BrockLi Soup

This week, I’m working from home home - my parents’ house in the suburbs of Buffalo. My brother is getting married this Saturday, and I came up on Thursday for his bachelor party this past weekend. Rather than making the trip twice, I’m staying through the week and working from here for a few days.

This is the longest I’ve worked remotely. Once in a while, I’ll work from my apartment for part of the day if I have a doctor’s appointment or something like that, but I’ve never done it for three solid days like this. I thought it would be great, but it’s kind of weird. Without the office environment, it’s a lot harder to get in the swing of things. I’m working at the kitchen table here, so it’s been a challenge to get comfortable and get the light at the right level (it’s about the only thing I’m fussy about in my office). The time seems to fly by, and I feel like I’m not getting as much done as I usually do, but I can’t figure out why - it’s not like I’m goofing off. If anything, I’m more focused because I’m not talking to co-workers as much as I would be if I were in the office. Maybe it’s just because I don’t feel like I’m working.

I’ve always thought I would like working from home, but I think I would need a decent office if I were going to do it long-term. The kitchen table will work do three days, but I don’t think I could handle it much longer than that. But even if it isn’t very office-y, at least there’s no commute.

Barely feels like home, though, since Jym and Mel are mostly moved out. It sort of feels like my last apartment did just as I started moving in - random crap strewn about, some half-packed boxes, and no clear idea where the dishes are, or if there are dishes.

I’ve been back less than half an hour, but already I’ve ordered a pizza, took pictures of a few things I’m trying to sell on Craigslist, packed up some books, and threw out some stuff. This move has to happen pretty quickly, so I’m going to force myself to part with disposables: that $14 coffee machine I haven’t used in four months? Gone. Half-empty boxes of cereal? Gone. Pretty much any other food I find? Gone. DVD player I thought I could fix? Gone. I need to simplify my material life.

Does anyone else feel like they don’t really have a home town?

I sort of keep in touch with two friends from grade school, one via a blog and the other via the occasional AIM chat every couple months. When I’m actually home, I hang out with one guy who I graduated with, a couple guys that were younger, and a handful of guys that I didn’t even know back then. Aside from my family, there are only a couple of people I feel close to back in the Buffalo area.

It seems like everyone has their crew of friends back home that they grew up with. Is it unusual that I don’t?

Friday 11 hour drive home. That was fun. Pittsburgh, as it turns out, isn’t the quickest way to Buffalo.

Saturday Wedding: wedding-y. Sharon looked all fancy. Reception: rowdy. My cousins are fun, and my parents have loosened up a lot since I moved out.

Sunday Finished fixing the parents’ computer. Visited Grandma. Had lunch at DiBella’s with BP and Lucas. Drive home from there only took 7 hours, thank goodness.

Then I got home to find that Matt moved all his stuff into our house, but there’s a couch on the balcony so it’s OK.

I had a feeling things wouldn’t go smoothly at the airport today. They had me stand in this little glass hallway, with no shoes or belt, right in the middle of the security area, until some guy could take me aside and check me over with the wand. To most people, this would probably be embarrassing, but I thought it was hilarious. Turns out, the rivets in my shorts were setting the thing off, so I think I’ll be wearing something else for the flight back.

It’s been a stressful week. Jeff, the guy sort of above me, was on vacation for most of the week. A project for one of our big clients is nearing completion, so I spent the week fielding all the bugs and changes he would usually deal with. I was also trying to get all my laundry done (it’s been accumulating on me for months) and pack all my stuff before leaving for home this afternoon, since we’re moving Tuesday and I didn’t want to do everything at the last minute again. I need to figure out how to get to U-Haul Tuesday afternoon, when Jym and I can go over and sign the lease, when we’re doing the move-out inspection at my current place, and how I’m going to get back after I drop off the truck Wednesday morning. And, somewhere in the middle, actually move all our stuff into the new place.

So yes, I’ve been a little on edge lately. Things keep popping up - oh crap, I forgot to cancel the cable…and the power - which makes this little balancing act more interesting. Hopefully, I’ll make everything happen at the right times, and it will all go smoothly, and I can sit on my balcony drinking a victory beer Wednesday evening.

Or, as customary, perhaps everything will go wrong in a most spectacular fashion. Someday we’ll look back on this and lauuuugh. For now, I’m going to enjoy a few days at home and in Rochester and try not to think about any of it.

I spent the day at my parent’s house near Buffalo. Our family cell plan contract was up this month, and we decided to extend it since it’s cheaper than maintaining three separate plans. As such, we all got new phones - Eric and I both got a Samsung SCH-a630, and my parents are sharing an SCH-a850.

