4J

 Life in General  1 Response »
Aug 212011
 

No, that’s not some type of code or anything — rather that is my new address. Or will be, anyway, by September 4th. I was down in Brooklyn this afternoon, and officially signed the lease for the Studio apartment. And, actually, 4J is just the apartment number, not the full address. So don’t try sending something with just “4J” written on the envelope. It won’t work. …on second thought, try that anyway, and see what happens. I’m sensing a highly metaphor-laden artsy independent film evolving from the experiment.

Whatever the case, this now means many things: (boy, I love lists, don’t you?)

  1. I have now marked off 2 of the 3 “big” things I was hoping to get done this summer. The first was the sale of the car, and the third (as of yet unresolved) one is the Kickstarter launch of my board game. I feel that the latter will have to wait until the fall, since I still want to get that video made first. However, I can, at least, start focusing much more on the production side of things: get quotes from card printers, investigate into having custom pieces made, and try to recruit some more accomplished artists to help dress up the game. The nice thing is that at least I can attempt to maintain the ratio of 1 Big Thing a month, and it’s possible I might be able to launch at the end of September.
  2. I have to make moving plans. My choices are either getting a U-Haul and some friends, or hiring a moving company. I would like to try the former, but getting my friends together to help me move, esp. at the end of Labor Day weekend, will be tough to pull off. So, while I shake some trees to see who falls out, I shall also use somewhat outdated metaphors during my research into local moving companies. The funny thing is that I doubt that I’m going to be moving much in the way of “big” stuff. The queen mattresses are really the sole thing — all my desks and bookcases are the type that should be able to be broken down. And even then, I think it’s time to sell/give away some of the things I have. For example, my little dresser has been a steady companion since I bought it when I first moved to NYC, but it’s been missing it’s bottom drawer for a while, now, and doesn’t come close to holding all of my clothes. Likewise, I think it may be time to bid farewell to my trusty twin futon, also purchased upon arrival (well, a month later, really) in the city. Besides just making a lighter load, there is another reason for this, which is….
  3. It’s time to upgrade things again. I went through this whole “upgrade” phase about 6 years ago, right before I moved to NYC to start Grad School. In this case, honestly, I think the sudden shift is that I have cleared out all my debt, and have started to save some real money. I have (and will have) more money coming in from my paychecks because I will have much less going out each month.  But beyond that, I think I also hit a threshold where I’m just tied of living in spots that don’t, well, really looked all that lived in. So, rather than continue to get things on the cheap and solely focusing on functionality, I’m going to be looking more at things that fit within my mindset for what the new apartment will look like, which contains the following ideas (did I mention I like making lists? consider it mentioned):
    • Print out some of my photos to large sizes and hang up on the walls. The shots from around Wisconsin in July are likely to be the main components
    • Upgrade the following furniture (more lists! Arg!):
      • Dresser
      • Kitchen table
      • Chairs
      • Love Seat/Couch (Hey, maybe I should call Julie and tell her I bought a couch — based on her previous logic she would be breaking down the door for a date)
      • Entertainment Center
    • Get some new sheets, towels, etc. with more of a Blue/Green color palette
    • Get some actual plants
  4. Lock down plans for my vacations. I have a full compliment of vacation days and personal days, plus the holidays. Now that I know that I will be in Brooklyn, I can see about getting tickets for trips home for Hayley’s wedding, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. And, hey, maybe a trip of my own. No idea where I would go, but I’ve always said that it’d be nice to take a trip on my own somewhere. Maybe it’s time to make a jaunt to Tibet….

I’ll miss this apartment, particularly the large kitchen (and the non-pick bathroom), but just the flexibility in being being able to visit friends and events in the city without fear of missing my last train home will be a welcome change. In addition, the place I’m at is just off the G train to Barcade, is a short walk from Prospect Park, and a short bike ride from John’s Bakery. Oh, yeah, and I will likely be getting a bike soon after moving. There are bike lanes all around my new place.

I think it’ll take a little bit to adjust to the smaller small, but honestly, not much. I really wasn’t using too much of my current place, and I’m pretty sure that there are a number of things that I can drop before the move. A good time for a purge of the old, and all that.

