Click to see the whole album!

And for a bonus, the pictures from my Seattle --> Atlanta roadtrip back in April. Includes Mt. Rushmore, Devil's Tower, and an awesome sunset.


Click to see the whole album!

Multiple dueling illegal amateur fireworks displays around the lake = OMG SO AWESOME!!!

You know, it was a lot easier to unplug from reality when (a)I didn't have a laptop, and (b)there wasn't wireless at the Poconos. But like, everybody's still asleep. I get up at 5:30am every day, I applauded myself for sleeping til 8am. What am I supposed to do, relax with a book and stare out at the lake? Oh, actually that does sound pretty nice. But if I went downstairs, I'd have to chit chat with Rob's parents. Not that I don't love them, I'm just not up to chit chatting mood yet. I may have to summon the courage.

I arrived at the Poconos late last night. Today is the company holiday, and I was going to spend the holiday in my new city (either Providence or Boston), but it's hard to refuse an offer to come to the Poconos. So yesterday I left work a bit early, met up with Kathy (who is awesome for volunteering to dogsit this weekend), said goodbye to the pups, and got on the road. Because clearly I haven't put enough miles on my car this year and I should plan more roadtrips.

Drove west into Connecticut, and for once the experience wasn't entirely maddening. Picked up Li, and we headed to Beacon, NY, where we met Rob and Liz, who took the train up from NYC. And then west to the Poconos. Today is kind of dreary, but hopefully it'll clear up. I told Rob that there MUST be fireworks on the Fourth, because it's just not acceptable to me to have the Fourth without fireworks. So we'll probably scout out a place to find them today, but otherwise there aren't many plans for the weekend.

Attention everyone! I don't know how I missed this, but this weekend has been cancelled, or at least postponed. I didn't even know you could cancel a weekend, but apparently an engineering company of 56,000 employees holds enough sway with Father Time to make it happen.

After doing my commute from RI to Boston on Monday and Tuesday, I commuted to New Hampshire on Wednesday instead. I do not consider this an improvement, because it takes 2 hours instead of 1 (each direction), and I have to drive it as opposed to just zoning out on the train. After getting home late from NH on Wednesday, I checked my email to discover an 8:30am meeting had been scheduled for Thursday morning. Awesome! This meeting turned out to be 2 hours long, and because my train gets me to the office right at 8:30, I had to just skip the coffee and breakfast step and go right into the tedious and argumentative meeting. (No one was arguing with me, but I still had to endure it.) Then I worked a really long time on Thursday, still had a ton to do on Friday, and at the end of Friday everyone decided to just keep working on Saturday! And this is how I discovered weekends could just be cancelled on a whim.

I foolishly made plans to meet friends in Boston on Saturday after work was done, but once I put in a whole day of work (Monturday? Weduesday? Fridnesday?), I really needed to get home and get rested up, so I could come back to work on Sunday (today)! I think I'm only putting in a partial day today, followed by rescheduled plans to meet friends, but who knows!

(Apologies for the nonsensical rambling. It makes sense to me, but I may be suffering from lack of sleep, nutrition, entertainment and/or companionship.)

So I think between the landlord and I, we have finally resolved the issues with the previous tenant. But not before a few more hilarious exchanges.

As planned, I met with the landlord Saturday morning. She's looking into a bunch of different repairs, including ones I said didn't matter to me (like scratches in the hardwood) and ones I didn't even mention (painting and general improvements to the porch/balcony). On the subject of the hideous bathroom, she wasn't sure who chose that color, but said I was welcome to change it, and would reimburse me all the supplies if I wanted to do it myself, which could be fun. And on the subject of the touch-up painting, I said I wasn't comfortable with the previous tenant doing anything and didn't consider it a priority anyway, so we agreed to table it for later. Oh, and she's going to have that annoying door taken off its hinges too. Score!

