I actually vacationed.

It seems so simple, but historically I’ve had a hard time actually vacationing unless forced to (i.e. I had no internet access or I didn’t bring my laptop). If I have my laptop with me, which I usually do, I’ll often default to tinkering with work stuff in my free time, which effectively negates any attempted vacationing. Pointless, right?

A number of things helped in this matter. First, I separated my work laptops, and home laptops ¹. I used to use my work laptop for everything, and having the physical separation is definitely key in successfully leaving work at work. This way I’m not taking my work laptop on personal trips, and I’m in no way tempted to start working on work when I’m supposed to be relaxing. Bad for work, good for life.

And even with work miles away, and lots of other code close by waiting to be tinkered with, I didn’t code anything. No personal projects, no nothing. I took a complete mental vacation, as evidenced by the following list of things I watched over break:

• Up In the Air
• Sherlock Holmes
• Dirty Harry: Magnum Force
• Platoon
• The Reader
• Away We Go
• Bruno
• Fantastic Mr. Fox
• Gone Baby Gone
• 1.5 Seasons of 30 Rock
• 0.5 seasons of Arrested Development

Of all those shows and movies, I think the funniest thing I saw was this clip from season 2 of 30 Rock.

BOYS BECOMING MEN. MEN BECOMING WOLVES!

What a weird and terrific show, and a wonderfully relaxing vacation ².

On Friday, I waited in a 2 hour line for a new iPhone 3GS. I usually avoid release-day-lines, as experience has told me that waiting a day can save hours, but this time I didn’t. Upon arriving, an Apple store employee informed me that it would be a two, or two and a half hour wait. By the looks of it, I thought that estimate was way off, so I was planning on waiting for a while, seeing how fast the line moved, and bailing if it took too long. But after waiting with the crowd for a while, I became captivated by humanity.
Shortly after I arrived, a guy showed up behind me and was told the same thing I was— a two to two and a half hour wait—and was utterly disgusted. Within 10 minutes, he was whining. “This sucks. [SIGH] UGH. This is so sucky. How long do they expect us to wait? ” It went on for over half an hour until at one point he asked me “[SIGH] What is going on with this line? This sucks. Have we even moved? “.

“They said it would be a 2 hour wait, what did you expect?”, I said, visibly annoyed.

Apple actually had it set up pretty well. If you registered online earlier in the week, you stood in the fast line. If you didn’t plan ahead, or were there for a reason other than buying an iPhone, you waited in the slow line. They took 1 person in the slow line for every 4 in the fast line, and it didn’t seem unfair to me.

The slow line was full of whiners and complainers—like the guy behind me—who found the situation completely unacceptable. There was a steady flow of new people who upon seeing the long lines would walk right up to the front and ask one of the Apple employees if they could buy an iPhone. After being told the estimated wait time, they would launch into a rant about the injustice of it all.

After I had been there for almost two hours and was third from the front in the slow line, a guy walked up from the very back and started telling the line about how ridiculous the wait was, as if he, in the back of the line, was experiencing a different waiting experience than the rest of us. “I’ve been waiting here for an hour, and the line has barely moved! I counted TWENTY SEVEN people coming out of the store, and not one has gone in!”. He cornered an Apple employee and angrily expressed his disgust at the whole buying experience. “I have EIGHT PHONES I want to upgrade”, he said. The Apple employee, calmly said “I’m sorry, sir, you’ll have to wait in line like everyone else”.

Me: Unbelievable

Girl next to me: What? That guy?

Me: Yeah, Columbo over here is trying to crack this line conspiracy wide open.

Whiner behind me: Well, you have to admit, it is pretty ridiculous

Me: I don’t think anybody has any reason to complain if they were told it was a two hour wait, and they had to wait two hours

Whiner: But they’re making us wait outside!

Me: And here we are, still waiting.

Whiner: But what if an elderly person came? That’s pretty mean to make someone like that wait in this line

Me: I would think that an elderly person would know what it means to wait in a two hour line, and weigh out their options before committing.

I just can’t wrap my head around the mindset of these people, getting so angry at having to wait in a long line on the launch day of an extremely popular product. Apple wasn’t forcing them to buy new phones that day, and getting the latest version of a fancy smartphone is not an urgent task. Waiting a week would not be a detriment to your health, and neither is waiting outside in a line for a couple of hours on a nice Friday afternoon.

In all these cases, the Apple employees were obligated to be polite, but if one of them decided to strangle one of these whining special snowflakes, I would have stood by and happily supported the decision.

