Category: Uncategorized

Scamming free wireless. The flight was nice. London is pretty. See, I even took pictures (warning, huge and unedited). It is rainy and cold (though not cold by minnesota standards).

And, oh my god it is sooo easy to exhale money in this place. It’s not bleeding, like there’s some abnormal injury, just going through everyday processes is expensive. Travel is expensive, lodging is expensive, and food is expensive. Oy.

Also, my voltage adapter blew after about 30 minutes of doing its job. RIP. Should have read the fine print. This was after I kindly (read: accidentally) donated my western european travel guide to some anonymous underground passenger.

Today I took a little walking tour and took many pictures of architecture. I went looking for the Cartoon Art Trust, but apparently my guidebook was either outdated or flat out wrong. The place I went looking was under construction. Near “Gay’s the word”, a nice hole-in-the-wall, gay-male-focused queer bookstore. (turns out it’s significantly closer to my hostel, but not open again while I’m in London). I shrugged it off and went to the London Transportation Museum… which is closed for remodeling or some such. But at least I got to see Covent Market. Pretty cool little spot. Incredibly crowded.

I had lunch at an organic, hippy restaurant. It was tasty, I got a bowl of dahl and a tasty fruit crisp for a little less than 7 pounds, or nearly 14 dollars, with water to drink, shared tables, and self service on the silverware, water, etc. I sat and chatted with some friendly locals, who are moving to Geneva. One in international relations, something or other, and her husband a pastor, helping with gangs.

I replaced my step down transformer with a higher power one, for about $50 (an even higher rated one would have cost me about $25 in chicago). Thus how I am able to upload my pictures and chat with you all tonight.

Tonight I plan to hemmorhage money. I’m going to go to a gay bar somewhere nearby and chat with some locals. That’s the plan, anyway.

Tomorrow, I’ll hang out with Ro for most of the afternoon in Oxford, and watch the changing of the guard at buckingham palace (since it’s near where the bus will pick me up). Monday is largely unplanned, but I do intend to take a trip up in the London Eye.

Okay, so, Minneapolis hasn’t been the greatest for me. So, why am I so hesitant to leave? Is it the gnawing feeling that I could have done better? The feeling that I never really got to know the place, because I was so profoundly wrapped up in my own little internal dramas? Enh, maybe.

Maybe it’s looking back over the past couple years with a critical eye and thinking of the opportunities missed, the time misspent, they ways I could have done everything better. And the urge to fix it where possible.

Reluctance to start over? Who the hell knows.

I just know I’ve been dragging ass on my way out the door. And here I am lounging in the wake of my packing frenzy. Looking at the few items that I didn’t push into a bag or a box, somewhere and feeling a bit of despair because I won’t be able to cram them all into the suitcase space I have.

I think I need to calm down, chill out. It’ll all be okay. I’ll head up to Chicago tomorrow and get there in the afternoon. It’ll be fine.

I purchased a skype number so that while I’m overseas, people won’t need to pay out the nose to get in touch with me. It’s even based in the chicago area. Heh. Cool.

Any other skype users out there?

For those not in the know, skype is a phone-over-internet (voice over ip, or VOIP) service, so that one can call people anywhere for reasonable rates. For instance. Calling the UK on my cell is like $1+/minute. Calling the UK on skype, to a land line, is $.021/minute. Ditto for Scott in Germany. Now, cells can be more expensive to reach, as I found out the hard way. Dialing Ro’s cell # cost $.76 cents for 3 minutes. Still better than calling from my cell.

And if anyone I were calling used skype, it would be free.

You prepay, so it’s like a calling card that way. You can also buy numbers (for $12 for 3 months or $38 for a year) that forward to your client, or to a voicemail service, which you can, of course, access from anywhere online.

Oh, and they’re having a promo where it’s free to call the US and Canada until the end of the year. Sweet.

send me an email if you want the geeky new #. 😉

17″ monitor: free (old, but still functional)

card table: $25
4 folding chairs: $10 each, or $35 for all 4
or
card table + 4 chairs: $50

One recently educationally completed, and slightly panicked polwonk: priceless

Free Queen Size Bed, with mattress, frame and boxspring. You just have to cart it away.

