.  Oh yeah, it’s black with red flames around the entire bottom half.  So far, he hasn’t done anything.

Over the summer, he and the kid’s mother had a big fight in the front yard.  The cops eventually came and found not only a brick of pot… but a pot farm in the basement… and all kinds of weapons and munition memorabilia around the house.  That court date is pending.

Now the kid (who is a generally terrific kid) has had two parties in a row on the past two Saturday nights.  At the last one (that I missed while being away) kids were urinating on neighbors’ lawns and fornicating in driveways on other neighbors’ cars.  The cops were called.  The cops called the school.  The kid was suspended for a game.

Now it’s not clear who did call the cops.  But it’s clear who did not: neither myself nor the neighbors next door to me were home.  However, this lunatic seems to think that my neighbors called the police.  So now he’s retaliating.

Since Monday, he’s set off his car alarm in front of their house.  Continuously.  All night.  Last night, he set up lawn chairs on the front lawn with a spotlight and had a bonfire while mooning their house and giving them the finger.  And the car alarm.  All night.  And now there’s a sign on their lawn that reads “Freakshow: Fat man and bearded lady.”

I just got a phone call.  Just now, while I was attempting to sleep, an SUV with Maine plates parked in front of my house.  The man driving it removed a hunting rifle in a soft case from the back, under a camo tarp.  They went into the house.  Shortly thereafter, they came out – the psychotic neighbor making hand gestures and giving the finger to the house next door.  The man from Maine had the empty rifle case under his arm.

I’m afraid for my safety, but I don’t know what to do.  If he starts up again tonight, I’ll have to find somewhere else to sleep.  I just sent the roomie a warning so he can figure something out for tonight if he can.  This is insane.  And the cops can’t do anything until what… he murders someone?

Any ideas?

While we were on the way home, I took us on a little detour off the Pennsylvania Turnpike. We stopped at the Flight 93 memorial, which was a very odd experience.

The location is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. It’s really breathtaking. It’s very quiet, and you can feel the sorrow of the families who have visited. You can’t get very near the spot, but you can see it at a distance of about 100 yards. You can even see the mound of dirt at the actual spot.

I’m not exactly sure why I went. I’m kind of glad I did, but I still don’t understand why.

I’m back home from a family trip to the old homestead in very rural Indiana. I’ve been there once before, in the winter. In the warmer sunlight of early October, it’s even more beautiful.

I love seeing the parts of the family that you have to go there to see. The whole area is breathtakingly beautiful – the rolling hills and trees and fields and farms. It has the best of the catskills and farm country all in one place, next to a huge man-made reservoir.

My grandfather is there, recovering from surgery, so every day we’d drive the (almost) hour into Ohio to spend a few hours with him. It’s something we enjoyed as much as he did, even though we’d all prefer hanging out at home instead of a hospital room.

I also learned some interesting lessons about spending lots of time with immediate family members who you haven’t lived with for many years.  No matter how old you are, you’ll still be treated like their little boy.  Sometimes it makes you feel nice, sometimes it makes you want to scream.   I experienced both.

Now I’m back to work, which has now presented some challenges of its own.  I’ve now got lots of work to catch up on, and some challenges I’ll elaborate on another time.  Sigh.  When is it going to get even a *little* bit easier?

I’m desperately seeking an excuse to fly to California these days. I haven’t heard form anyone that has flown Virgin America, but I’m sure it’s quite wonderful… let me count the ways.

• mood lighting that makes me *want* a redeye
• music library (just like I obsessed about with Song)
• chat with other people on the plane… with a keyboard! (mile hi? <3)
• power, usb and ETHERNET(in 2008) jacks at your seat?!?
• program guide for the tv
• interactive flight maps (via google, of course)

This is some real limitless business development that makes Virgin rock. And it’s a “low-fare” airline. What more excuse do you need?

(no I did not get paid to write this… yet )