( Later that day, I get a follow up email from the previous tenant... )

Hi! Just wanted to say that I'm on Twitter now. I decided to be daring and go with... the same alias I use for everything else, so this is me:

http://www.twitter.com/corkdorkdan

You don't have to follow me, and I don't plan to abandon my LJ. I've just been experimenting and despite my initial fear, hesitance and lack of understanding of anything remotely new or different that changes my world view the service, I'm starting to understand its appeal. So, if you'd like to, please go ahead and follow me. If you've got one, I'd love to follow you too.

That is all.

Remember when I first moved to Georgia and there was all that media-fueled hysteria about how Atlanta was running out of water, severe lifestyle changes were required, and everyone was going to have to just adapt to a drier climate? Completely baseless stories about how there was only a 90-day supply of water left?

State Declares Drought Over; Lifts Watering Ban
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/19713439/detail.html

Thanks to an extremely wet spring, the ground is sopping wet and the lakes and reservoirs are nice and charged up. I think we should go around and review all the stories that were published in 2008 about how it was caused by global warming, and the South would never recover, and the various politicians who pushed through legislation for their various pet causes under the guise of wanting to "fix" this "problem." Kinda makes you wonder about other media-fueled crises where the reporting is done by promoting sensational headlines and speculation is substituted for research. Say it with me people, these things are cyclical.

Also, check out this cool graph of the level of Lake Lanier (one of Atlanta's reservoirs):
http://water.sam.usace.army.mil/lanfc.htm

Copied exactly from the email I received today. I was in a meeting when I checked my phone and read it, and I had to do that thing where I cough and clear my throat to cover the fact that I was laughing.

From: {previous tenant}
To: {me}
Subject: painting spots in the kitchen

I don't mean to be inpatient, but June 20th I am leaving Rhode Island, and I would really like to get everything done so I can get my security deposit back. Please let me know about the paint sample, that way I can match up the paint.

Thanks for the check.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Yeah, good luck with that. By the way, I've got a meeting set with the landlord on Saturday morning, so that'll be the earliest that I respond to this. You can't encourage the crazy.

So before I moved to RI, I exchanged emails with the current (now previous) resident at my new place. Actually, the landlord just sort of leaked my email when she CC'd me on something. No big deal, we had to do some coordination because of the cable company, transferring the bill over to my name.

Then a second exchange happened when I asked if I could move in the night before my lease started. I emailed the landlord, but received an email back from the current tenant about how they might still be cleaning up, but I was welcome to start moving in. Okaaaay. But I just elected to stay out of their way, and didn't want them to feel like I was inspecting their work.

Right after I moved in, the previous tenant emailed me to say she and her roommates had installed a couple of ceiling fans. They wanted to know if I was interested in buying them (for $50), or if not they would like to come by and take the fans. Uhh, we're getting a little weird here. Like, you moved out, you left the fans. They are mine now, or at least belong to the apartment. But, seeing as how they are pretty nice fans, and a good deal at $50 especially with them already installed, I said sure, I'd take them and mailed her a check.

Now, when I showed up on June 1, the landlord hadn't done a walkthrough yet, so she did it with me. She noticed that there was some spackled spots on the wall that needed to be touched up with paint. She encouraged me to do my own inspection and note any problems so that I don't get charged for them whenever I move out. I did this yesterday. Then today I got an email from the previous resident again. (Um, could you get out of my life now? We are not BFFs. We are not even directly involved in any business.) She wants me to get a paint chip from the wall that needs to be touched up, so she can go and match the color and then - and THEN - she wants to COME OVER for an hour and do the painting! Umm, WTF?!