There’s just a certain type of person that gets up in the morning and expects the world to deliver them happiness instead of taking the responsibility of finding it on their own, and I’ll never see eye-to-eye with those people. To paraphrase Mark Twain, “The world owes you nothing; it was here first.”

And that’s only in print. My digital collection of files extends back even further (all the way back to 1987, I believe) and in some ways, the digital problem is much worse. Need that conversation we had about CoCo Puffs in 1999? I probably have it, somewhere.

Before you start calling me a pathetic packrat, allow me to say that I am aware of the problem, and have identified it even further—”sentimental pack rat” is the term, I believe. The hardest part of resolving this issue is behind me–admitting that I have a problem. Now comes the hard work of eliminating the trail of my past that I’ve kept in two or three bankers boxes for most of my life.

While most of the things I’ve kept are completely useless and shouldn’t have been kept in the first place, there are a few gems.

Here’s one of them, from 8th grade:

English 8, 10-10-94

What I Want To Be When I Grow Up

When I grow up I do not want to be sitting behind a desk, wearing a suit and tie, talking to a guy from another country whose name I can’t pronounce having to watch every word I say so that I don’t offend him, trying to sell him a product or buy from him a patent.

I would rather choose a more exciting job like being a test pilot for McDonnel Douglas or Grumman, for instance. I would like this job because I would never have to worry about what to wear. I’d put on a flight suit, with no worries about matching colors, about brand names, or the latest fashion. No choices and no thinking while I am getting ready. Cool.

When I am in the plane, I’m in charge. I would not be driving a bus in the air (like the pilots of Northwest Airlines) and I would be able to fly the plane how I want to and see if it works to the specifications expected of its designer. I would also be testing myself, my knowledge and skill of flying, every detail about the aircraft and even my instinct. If things go wrong I’d have to make a quick decisions, not only to complete the tests but to perhaps save the plane.

I would hardly get bored because new planes, new instruments, and new weapons come out for me to test all the time. This is what I call a cool job, flying a plane, having fun, and getting paid.

There is only one setback to this job if the designers make a mistake, I might not be around to complain about it.

Hilarious. I also included a drawing.

I’m not sure how this happened, but at this point of my life—one year before discovering the Beatles, and two years before discovering programming—I was really into planes. Between the ages of ten and fourteen, my bedroom walls were covered with pictures of jets. I regularly absorbed books about the design details of anything with wings, and drew pictures of planes all the time. I remember all of that very clearly. What I don’t remember, however, is my apparent worry of what I might wear in the future, and fear of one day not being able to pronounce someone’s name.

It’s finding gems like this that assuage my negative feelings of being a sentimental pack-rat. For once, my former-self was correct in the prediction that my future-self would someday take great pleasure in reading this.

I certainly don’t lack focus. If anything, I’ve got too much focus. Why haven’t I updated my blog in years? Because I’ve been focused on other things, and lost sight of the importance of documenting my every move in verbose detail. (That sounded sarcastic, but I actually meant it. If this blog can’t be an extension of my own memory, what good is it?). And what happens when I finally get my shit together, and whip out a blog post? I write a list.

Things I have done this year, but haven’t blogged about:

1. I moved three times. From NYC -> Cousin’s Place -> Apartment -> Rental House. Needless to say, I’m tired of moving. I’ve had this idea that living in other parts of the country before I “settle” would be fun—and it has, largely—but living your life with the expectation that you’re going to move soon isn’t easy. For that reason, I’m going to start looking for houses to buy. I’m not saying that Austin is my final destination; I just don’t see a good reason to leave, right now.
2. I returned to South Africa for the first time in 20 years. It was an amazing trip, and completely worth the dent it put in my savings account. Only 20 years later do I realize the huge sacrifice my parents made trading the beautiful mountain & ocean views for small town Minnesota, all in hopes that their children would have a better life. We did, I guess, but damn, politics and crime aside, Cape Town is paradise.
3. I got a job I’m crazy about. It’s largely responsible for my lack of focus in other areas, as I’ve been wrapped up in work. But after spending 2 years underutilized and bored at Columbia, this is a welcome change.
4. I caught myself using “we” instead of “I”, far too many times. Have I lost my sense of self? Can I not make small talk with a hairdresser without talking like I’ve got a mouse in my pocket? This will not stand in 2009.
5. I got a dog. Well, Maggie was really the one pushing for it, but she (Molly) is great. If you knew her, you’d agree she’s a mix of Lab, Coonhound, Shepherd, Mountain Goat, Rabbit, and Frog. Being a rescue dog, she definitely has her issues, but she’s a good beast, overall, and I like her. She’s a good singer, too.
6. I volunteered for a political campaign, and that campaign won. Hey, two new things in one sentence.