Two 6′ x 2′ x 1′ (approx) bookshelves with 1 fixed and three adjustable shelves. In good condition. Asking $15 each.

One larger shelving unit. about 6′ long, maybe 5′ tall, has 4 shelves. Asking $40. Around twice the capacity of regular bookshelves.

Two rugs. Originally about $100 each. asking $25.

One 18 speed bike with helmet, lock, light (case cracked), rear rack, emergency tire pump, high quality men’s seat. Drop down handle bars. $50. Not pretty, but very functional. 1 Saddlebag available, price negotiable.

Well, I constructed my first (admittedly crude) spreadsheet to examine my financial future. It’s not looking stunningly bad, but it’s certainly not stunningly good. I do not anticipate an early retirement.

I should be out of credit card debt by the beginning of 2008, if I pay about $750/month, plus the minimums on other things. Adding that 750 to the minimum payment on my debt consoldation loan would rid me of my remaining commercial debt by the beginning of 2009. This is aggressive, but doable. The student loans will take longer, but really, at that interest rate, I’m not too worried.

I don’t really regret the course I’ve taken to be where I am. If I had anything to do over again, I’d have cut and run from computer science earlier. But I’ve met alot of fun people, and it’s been a foot in the door everywhere I’ve been, so maybe not even that. My inner accountant wails a bit, but he’s a quiet voice amid the hubub.

I would not give up on getting to know Ro, Simon, , , the bay area, , , etc, etc. The idea of unmaking me by losing those experiences just seems crazy.

I met yesterday, on a restaurant review trip. We checked out the Cobra Lounge. An interesting spot. The food is good. It’s basically a bar with food, in terms of selection. They did have an “choose your own” pasta, which is what I got. The food was good, the price reasonable and the service great, though it probably helped that we were the only people there.

is laconic, but friendly. Probably partially due to the brevity of our aquaintance. I look forward to getting to know him better.

In sadder news, it seems that my plans for burlington have suffered a bit of an oopsy. My host-that-might-have-been has a burning-man-in-the-woods event he’s going to called firefly. This means that almost all of the time is gonna be out there, Tom will be otherwise occupied. So, I could come for a period where I could hang out with one, then later hang out with the other, but I’d much rather have the chance to hang out with both simultaneously. I may just save my vermont trip for later.

I still want to hang out with Pittsburgh friends. But the lure of the unfamiliar Pacific Northwest is also high. Hmmm. So many options.

I had lunch with one of the gao folks. Good conversation. Then I dropped by the office and chatted with folks for a bit. I miss the place. Everyone so friendly, and smiling. Some annoyance with work. But it was an affectionate annoyance. They showed me my probable new cube, two down from my old cube, thus reducing the amount of unexpected passers-by. In fact, it’ll go from 3/4 of the bloody office seeing the back of my head, to my cube neighbor and people visiting one or the other of us. That’ll be cool. It was good to walk back in. I’m pretty sure this one will go well.

Well, this weekend has been good. I’ve hung out with , slept on his couch, cluttered his living room, etc. I got to meet and at last. And they’re fun, cute, and sweet people. You should definitely get to know them if you get the chance. I’ve eaten at the chicago diner and at the blind faith cafe with other internet strangers. That was yay.

I’ll be grabbing lunch with one of the assistant directors at the gao downtown. I expect more yays from company and less yays from food. I may also go to two-stepping lessons tonight. I’m sad to be in a town without a smoking ban, but come 2008, it’ll be better.

I’ve managed to avoid any significant pangs of post-grad-school panic. I can feel them scratching at the door from time to time, but I’m keeping them in check. My travel plans are starting to come together and make sense.

I’m having dangerous thoughts about getting back onto the MMORPG bandwagon, now that school is over. FFXI makes no sense because I could only spend a couple days on that, since I can only run it on my desktop. WoW is the obvious choice since it’s already installed on my laptop. But I’m wondering if I really want to have that kind of a distraction. Hmmmm.

Adios, amigos.

I have this sneaking suspicion that so long as I am lacking in contentment with who I am, I will continue to date people because I want to be like them instead of wanting to be with them. Fortunately, the two are not mutually exclusive and often coincide but the first is a terrible reason to date someone.