First of all, this is not going to work. Maybe if you had some original paint you could go and repaint that entire section of wall. But even with the fancy-computerized-laser-matched-paint-mixing they do now, it will not match perfectly. And coming through and painting a few patches with it will look like shit. And second, you want me to make time for you to come over, and make chit-chat with you, to do things that were supposed to be done before you moved out? Like, isn't this what the security deposit is for? If you leave the place in need of repair, you get assessed charges for those repairs, and everyone moves on with their lives. You don't get to come back and take up my time. And finally, touching up the paint on a few spots in the kitchen is not really my top priority now. The junk that you left in the apartment is bad. The broken window shade is bad. The broken doorknob is bad. The numerous nails sticking out of the walls, and holes in the wall that you didn't bother to spackle, THOSE are bad. The tiny splotches of paint that are going to look like crap even after you "fix" them? Not a priority for me!!

This includes my time on the west coast, and the drive back to Atlanta. And look at tiny Rhode Island colored green now! It's like it's saying, "Hey, Dan lives here now! Zoom in, please!"

Vermont's days are numbered. Texas, I've got my eye on you too. Michigan, you're in the planning stages. And I'd still like to do that NPR trip to Chicago, Madison, and Minneapolis sometime.

I took some pictures of the new apartment this morning right after I got up. You should consider these "before" photos. It already looks better after today, and hopefully I can post some "after" photos with everything more setup in a week or so.


Click to go to Picasa!

Does anyone know what the deal is with this hinge? I want to remove a door, and usually it's just a simple matter of popping out the pins on the hinges. But these pins don't seem to budge. Are they fixed? Why the hell would someone put a fixed pin hinge door on a pantry?!

(Click for a larger version.)

It's 4am, I'm in the bedroom. A dog explains those extraneous noises of an empty house. It breathes the same air with you. It needs an occasional conversation, a hand on the back, more so than a cockatiel or a python, anyway. It stays with you, even in the middle of the night, at 4am, when you've woken with a harsh taste in your mouth and you're writing on a yellow legal pad in the dim light, and only the crickets and the wind outside, like now.


He was talking about moving into a new place, and filling it up with new things and possibly a canine companion, after the breakup of his marriage.

Holy crap, I'm in Rhode Island!

Staying at a really sketchy Days Inn on my final night. The inside is average, but the outside is by far the sketchiest I've stayed in. Oh well, I can handle one night. The shower curtain is standard issue.

Heading over to my new apartment first thing in the morning. Also, the moving company driver called me today and said he'll be at my place between 1pm and 4pm tomorrow. Color me shocked that they're getting my stuff here on the day they promised. I have one or two small complaints about the moving company so far, and this guy in particular, but let's see how things go tomorrow before I get my rant on. I hope I like the new place.

Greetings from Pennsylvania!

So I managed to get out of my old apartment on Friday. Took me way too long to pack, and I had way too much stuff, which always happens. I threw out some things that were old, or I wasn't too attached to. Car was still pretty stuffed. I drove to Cornelius, NC, outside Charlotte, and stayed at the Days Inn there. It looked real nice on the outside, but was only so-so on the inside. The shower curtain was consistent with all the other Days Inns I've been to. I don't really complain, I only stay at these places for like 8 hours each and accepting the dogs is key. Sometimes I suspect that they put the dog owners in the crappy rooms, but it varies with each hotel. I think the nicest one I've stayed at was in Blue Springs, MO, outside Kansas City. I stayed there going to and from Seattle and it was really nice. It's also the only one that didn't have a shower curtain because it had the pod-shower of the future(!), which has a glass door. I have my suspicions that it used to be a La Quinta because the architecture was all different. (Note to self: stay at more La Quintas. I wonder if they allow dogs?)

Anyway, when I woke up on Saturday I decided to thin out my car by taking two of the boxes and mailing them to myself. Well, one box and one suitcase. The post office mails anything, right? The woman was very nice and thoughtful, taking extra care to figure out the best place to stick the shipping label on my suitcase. My dogs, car and I were grateful to lighten the load. It allowed me to shift most of the stuff encroaching on the backseat (the dogs' territory) into the hatch, and gave me more visibility on the right side.