All other minor things I did can be sussed out on flickr, or on twitter.

How about things I didn’t do, though?

1. I didn’t keep in touch with friends very well. The more I move, the more friends I leave behind, and the ones I’ve left behind haven’t heard much from me lately. That’s something I’d like to change.
2. I didn’t get in better shape. This year, lest I be a fat lump.
3. I didn’t write enough sentences. I certainly wrote enough code, but my network of various blogs and social networks got ignored in ‘08.

So, my resolution for 2009: be better in every way. Easy, right?

Claiming to be “Technical”, but technically not knowing anything
If they claim to be a technical recruiter, they shouldn’t say a Java position is a “perfect match” for me, because I had JavaScript listed on my resume.

Not knowing anything about the job.
“I’ve got a great opportunity for you at a company here in town. You need to know PHP, SQL, CSS, HTML, and it looks like you have those qualifications” I’m not sure if they expect me to say “Oh great! Sounds like my dream job!” from that much, but 9 times out of 10 when asking “What does the company do?”, they can’t tell me anything. “Software”, one said.

Pretending we had a conversation, when we didn’t “Hey Jeff, sorry I didn’t call you back sooner, but this is…”, or “Hey Jeff, this is Phil from XYZ Recruiters, we talked last week”. That’s low.

Calling after successfully matching you with a job, to see if you want to change jobs.
Now that their commission has processed, and they’re not bound by a contract with the company they hooked you up with, why not try to get another commission out of you? Loyalty.

Not respecting my calling preferences. The last time I was job hunting, I listed my resume on monster, and had loads (5+ a day) of recruiters call me as early as 7am. It became annoying to have the same conversation with them over and over, especially since I listed clearly that I only wanted to be contacted via email. Which brings me to the reason for this post: When I ask to be removed from your call list, respect that.
I had a run-in with a recruiter a earlier this year, and have been slacking a bit on posting about it. First, I got the following voicemail:

Hey Jeff, this is Tony with [Recruiting Company] out of Milwaukee. I don’t think you’re familiar with our company, so I’ll tell you what we do exactly. We’re the fastest growing program placement search firm in the world, and we work with a lot of Electrical-Controls Engineers. I have an exciting opportunity for an experienced Electrical Controls Engineer, down in the Carolinas. It’s for an OEM equipment manufacturer, for high speed packaging. I’d love to tell you more, though, my number is [#]

While perfectly polite, there are a number of things wrong with this:
1. I don’t live near the Carolinas
2. I have never marked the “I’m willing to move for employment” checkbox on any resume listing service.
3. I haven’t worked in the Electrical/Controls since 2004.

So rather than continue to receive calls offering jobs I’m not interested in, in areas of the country I don’t live, I called back and simply asked to be removed from their call list. The guy I talked to, Kevin, seemed a little confused, but after I politely said no to a few guilt-enriched questions such as “Are you sure you don’t want to stay on our list, so you can improve someone else’s life by helping them find a job?” he reluctantly agreed not to call me again.

The next day I received the following email from Tony, the recruiter who originally called me.

Subject: Sorry I wasted your time

Jeff:

It obviously bothers you to network with a professional that specializes in your industry. It also seems to bother you that what I was calling about could possibly improve the quality of someone’s personal and professional life. Well, if that’s the case, trust me, you’ll never hear from me again. Your ego is so large that you have to call us back and berate us to take you “off our list”? Well, if calling you on 6/5/06 and then again on 5/19/08 is too often, buddy, you obviously don’t have much to worry about in your life.

Wow! That paragraph crescendoed, no?

I’ve debated whether or not to post the full content of the emails on this blog, here, and have decided that yes, I will. Part of me feels like it’s information overload, bordering on you thinking I’m trying to display my email zinging prowess, but I’m not. These emails tell a story of a sad, sad, recruiter, desperately avoiding the realization that the career he chose is a complete sham.

Also, I had some pretty good zingers that are worth sharing.

Anyway, my retort to his first email:

Dear Tony,

I’m failing to understand how my simple request for you to remove me from your list of possible job-seekers was out of line, and further how it warranted such an unbelievable response from you. Apparently I hit a nerve. Did removing me from your list leave you with no one else to call? I suppose I should welcome irrelevant phone calls? Under that same logic, maybe I should start signing up for spam.

