Brian's World

Boxes

I’ve been collecting a post of memories, things that make me think of being back on the East coast.  Perhaps I’ll post it at some point.  I won’t lie, I’m not missing the brutally hot weather folks are having over there, but I do miss the sound of the air conditioner clicking on at home.  I’ve also come to terms with the idea that I probably won’t make it to the Vermont house this summer.  As luck would have it, the year we finally get Internet at the house is the year I’m on the other side of the country.  I do hope that I get a chance to go back there at some point… I wish I could pluralize points and make my visits a consistent thing but I don’t want to get overly optimistic.

Growing up, and even up until around two years ago, Vermont was never really my favorite place to go.  It mean no internet which meant limited to no programming, the television was mediocre, there were always a large number of chores to do, and there wasn’t always lots of “fun” things to do in the area.  In college the VT house became this once-a-year get away for a few of my South Hadley friends, or something close to that.  We would go for a long weekend, cook stuff, swim in the lake, etc… kind of like a camping trip but with a house.  My visits were mainly limited to those once a summer trips with friends.  Not having internet access was always an easy way for the work-driven me to write off visits to the house.  I don’t believe in taking weekends off, and it’s not easy to work on web applications with an offline copy of the web.  I was also socially pressured to avoid going up with just my parents, apparently that became uncool at some point after high school.  It probably would have been uncool in high school too but I didn’t really have people to hang out with on the weekends so no one noticed I was missing.  I want to close this paragraph with “better luck next time self” but the probability of a next time seems low at the moment.  Perhaps this whole statement has been a complicated metaphor for missing spending time with my dad in recent years.

Onto a slightly less uncomfortable, but still not super pleasant topic.

My living room has a large collection of broken down cardboard boxes from all the Ikea furniture I put together.  My walls remain, save one clock and a small piece of “art” (I bought it at target, so I’m not sure if it counts as art), empty.  I hung the art up to give myself something to stare at when I need to focus on something besides the computer screen.  Completely logical.  Otherwise my apartment looks fairly generic, devoid from personel affects.  Even if you searched the cupboards and cabinets you would fine fairly generic stuff.  I’ve never been great at decorating, primarily due to a lack of interest, but I give myself credit for how un-personal I’ve managed to make this place.  It could probably pass as a safe house or something if I wasn’t using most of the drawers for clothes.  Interesting marketing idea there.

Back to the boxes though.  I have no reason to hold onto them.  It’s not like I am going to disassemble anything and make it look like new again such that I can return it.  Some of the boxes are large, which I’ve been using as an excuse… but I carried most of the stuff in here solo so that’s not really a valid justification.  I suspect on some deeper level I’m hesitating to throw them out… erm recycle (that’s what people call it around here)… because then my presence seems more permanent.  Having those boxes serve as a reminder how recently I’ve setup camp here and I feel hold me in a more transient state.  People don’t have boxes around for fun, they have boxes around to move things.  Ideally I’m going to muster up the courage / motivation to move them this week.

As strange as this is going to sound, I’ve noticed that I’ve been cleaning the bathroom a lot less around here than I would have in my Troy apartment.  It’s not like the Troy bathroom was always dirtier or this bathroom stays magically clean (my hair falling out tends to make mess of things these days).  I postulate that I clean this bathroom less because of the lowered chance that anyone besides me will be using it.  Sure, I didn’t have many visitors in Troy, but the potential to have visitors was an order of magnitude or two higher.

I had the pleasure of reading someone else’s blog this past weekend.  Someone who’s story seemed contextually slightly similar to me, graduating from RPI, getting a job on the West Coast, and having to pack up his life to move out here a year or two ago. In his “wisdom” (his words, not mine), he was glad to have friends that had moved all across the country because it made moving much easier, he already had friends in the Bay Area.  I believe he had actually moved out west with a friend who might have been doing the exact same thing.  I am unsure if he was being “wise” or just being socially more strategic or lucky in his selection of friends.

I should probably head to bed, in theory I have work or something like that in the morning.  I’ll take comfort in knowing it’s the same moon over here, perhaps that will help me rest tonight.

Good night moon.

Right Back Where We Started From

I know, I know, this isn’t part two of the three part series.  I haven’t given up on that at, but I set the bar a bit high and I don’t want to underwhelm you with part 2.  It also accidentally got published before I was finished, I’ll blame a wordpress vulnerability.  Those things tend to happen if you don’t update the code every now and then.

I’m writing this blog from my new apartment in Mountain View, CA.  If you hadn’t heard, I got a job working for a large search engine company (who’s opinions are never reflected here) which was well timed with my graduation from my Master’s program.  I packed my bag and moved out here three weeks ago and started work two weeks ago.  It’s been a crazy busy season, and this blog has been much more neglected than I’d like it to have been.  Things happen.

Despite all the help I had, relocating across the country wasn’t nearly as easy as I’d have liked it to be.  I consider myself fairly minimalist, I never thought I really had that much stuff and most of it was pretty easy for me to move.  For years I had moved myself in and out of college solo so everything was pretty manageable.  This past year, living in my apartment in Troy, I ended up with a lot more stuff than I would have usually had.  Some of it I needed (like plates), some of it I wanted (like a Keurig), and some of it I was given (like tons of steak knives).  The quantity of stuff was a bit daunting to think about, but luckily I’m not emotionally attached to much of it so throwing it out doesn’t phase me too much.

After I decided what was important to take or not I had to attempt to box / pack it up.  It’s fairly depressing trying to fit your life into a suitcase / boxes and thinking that those small containers hold everything physically of value to you.  Like I said, I don’t have lots of stuff, but I have a few small tokens that have come to help refresh my constantly failing memory; the blanket I’ve had on my bed since freshman year, the posters my dad always makes fun of, etc.  Not having too much stuff probably made the physical packing process easier, but thinking that stuff was all I have after 20-something years of life usually triggers the “what have I been doing with my time” stack trace which rarely ends well.