I had a really nice day of driving today, up through NC, VA, WV, MD and into PA. The sun was out the whole time, weather in the high 70s/low 80s. I saw a P.A.M. truck for the first time, which is an inside joke with my boss in Seattle (Pam). At one point I called Dad and we were basically on the same stretch of highway, but he was getting ready to stop and I just finished a stop, so timing was bad. I stopped at Sheetz at one point, which is not a bad substitute for a Wawa. They've got a similar feel.

Tonight I'm staying near Harrisburg, and - exciting development - it has a non-standard shower curtain, sort of. It's the exact same design, but this one is pure bright, as if they bleached one of the goldenrod-colored standard ones. Yeah, it doesn't take much. Tomorrow I arrive in Rhode Island! I'm planning on staying one more night in a hotel there, because the previous tenants in my place said they might still be cleaning up. I see no reason to crowd them, so I'll move in Monday morning as planned.

They're trying hard to put me in my place,
And that is why I've gotta keep running.
The future is mine and it's no disgrace,
'Cause in the end the past means nothing.

You tell me I'm free then you tie me down,
And from my chains I think it's a pity.
What did it cost you to wear my crown,
You don't like me why don't you admit it.

I feel a little down today,
And I ain't got much to say,
But you're gonna miss me when I'm not there.
You know I don't care,
You know I don't care.

As we beg and steal and borrow,
Life is hit and miss and this,
I hope, I think, I know,
If I ever hear the names you call,
And if I stumble catch me when I fall,
'Cause baby after all,
You'll never forget my name.
You'll never forget my name.

-Oasis, "I Hope, I Think, I Know"

Guess what? I'm moving soon!

The hard part is over, because the movers came and got all my stuff this past Saturday. It all went really smoothly. On Friday, I had a lot left to do, but it wasn't overwhelming. (Not like the last time I did this.) My first task was to get a final inventory together and send it to the moving company Friday afternoon. Then it was just putting more stuff in boxes and disassembling my big Ikea desk and bookcase, which each took about an hour. I worked pretty steadily through the afternoon, evening, and into the night a bit, giving up around 2am to get a few hours of sleep.

In the morning I focused mainly on sealing up all the boxes until the movers showed up around 8:30am. I pointed out all the stuff that was going, signed a bunch of papers and then let them do their thing. They wrapped all the furniture in plastic and blankets and stuff, carted it all out to the truck. I continued closing up boxes and finishing up my inventory of what's in all of them. (Yes, I keep a separate inventory and also number the boxes with my own numbering system.) About three hours later, it was all finished and I took a nap.

( Travel Map and Plans )

In an attempt to use up some things in my cabinet and procrastinate on the packing, I got the urge to bake last night.

This is a tomato soup cake. It mostly just tastes like a spice cake (with raisins and pecans) but has a red tint to it. Also maybe a hint of savory flavor, but not overwhelmingly tomato-y.

I made the cream cheese frosting myself, too!

The following sequence of events actually happened in my office this week.

It's the afternoon. I'm in my cube. I overhear two coworkers talking.

Coworker #1: Do you have the new door code?
Coworker #2: There's a new door code?
C1: Yeah, I just tried to get back in and the code doesn't work. Had to have someone let me in.
C2: I haven't heard anything.

They are referring to the keypad on the back door to the suite. People have to periodically exit that door to get to the bathrooms, and then have to use the code to get back into the office. Some people even use that way to get to/from their car in the parking garage. And this is not the first time that they've changed the code without telling anyone. It happened to me in October. I went to the bathroom, couldn't get back in. I wasn't just clueless, no one had sent out an email, or a memo, or posted something on the door about the code changing. They just changed it, and expected people to figure it out.

C1 goes to the receptionist to find out what's going on. He returns a few minutes later.

C1: Apparently we're supposed to use a key now. *flashes key*
C2: What? Is there something wrong with it?
C1: No, they don't want to give out the code, you're supposed to use the front door now.