The fact is, your call was yet another example of recruiters taking blind stabs at possible job applicants instead of doing the necessary research involved in producing a quality match. I’m sure my name got added to your list in 2006, either from a site I voluntarily listed myself on, or a recruiter I had spoken to. At that time I was looking for a job in the “Electrical/Controls” field, but since then I have switched careers to Software Engineering, moved states, and worked 3 different jobs. When providing my information to the aforementioned sources years ago, I am sure I specified that I was only looking for jobs in my local area, so the fact that the “exciting opportunity” you were calling me about was not in my current field and over 1000 miles away makes it unbelievably irrelevant.

Further, my resume isn’t even listed on any resume sites currently, as I’m *not looking for a job*. I’m satisfied with my current job, and in the future when I’m seeking other employment, I will relist my resume on job seeking sites, so that I can be contacted. However, when I’m happily employed, I have no interest in hearing about your job opportunities for a field I’m no longer in, in a place I don’t live. Is that so unreasonable? I felt that your snarky subject line “Sorry I wasted my time” was absolutely true–which is why I asked to be removed from your list.

So thanks again for your professional email. I’m glad to see that you’re improving the already impeccable reputation of recruiters.

Jeff

His response:

Jeff:

I’m not going to get into an email war with you. I am simply trying to do my job and that is attempt to network with industry professionals who want to either enhance their career and/or have the common courtesy to point me toward someone they could help. Jeff, I have found that overhwhelmingly, the best people at what they do are currently doing what they do. They are not sitting on Monster.com and catching up on the Flintstones in the afternoon.

Thanks for the tip on how to do my business, but quality matches come from meaningful conversations, not “blind stabs”. If our last “meaningful conversation” was in 2006 and your career objectives have changed since then, I can apologize for a lot, however, I will not apologize for my lack of mind-reading skills. The vast majority of our candidates come from good, old-fashioned phone calls, networking and the subsequent conversations, not job boards or the internet. That is the “necessary research involved in finding a quality match.”

Apparently, I also hit a nerve with you and unwittingly called a guy who has absolutley no clue of how this all works, but is ready, willing and able to dispense advice. To be fair, I’ll explain rather than only take a shot at you… The “research” also entails finding “quality matches” that have personality, communication and chemistry. It’s not solely about a verbatim match of skillset to job description. I’m sure that you’re in a good job right now and regarding that, I’m happy for you. But to treat us like lepers because we are trying to help our client find the best? Should I also aplogize for contacting “irrelevant” people that seem to do exactly what my client is looking for? Scratching my head on that one, Jeff…

Bottom line: It’s all about helping people and improving the quality of their lives, but if those darn trees weren’t in the way, that forest would be much more visible. Or, is it just plain selfishness? Not sure and I don’t really care to find out at this point because you will not hear from us again. And I stand by my “sorry I wasted my time” statement, however snarky it may be viewed by you. Dang, now I did it a second time! My bad.

Did that even make sense? I don’t think so.

The final reply:

Harassing people via email is also part of the job, I see. Does everyone who dares to request to be removed from your call list get a verbal beating? The level of professionalism you show is impressive.

This email conversation ends here. I have gone from being annoyed at your rude responses and your inability to understand simple logic… to pitying you.

Good luck with your future career, and your anger management classes.

I might have been a little harsh at the end there, but man, he had it coming.

The big news is that since you last heard from me, I moved out of New York. This didn’t really work out as smoothly as I had hoped, but I trust in several years I’ll look back on it as a great character building experience.

Here are some decisions we made, what we thought, and what actually happened.

Instead of taking a Penske Truck and driving all of our stuff to Texas, we decided to sell most of our furniture, and ship the rest.

We thought: Shipping our furniture would save us the hassle of driving a moving truck in the snow (I hate to point fingers, but my lovely wife was actually the one who was pushing for this one). With high gas prices, we’d actually save money by shipping.

Actually: Selling enough of our stuff to sell was tough. The feeling we imagined and the feeling we felt seeing lamps, tables, favorite old couches, and everything walking out the door for pennies were vastly different.