I like the phone because it’s pretty small, and I like the clamshell. However, I was so used to my old phone and knew EXACTLY how to do everything I wanted to, that adapting to this one was been rocky at best. It seems that Voice Dialing is in no way attached to the phone book - on the Motorola, you could add a voice dial to contacts in the phone book, and everything was peachy. On the Samsung, you record a voice dial, and then enter the number that goes with it, whether it’s already in the phone book or not. The ringers just plain suck, so I picked the least annoying of them. When you adjust the ringer volume, it doesn’t actually make any noise, so I have no idea how loud “Level 3″ is until someone calls me. As far as I can tell, there’s no voice note feature, which sucks because I’d often leave reminders for myself. The color screen is sort of nice, but my long-standing suspicion was correct - a simple, monochrome list is a much more usable menu than a colorful one with icons.

The text predictor isn’t as flexible as the Motorola’s - if the word isn’t in the dictionary, you have to enter it manually. On the Motorola, you could sort of fudge it - for example, I have a friend we call Cupcake. Cupcake is not in the dictionary on the Samsung (and I don’t think it’s in the Motorola). With either, you hit 2-8-7 and get “Cup.” When I hit 2 for the second ‘c,’ it suggests “Curb.” I can hit 0 to cycle through other suggestions, but none of them are right - once I’ve typed the whole word, my options are “Curable” and “Btracke.” On the Motorola, it shows a running tally of options, so it would read “Cupa,” but I could use the right arrow to get “Cupb,” “Cupc,” or “Cup2,” and go from there. It was a nice compromise between text prediction and manual entry.

In the twelve hours or so that I’ve had the thing, I haven’t been too impressed. I imagine it will grow on me, especially once I’m familiar with all the menus and such, but I wish I could have a simple, usable, sturdy phone like I did.

On the bright side, Mom took me shopping and got me some clothes for my birthday. I got to hang out with the family, and I got One Last Ride in before it’s too cold for motorcycling. Along the way, I stopped by a friend’s place and got to take my buddy’s new Harley for a spin, too, so the day wasn’t a loss by any means.

I’m in Buffalo for the weekend to visit the family and get some time on the bike so I’m ready for the road test. This weekend, I’ve noticed the difference between RIT and the area I live in just by watching traffic. You notice a marked decrease in BMW’s and a lot more pickup trucks. The weather’s been nice, so there have been a lot of bikers out - of the 40 or 50 bikes I’ve seen in the past two days, only four of them were crotch rockets.

During one of these trips home, I want to scan more family photos. I posted a bunch of them a little while ago, but there are a lot more. I grabbed six or seven rolls worth when I was home a few months ago. They’re the ones I took in middle and high school, but I keep forgetting to look through them and stop into the library to scan the good ones. Maybe I’ll do that this week. I scanned about 20 more from two rolls my Mom took recently, so I’ll post those when I’m back at RIT.

I haven’t been to The Little since December, so I’m hoping to go tomorrow and catch a movie or two. My membership ends this month, so I’ve only got a few more Sundays to go for free.

It occurred to me this afternoon that, as of this week (give or take), this apartment has had my longest running occupancy since I moved out of my parents’ house three and a half years ago. I’ve gone through 6 different roommates and 9 rooms. Care for some history? I know I would!

2001 - 2002 Fall: Chris A, in Building 30 Winter: Matt P, on CSH Spring: Eric M (better known as Wanker), same room Summer: Bryan D, in a Colony townhouse

2002 - 2003 Fall, Winter: Werkt, in the CSH L Spring: Matt P, down the hall Summer: All by my one-sies, in the near-ghetto of Pittsburgh

2003 - 2004 Fall, Winter: Matt P, at the T on CSH Spring: Reynaldo, same room (after Matt went on co-op)

I’ve been in my current place in University Commons since this past summer, putting me at just over three RIT quarters, which just beats out last year’s stay on floor. I kind of miss moving around and having new scenery and people all the time, but it really doesn’t feel like I’ve been here this long. I got so used to moving that Fall quarter never really felt like it began; my routine was to move at the end of Summer quarter, so it felt like summer, despite the cold. Even now, I kind of feel like I’m just staying with these guys - for some reason, it’s never really felt like “home.” In the end, though, I will have spent more of my college career living here than anywhere else.

Also, it was beautiful out when I went to work this morning, and you need to take pictures of days like that when they happen.