I should point out that we're on the 4th floor. And the way the building is laid out, you can't get to the front door from the back door. If you go out the back door and get stuck, you have to take the elevator down to the lobby, go across the lobby, and come back up the other elevator. Not to mention that the front door is only open during business hours, and when the receptionist is sitting there. I guess we're not allowed to pee after 5pm.

C2: Where do you get the key? Does everyone get a key?
C1: I just got it from [the receptionist].

At this point I go over to the receptionist, because if there's keys being given out, I want one.

Me: I heard we need a key now.
Receptionist: (shakes head) I don't have any keys.
Me: Didn't you give a key to [C1]?
R: This isn't going to work.
Me: (jokingly) I agree.
R: I'll talk to [office manager].

Ahh yes, that explains it. This would be the same OM that I can't stand, because he has a terrible management style and frequently overreacts to things like this. Apparently one of my coworkers had her purse stolen. Unfortunate, but I'm not sure how it's helped by locking us out when we go to the bathroom! I witnessed the same thing happen in Seattle. There, we were on a locked floor with keycard access, and someone managed to sneak in the middle of the afternoon, walk right into someone's office and snatch her wallet out of her purse. She didn't even realize it until hours later. People are desperate, maybe disgruntled, so watch your stuff. Don't change the door code and not tell anyone.

A few minutes after my conversation with the receptionist, she emailed out the new door code. See how easy that was?

I thought I should post an update on the job/living situation for anyone who might be curious. About 2 months ago, I received an offer I couldn't refuse. Basically, the chance to live and work in Boston, something I've wanted since before I graduated college back in 2005. Not that my life has been incomplete since then, but it was just kind of a constant "coulda been" scenario in the back of my mind. Also, something that was dangled carrot-like in front of my face periodically. A possiblity in need of an opportunity.

But then I got an honest-to-god real offer to go there, and needless to say, I was very excited! The job description has modified somewhat, but I'm still really pleased with what I have in store. Here's the breakdown:

• Hired by (actually it's an internal transfer): my company's Boston, MA, office.
  
• To work on: a RIDOT contract, where most of my time (4-5 days a week) over the next few years will be spent working at RIDOT headquarters in Providence, RI.
  
• While living in: Pawtucket, RI, which is the next town over from Providence.

This is why I may use the terms Boston, Providence, and Pawtucket interchangeably when referring to this move. The two cities are only about an hour apart, so I just think of it all as the same general area. I'm really excited about the place I found too. It's the second floor of a house in a residential neighborhood (the landlord lives on the first floor, above me is only attic space). It's actually a 3 bedroom place, which sounds a bit extravagant, but the rooms are pretty small. So one will probably be just for my bed and a small dresser, another for an office area, and maybe another for storage/guest room/yoga exercises. Then the usual smallish kitchen, small bathroom, and a pretty large common area for living/dining. It has hardwood floors and tile, and a small balcony. It was my choice to get an apartment in Pawtucket, because that seemed to make the most sense if I was working mostly in Providence. After looking at various options, it just didn't make sense to get a place closer to Boston at this time and make my commute more difficult. If things change in a few years, I can always reconsider.

And certainly a lot could change in a few years. I've had more than one person comment that I should really be looking to buy a home in this market, or at least investigate my options there. A few years ago this would have been unthinkable to me, so I think it's telling that I'm very amenable to the idea now. While these past few years have been exciting and I've enjoyed the time I've spent in Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Seattle, I'm starting to think I should stay in one place for awhile. Having 2 dogs, and moving with them back to the cold north, I'm also very interested in having a nice fenced-in yard. And perhaps most inexplicably, I have this yearning to own and take care of my own lawn. I have NO IDEA where this came from, because I really dislike yardwork and the outdoors in general. Marriage, children? No way! But a nice lawn for my dogs to romp around on? That's an idea I can get behind.