Further, shipping was a fucking nightmare. Instead of simplying packing up our shit any old way and stuffing it into a truck, we had to pack it securely to ship, and then rent a car to get it to DHL and the post office. Both companies completely trashed our stuff. Lots of wedding gifts are now shattered messes in the garage, and due to New York’s shitty supply of sturdy cardboard boxes and our own stupidity, it’s doubtful we can get the insurance we paid extra to compensate us for any of the damages. Further, of the 7 boxes of books and CDs we sent via USPS Media Mail, only 5 arrived. An entire box of expensive nursing textbooks and 250 CDs have disappeared. We got a message from the post office a month ago with the address portions of our cardboard boxes neatly cut out and sent to us along with a note stating that “these were found loose in the mail”. Perfect.

As nice as it sounded to replace our old random furniture with things we both like, the feeling that we’re just hemorrhaging money right now without any income is not a good one.

Further on the spewing money front, we agreed to go to South Africa with my brother and cousin in a couple of weeks. While this technically works out well (I wanted to go with my bro, since he remembers more of it than I do), it’s unfortunate that we’re spending another giant chunk of change without having a steady income yet.

We thought: Driving a minivan stuffed with crap across the country would be fun
Actually: It was a pretty fun, I guess, in a painful sort of way. One thing that did work out well, is that while we were leaving New York, Maggie’s Aunt (in Minneapolis) offered to give us her 2002 Ford Escape. This threw a scheduling problem in the mix with our rental, which we solved by doing the unthinkable: driving back to Minneapolis after we had arrived in Austin. Total, we drove 4500 miles over a 10 day period. That’s a lot of driving, folks. Our honorary trucker certifications are in the mail, supposedly.

We thought: It would be easy for Maggie to get a job
Actually: It was. The job she’s at now didn’t exist before she whipped out her resumé with Columbia on it. Maybe the massive debt is worth it?

We thought: We’d go crazy about how cheap everything is compared to New York
Actually: Everything is so frickin’ cheap! Everything from huge spacious apartments, to drink prices, to pints of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. All so cheap!

We thought: Having a car would be great, here.
Actually: While it has been great to be in control of my own travel plans, Austin is a shitty place to drive. Traffic is bad, road are poorly designed, and drivers are idiots. Everything from tailgating, nobody obeying the speed-limit, hanging out in your blind spot, and running red lights — these drivers are unbelievable. Coupling that with lanes that change into turn-only lanes without warning, and completely inadequate street lighting at night, the accident rate here is through the roof. I already got rear ended by some jackass while I was trying to change lanes, and I have seen more crazy accidents in the last month than I’d ever seen in New York. The other day I saw two cars smashed beyond belief with police, fire, and medical on the scene…in a parking lot!

Other good things:

• I think my expectations of customer service are so low from living in New York, I am constantly amazed by how nice and helpful people are here. I don’t get attitude at Starbucks, and grocery store workers actually know where their products are located.

• We’re moving out of my Cousin’s house at the end of this month, which I’m really looking forward to. As well as we get along with him, there’s really nothing like our own space.

• Maggie started working today, and I have a second interview at a pretty hot sounding startup company. Hopefully I’ll get that job.

Speaking of, I should really get back to doing some work — I have to study up a bit for that interview tomorrow. I’ll update you again in the next 6-12 months. (I’m setting the bar low.)

[9:47AM]

Guy: R u sellin a tv
Me: Yes
Guy: How much??
Me: $50? You want it?
Guy: Yea
Me: Ok, hang on a sec
Guy: Aite
Me: When can you pick it up? I’m at 109 and Broadway
Guy: What size is the TV
Me: Didn’t you see the craigslist ad? Do I know you? 27 inches[10:01 AM]

Guy: No somebody told me about it and gave me your num cuz I needed a tv. I’m gonna buy it but I need a pic or something
Me: Don’t have a pic right now. Could get one later, but it’s a smart series 27 inch phillips magnavox. Charcoal in color. Great condition. 2 inputs, 1 output, remote.

Guy: OK and how do I know it workz. I don’t wanna buy something that doesn’t work??
Guy: U still sellin it?

Me: Come see it. It works.
Guy: I’m on 125th and 8th Ave.