 Posted by at 10:12 pm

Weekend drizzles

 Life in General  1 Response »
Aug 142011
 

It’s currently drizzling outside — been raining in varying degrees of intensity sine last night, and even though I was planning to go to CostCo and the gym today, I have to admit that I really have been enjoying this rain. It’s been rather soothing, and that’s been good after an absolutely monstrous week at work: I checked, I put in about 86 hours this past week. Basically I worked from 9-6, came home, then worked another 5-8 hours at home. We had a hard deadline for this Friday, and there was a lot of work in terms of level design to do. Even though the levels I made will need to be balanced and adjusted, it’s good to know that at least they are all in place, and I fixed all of the outstanding bugs in them so that people can play through them. This week I’ll spend more on the actual balancing, making the score thresholds proper, and also trying out some more “interesting” designs — I had some ideas the past couple of days, the type that only come about after you’ve played through the levels and started to see how you can make a tweak here and there to really crank up the fun of the game.

It was also interesting because, since I had been spending so much time in front of the computer over the past week, when I got home, I decided to go for a short jog. Only about 2 miles or so, but it was a beautiful day, and I really wanted to not only spend some time outside, but also get moving around again. So, I donned my running shoes and shorts, and was off. Overall, a nice little run, and I kept the pace simple, so I didn’t overwork myself, but it was still nice to moving again. I also realized that this would be a good time to start getting back into a regular workout routine. As a result, I have now added to my Task list “30 Min of High Impact Exercise” as a daily recurrence. With the rain, I might do another home workout today, but it would be nice to get into the gym to work on some weight training; I need to get the core muscles strengthen up so I can support the spine better, you see. And just look better in general.

This upcoming week, I’m trying to make up for my lack of social life the past week by scheduling a lot of lunches and after-work drinks/dinners. Being NYC, it’s hard to actually get people to commit to something, so who knows how well I can pull things off, but I’m hoping to at least catch up with a few folks.

Also on the plate is the apartment hunt. This is going to be rather tricky, as I’ll need to see about checking out places after work, since I doubt I can pull it off during lunch — I’ll likely need to go out to Brooklyn and Queens to check things out, and getting there and back to Manhattan will likely take longer than an hour, esp. if I intend to take my time to inspect the place fully. Even though I haven’t moved, I have found myself actually getting creative with how I want the apartment to look, in terms of decoration. I’ve decided that I’m going to go with a “Tech Farm” look. By that I mean I plan to have a mix of rustic, country imagery and high-tech devices blended together. The color palette will be green and blue, the two colors I realized I missed the most when I was surrounded by gray, brown, and beige, back in L.A. I’ll go through my photos, pick out the ones I like that fit this motif, and then get them printed out and framed. I also think I’m going to actually get some plants for the new place — I’ll have to read up on how to properly care for plants in an apartment, how often they need to be watered, and if daylight bulbs can help replace the lack of sunlight — and then for the Tech side, I’ll just have to look at properly setting up all of my electronics in a nice, balanced display. I have all my game consoles, my computers, my nice TV: I’m sure that with a little wiring and ingenuity, I can make them all connect easily and look awesome at the same time. But — first I need to find an apartment; then I can make something which will go on the cover of Better Homes and Gardens.

Oh yeah, and how about those Browns, eh? Can’t say too much about a preseason game, especially when not all of the starters are playing on either side, but Colt did lead the team down the field on 2 touchdown drives, and even better, he did so with some great passes and great reads. We’ll see as the pre-season goes on, and really see in the first regular season game, but so far you have to like what you see. The offense looked much more crisp and precise than we’ve seen in years, and this is really interesting because most of the plays were, in fact, passing. If nothing else, it would be a wonderful change of pace if the Browns offense was fun to watch, rather than the dull, inept force is has been the past few years. Incidentally, I’ll be interested in tracking how Brain Daboll does down in Miami. The Dolphins snapped him up right away, so not only will it be interesting to watch how the Browns offense works in the West Coast offense system, but also how well Miami does with Daboll in charge. Maybe he hits his stride, but I have to be honest: the Dolphins are more unsettled at quarterback than the Browns were, so I really expect them to rank offensively at #30 or lower.