But enough about packing, in theory those boxes will be mailed out here soon now that I’ve tested my address (ordered a cable modem from Amazon to verify packages got delivered easily).  It will be nice to have a few things around here that aren’t completely new; I think all I have right now is a fairly ridiculously family picture my mom gave me with some strange family poem around it.  A reminder what my parents look like, I hope I never get bad enough to forget that.

I think what strikes me as most depressing (sorry for the lack of optimism at the moment) are the times like now. It’s like 11-something PM and I look at Google Latitude, informing that the closest contact to me is around 2500 miles away.  Coupling that with the thought that it’s after 2AM on the east coast I’m left with this reminder how lonely life can be.  I’ll say it, even thought it’s not particularly unique to me and somewhat cliche – Don’t take those around you for granted.  Enemies or not they’re there, which is often better than no one at all.

I spent close to a decade just observing from the outside, I didn’t fit in so peering through the window seemed like the next best thing.  In the end someone opened that window and pulled me in, a simple act I’ll be eternally grateful for.  Moving out here’s felt like I’ve ripped myself from whatever environment I had been in, not just my 5 years at RPI but my life thus far of being within driving distance of my hometown.  Sure, I’ve fallen out of contact with just about everyone in high school but the thought was still there; I could drive a few minutes and see then if I wanted to. Knowing these people were around, even it completely uninvolved or unrelated to me, helped me sleep at night knowing that the chance was there if I’d wanted to seize it.  I’d learn to live with that chance, and often out here I don’t think I even have that.  Out here I haven’t found any windows for me to look though even, never mind anything more,  it just solid walls.

Good night moon.

Joining the Crew: A Pirates Life (1/3)

This post is part one of the three part series I’m titling ‘A Pirates Life.’

I was new in town, only really knowing the guy I shared a ride with to get here.  I was looking for work, because that’s what I was pretty good at.  I found some part time work at the tavern once a week, the barkeep seemed relieve to have someone on board to help with some of the odd jobs around the place.  It wasn’t super fulfilling, but like I said it was work and that kept me busy.

One of the nice things about working in the tavern from time to time was getting to hear what was going on.  It was convenient to hear the latest news from people as they would come and go; as someone who really was not familiar with the area it was useful to quickly get up to speed.  One night I overheard someone talking about a treasure they had recently found and were looking to plunder.  Being the enterprising soul that I was, I made sure to spend my time mopping the floor near their table to try and pickup as many of the details as possible.

Much to my confusion, the sailors seemed to be taking a very roundabout approach to getting to the treasure.  I wasn’t really from the area, but I had a rough understanding of the seas they were headed into and it seemed like they were sticking to much larger channels than some smaller and more direct ways that were out there.  I considered offering my suggestions when they were leaving, but they looked considerable more experienced and I was a just working at the tavern.  They left, but I didn’t forget about the treasure they were talking about.

I didn’t work everyday, so I had plenty of spare time on my hands.  After some thought and recreating the map they seemed to be talking about I decided to head out and see if I could get to the treasure just as quickly as I thought I could.  I set off in small solo sail boat that direction.   I’ll spare you the details of my journey, but I confirmed that the route I thought I knew was faster.  After successfully arriving at the treasure, I was even able to open up the treasure and take a few coins with me.  I headed back and planned to return to work as usual, I didn’t really know how to get a hold of the pirates (that’s kinda the nature of pirates I believe) so I just smiled to myself, proud that I had at least been able to do something they seemed unable or unwilling to.

I returned to work because, well, that’s what I’ve always done.  I “left” the coins I found on the counter near my overcoat and the barkeep asked me about them, wondering where I got them and all sorts of things.  I told him that I got it from the treasure that I heard folks last time talking about, he seemed impressed that I was able to find my own way there and open the chest.  I played it off as not much work because I didn’t want to look like I had tried too too hard at it.  I got back to mopping because someone spilled their ale.

The night/morning was winding down, and when I was just getting ready to head out the barkeep pulled me aside and said he had someone I should meet.  I was mildly nervous, had I done something wrong, was I being “loaned” to someones crew, all sorts of unpleasant situations ran through my mind.  Uh oh, it was one of the guys from the table that was talking about the treasure.  He must want my coins back or “express” his anger at me for beating him to the chest!

Much to my surprise, that’s not how it went down at all.  He was impressed to hear that I had made it there so quickly and didn’t seem too hung up on the fact that I too had opened the chest and taken a few coins.  I was fairly shocked at how it wasn’t a big deal at all, what was important wast that I had figured out a better way to get there.  He asked me to join he and a fellow sailor, as they were likely going to be looking to find more treasure and could use a guy like me aboard.  I said sure because well let’s face it, who doesn’t like the appeal of treasure hunting?  I figured that we’d be back in town every few days so I could keep up my appearances at the bar and would still have some spare time to take care of my personal business.

I reported to the dock the next morning not really sure what to expect.  I was worried there might be a huge crew that wouldn’t really have a place for me or that I would be thrown overboard for not knowing enough to pull my own.  Luckily, it was just my fears that got the worst of me.  The “crew”, if you’d call it that, consisted of the Captain and his good friend the Chief Mate.  I would be coming aboard as the Second Mate, though the traditional navigational duties would be handled to the Chief Mate while I got my bearings and sea legs.

The whole experience sat surprisingly well with me.  I’m still fairly impressed at myself for being able to successfully find and open the chest by myself, but the initiative I took way back then paved the way for a number of exciting, unpleasant, educational, thrilling, or otherwise terrifying experiences.