[10:17AM]

Me: Cool. I’ll be home in 15 minutes. You can come over.
Guy: Aite. So how imma get it bac 2 my house.
Me: Cab?
Guy: Aite
Guy: Y u can’t meet me somewhere
Me: If you want this thing, you’re gonna have to carry it
Guy: Imma get in a cab from where I meet you at
Me: Then meet me at my apartment.
Guy: On 109
Me: Yes. 109 between broadway and amsterdam
Me: This isn’t a flat panel LCD you know. This is a tube TV.
Guy: I know.
Guy: Y can’t u put the tv in a cab and meet me on 116th and imma take dat same cab 2 my house on 125th
Me: Dude, $50 is cheap. That does not include delivery.
Guy: Lol aite hold on

[10:33 AM]

Guy: 12 30 I will be there ok
Me: Cool

[10:59 AM]

Guy: Nevermind I really don’t feel like comin all the way 2 109 and b way
Me: Seriously? What’s the diff if you’re in a cab? 50 dollar tv, man
Guy: Yea but I still have 2 carry it down your stairs and into the cab
Me: I will take it to the street for you. You take it from there.
Guy: Na I’m gd

[12:09 PM]

Guy: Yo
Me: yes?
Guy: If u still have the tv fri at about 5 30 6 I will pick it up from your house cuz I have 2 come that way anyway okay
Me: Now or never. Moving tomorrow.
Guy: Aite I’m not goin 2 work 2 day so I’m on my way

[12:50 PM]

Guy: Yo I’m still comin I’m waitin 4 my uncle 2 get his car out of the garage
Me: Ok. How long will you be?
Guy: Idk how long he gonna take 2 call me back

[1:37 PM]

Me: Any idea? Other people want this thing.
Guy: Na he still ain’t call me I want dat tv
Guy: Imma pick it up 2day I jus hope u don’t sell it by then

[4:00 PM]

[The guy shows up. 19 year old black kid. Nice, and pretty funny -- he knocked on the wrong apartment door, and told us the hispanic lady didn't know what the hell he was talking about when he said "I'm here for the TV".

At the time, there was an older black guy in our apartment looking at some stuff, and this kid was definitely confused. He finally asked the guy, "so... are you guys friends?"

I demoed the TV's multitude of features, and after he was satisfied, he paid the $50 and lugged it down the stairs. Apparently he lives on a 5th floor walkup, so the three flights of stairs he had to maneuver at our place was just a warm-up for the hell that was awaiting at home.]

[4:50 PM]

Guy: The TV workz fine
Me: Did you break your back carrying it?
Guy: lol na I was alrite
Me: Cool. Take it easy.
Guy: U 2 thankz.

If we were to base this decision just on finances, it’d be hard to leave since both of us make a pretty good living here, and the money we’ll make elsewhere is currently unknown. But it’s not all about money. You give up a lot to live in Manhattan, and there’s more to living than the interest my savings account earns. While some outsiders envy the position I’m in and think living here must be just like the movies, until you’ve actually tried here, you have no idea what it’s really like.

There are multiple perspectives on this issue:

For the native New Yorker, this is how the world is. The lack of personal space, the blowing garbage, the heroin-addicted schizophrenic bums who are “down on their luck, and just need a 15 cents”, the constant noise, the inflated costs: all normal. What on earth can anywhere else offer, that New York can’t?

There are parts of this city that I really do like. I will miss the overload of restaurant choices, the variety of cultures, the mariachi bands on the subway, overhearing ridiculous conversations, the tell-it-like-it-is attitude of most of the people here, and the dense history of this city.

But it’s time to call in my debt, and reclaim the things I gave up when moving here:

A car. It doesn’t even have to be as fancy as Natasha. It just needs to move, and I need to have the keys. I don’t want to feel bound to wherever public transport will take me.

An spacious apartment that can be cleaned. The apartment I currently live in is considered “big”, “really nice”, and “cheap” by the new york people who have visited it. Compared to the apartments offered in any other part of the country, this apartment would be considered “A minuscule, overpriced, awkwardly-shaped sweatbox, with permanently affixed dirt in parts, with an underground cockroach infestation that enjoys visiting the surface on extremely hot days.”

An accessible drum set. While the by-the-hour place on 30th street is ok, it’s not my set. My set has not recently been beaten by a drum stick wielding group of monkeys. The sets I play on have.

My personal-space-bubble. Honestly, I think the most annoying part of living here is all the other people living here, too. Sometimes you just want to get some skittles at the grocery store, and don’t want to deal with the nightmarish number of people squeezing themselves through the narrow aisles. While this city may offer you infinite opportunities to see obscure bands, the problem is that there are a million other people wanting to see that same band, so good luck.

Ubiquitous Air Conditioning. New York is not the hottest place in the US, but there are not many other places in the US that you’re forced to stand in it for extended periods of time. It’s unfortunate that I’m such a good sweater. As I like to say, “I am a time traveler: The sweat you will experience after standing here for 20 minutes, I am experiencing now.” Even though Austin is hotter, it seems like a dream to step out from an air conditioned house, into an air conditioned car, and then into an air conditioned building, rather than my current reality of stepping out of a stuffy apartment, onto a hot street, and into an even hotter subway station.

Aside from the rare native new yorker, these desires are pretty common. There are some local solutions, I suppose. If you’re a high roller, you can buy most of these luxuries, and if you’re not, you can probably get them by moving out of Manhattan. If I really had to stay here longer, moving to Hoboken or Brooklyn would be an option I would definitely explore.

To illustrate the inflated New York tax, and even higher Manhattan tax, consider my experience with getting a quote for a Penske moving truck. Cost of a truck from Manhattan to Austin: $1700. Cost of a truck from Brooklyn (mere minutes away from where I live) to Austin: $1200. $500 difference? Seriously? And then the kicker. Cost of a moving truck from Austin to NYC: $450. I suppose it’s all supply and demand, and Manhattan, as the most densely populated area in the US, is on the shitty end of that relationship. Recently, the Brian Lehner radio show asked their listeners to find out what a 6-pack of Budweiser cost in their neighborhood, and the results were pretty interesting. There are a few anomalies in there, but as we figured out soon after we moved here, things in usually Manhattan cost much more than things outside of Manhattan.

Anyway, moving on, most of the people I know here have a love/hate relationship with this city. Before living here, I hated the city purely on the hype that surrounded it, and living here has thankfully given me realistic look at both sides. For some people, the sacrifices are worth it. There are things that this city is really great for, but for me, living is not one of them.

So we’re leaving in December. Two of our friends here are making the same move, so we’ll have an social island away from the family-friend-circle, which I think is a very, very good thing. We’ll live with my cousin for a month or two while we buy a car, look for jobs, and Maggie studies for her boards. Andrew’s house is 5 times the size of our apartment, so from our perspective right now it should be pretty cushy. Of course, I’m sure the reality of the situation will set in about a month in, which is why we’re not planning on staying with him much longer than that. I should find out what grad schools I get into by March, and then we’ll start deciding where we’re moving next. If I got into the University of Texas and we really like Austin, we might just end up staying there.

On the other hand, if I decide to go to grad school elsewhere, we could end up moving again as soon as June. Who would force themselves to move twice in less than a year? Idiots? That’s what I’m still having a hard time figuring out.

It’s going to be a busy few months, let me tell you. I’m re-taking that fabulous GRE test again in preparation for all this school-applying, and this time I’m actually putting some effort into preparing for it. I’ve looked at so many test questions and studied so many question types, I’m starting to like this test. That’s kind of scary. I’m taking a grad class at Columbia this semester, which as usual is taking up a lot of my time. And my pretty relaxed job is becoming more busy due the feeling that I need to ‘wrap things up before I leave’.

It’ll all pass, though, and before I know it I’ll be driving a Penske truck through a snowstorm again, like I did almost exactly 2 years earlier.

There are similar problems in my department, but more along the lines of scheduling unnecessary meetings, and then talking about the meetings in the hours preceding and following said meeting. For instance:

9:15 – “There’s a meeting at 9:30, are you available?”
9:25 – “You’re all set for the meeting in 5 minutes?” (Sometimes at this point, a sheet of paper is handed out with topics that will be talked about in the meeting).
9:30 – Three of us in a meeting. Yes, three.
9:45 – Meeting over. Last bit of the meeting is talking about how great the meeting was.
11:00 – Boss strolls into office, “So, that was a good meeting. What did you think?”

Almost all of these events are a complete waste of time, and I’m doing all I can to stop it. The principal offender is my indirect supervisor/boss, who for brevity I will refer to as S, from now on.

Last time we had a meeting, I rallied my coworkers to preempt the casual post-meeting with S by immediately having a discussion on how the meeting went after the meeting was over. While I thought this would surely solve the problem, it did not. A few hours later: “So.. that was a good meeting. What did you think?”

Please, let me clarify. This “what did you think?” does not end with me saying “fine”, and him walking out the door. There are several minutes of meaningless blabber, and I (admittedly very transparent), am continually dumbfounded as to how my “If you don’t have anything meaningful to say, please leave” expression on my face isn’t recognized at all.

This problem has only gotten worse since I’ve become a “manager”. Even though my responsibilities are practically the same, unnecessary meetings keep getting scheduled. And even worse, I heard from my coworker that S recently said to her “Jeff is really doing a great job. I think I need to meet with him more often.”

Wrong move, my friend. Great job should equal fewer meetings, not more.

I’m convinced that aside from writing necessary grants, scheduling meetings is all this man does with his time. I constantly see him running around asking people when they’re available to meet. Just today he said to me:

S: “So, I think we should try to have lunch sometime this week or next.”
J: “For what?”, I asked.
S: “Oh, just to talk. So you can keep me up to date on things. Just sometime this week or next. Let me know when you’re free.”

I think it’s best that we do not. If a one-on-one lunch ever happens, I will surely be:

a. Wasting my time entirely, as there is nothing to “update” him on.
b. Writhing in awkward pain the entire lunch
c. Taking the first step down the slippery slope, ending up with him inviting Maggie and I over to dinner — a fate other coworkers have suffered.

I think I’ll just take the passive aggressive role here, and not tell him when I’m available. As for the other problems, I’m not sure how to solve them, tactfully. Any suggestions?

Call me naive, but following engagement I expected a substantial amount of “blissful engagement time”. This was not so. Call me stupid, but when proposing, the thought of “I’m going to have to plan a wedding” didn’t even cross my mind. I think I speak for all men when I say that planning a wedding is not something we usually worry about. We are simple creatures, and we foolishly categorize such things as “details”.

In my mind:

Logical Timeline:

Blissful in love time, Marriage Proposal, Blissful engagement time, wedding planning, Wedding, Peace and Love

Not so.

Actual timeline:

Blissful in love time, Marriage Proposal, h e l l i s h w e d d i n g p l a n n i n g , Wedding, Peace and love.

Please note lack of “Blissful engagement time” in actual time line, as well as the extension of wedding planning, augmented by the word “hellish”.

From the engagement until about a month ago, I had been wedding planning. This caused more arguments between family members than I could have imagined. Ugly, horrible, month-lasting feuds over piddly little details; things that you just couldn’t expect. Not being a full believer in stereotypes, I now believe this one.

Due the unpleasantness of the entire situation (some caused by me, and some not) I had been reluctant and somewhat bitter throughout the affair. I complained about how ridiculous the costs were (i.e. “20% delivery fee” for already overpriced catering), I assured myself that the fears of rain would be unfounded, only to be replaced by a worser fate — it would be 95 degrees, and I would be soaked in sweat. To a certain extent I was dreading the occasion, thinking it would be much easier and more relaxing to do a tiny family-only & select friends wedding, instead of the enormous affair the planning seemed to be creating. On top of all that, I was positive that my family was going to embarrass me, or that I was going to embarrass myself by weeping like a little girl at the altar.

I am happy to report that almost none of these fears were true, and that all in all, the event was a lot of fun. Fun.

The weather was perfect, the food was great, and it was great to see everyone who came. My parents did not embarrass me, and the photographers I reluctantly agreed to give up a kidney to pay for were fantastic.

There were only a couple of unexpected hitches in the whole wedding day. The song we requested they play for the processional, Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus, is a piece of music that consistently gets me all misty eyed. I figured this would be a good choice for the occasion so if it happened again the audience would think “Oh, how sweet, he’s tearing up when he sees his bride”, while I’d be thinking “Damn, this song is great”. This plan may have worked out successfully, if the song didn’t finish off like this.

Also, while I was worrying about my parents giving an embarrassing speech, I foolishly took my sights off my brother. As a result, he delivered a lengthy speech about me growing up, making sure to highlight the most embarrassing moments. This may be par for the “best man speech” course, but I doubt most best man speeches also have large accompanying photos. While most of these photos were quite innocent, I felt the picture of me, aged 2, walking down a hallway naked wearing my mother’s high heels crossed the line from toast to roast. Obviously, I was horrified. The crowd loved it, though, and didn’t really support my rebuttal speech idea by continually telling me that it was the “Greatest best man speech they’ve ever heard”.

I’m not really bitter about it though, aside from the fact that my list of “things to do when a time machine is available for my use” has a new #1: Give embarrassing best man speech at brother’s wedding. Bring photos.

The wedding started at 3pm and had a cocktail-type reception following which only lasted until 8. This worked out wonderfully, and for someone who wanted to avoid the typical late-night-all-out-dancing-with-awkward-marriage-of-old-relatives-and-young-drunk-friends-boogieing-down reception, this was a great alternative. After it was over, Maggie and I went back to the hotel, changed into casual clothes, and then met our friends at a bar. This was the best part. Wedding over, stress over, fantastic honeymoon only a day away, hanging out at a bar with our friends. Perfect.