Time Compression

I feel like I'm finally getting settled in here in St. Louis. I got a cell phone last week. I'm pretty happy with it - it's a Motorola Razr model. I ended up going with Verizon for my service. I'm still a bit confused as to how some of its uses are billed. I want to be able to use it for IM without having to worry about things like pay-per-message. I also want to be able to do things like check email, RSS feeds, stuff like that. Basically stay on top of my short list of things that let me feel connected. I also need to figure out how to use its predictive typing features. Supposedly it's possible to attain decent WPM on these things, but I'm still having to go s... l... o... w... l... y... as I attempt to spell things out. And I can't figure out how to capitalize. Proper capitalization and sensible grammar and spelling would make me feel much more comfortable with using the phone. My favorite feature of the phone so far is the voice command system. I can say something like "Call Daniel mobile" and it will dial my brother's pay-as-you-go cell phone. Lots of phones do this, but in conjunction with one other thing it's been really interesting. I got one of those whiz-bang bluetooth wireless headsets that kind of hang from your ear. This one's pretty tiny, but it works well and both recieves and transmits clearly, even in noisy environments. I'm using it for driving in my car which has heavy road noise. With no AC it tends to be quite loud since the windows are constantly rolled down. Anyway. I press a button on the side, say "Call Home" and it dials the right number and connects me. And the whole time the phone itself has been tucked away in a jacket pocket, or scattered across my desk, or clipped into my belt. It feels oddly liberating. And it keeps my neck from getting cramps trying to snuggle up to a handset. I can also use the headset with my PC as a microphone, for things like Skype, teamspeak, and Google talk. I've not used it much for that yet, but it's something I'm very interested in. Battlefield 2 squads, anyone? Get ahold of me privately and I'd be glad to give you my new number. With the cell phone aquired, I've basically completed the list of major purchases I had planned for upon starting my new job. I got a cell phone. I made the trip to Utah for the wedding. My PC has been very pleasant to me. I've got a (albeit ugly as sin) car that runs well and is fairly comfortable. Now my big financial focus is on paying off some more debts that have accrued. I don't think that will be too painful though; it's all been planned out for some time. I'm going into hoard mode now - first pay for everything, then put as much into savings as I can. My brother and his friends have gotten hooked on FFXI. They've got a half-dozen PCs set up upstairs and have been here every night playing and laughing. I've enjoyed having the company; I can't spend as much time gaming as they do, but even when I'm doing something like going over bills, they lighten up the atmosphere. I feel like the days are rushing by right now. Work always seems to go by quickly. That's kind of strange to me. I feel like I'm not getting as much done as I want to, but at the same time I know that it means that I'm enjoying what I'm doing. On the other hand, my evenings seem really short to me. I tend to get home at about 6:00 and go to bed somewhere between 10:00 and midnight. So that's only 4-6 hours "to myself." I've got a rapidly-expanding list of things I need to get done in the evenings, and I hate that I have to spend time on boring stuff like all the paperwork involved in getting my benefits plan set up. The weekends help though. There's no web surfing or personal IM at my office. And really, there's no time to indulge in such things. There's plenty to keep me busy without those distractions. This has a couple of consequences. The immediate one is that I feel out of touch with all of the folks I depend on the internet to keep up with. The less obvious one is that I feel a lot more productive and focused at work. I guess it's a good thing on the whole, but I do not like feeling cut off from my friends. The weekends help with the whole "time compression" effect my job is having on my life. It will be better yet when my work laptop is set up so that I can access the corporate network from home. Then I can do any work that crops up on the weekend from home, without having to drive up to an empty office building to babysit some servers for a few hours. I need to go now, I guess. I need to get some dinner and do fill out some forms. Maybe call my health insurance company to deal with some of their mess. Hopefully I'll get a bit more time to myself later tonight.

/nod

So, the trip to Provo was cool. It went better than I could have hoped. I feel like I've made my peace with that place, somehow. I've spent the entire last week at an intensive training seminar put on by IBM. We studied their proprietary Unix OS, AIX. It was extremely helpful for the things I'm doing at work. The most interesting part though was the people I met. A smattering of IT people from around St. Louis and the rest of the US. Having lunch break with these guys gave me a taste of how "the industry" chunkles along. The training center itself was quite interesting. It's kitty-cornered down the block from the St. Louis Arch, and is directly across the street from the brand new Cardinals baseball stadium. Actually, after lunch one day a lady handed some tickets to a group of us returning from lunch. She didn't need them anymore, so we went and caught a few innings. As it turned out though, we arrived just after the first home run of the game, and left just before the second (and final) one. Oh well. I also managed to get an inside introduction to the old-money St. Louis downtown area. The variety of people I met was quite interesting. My new PC is here, and very sweet. Unfortunately between work and Adult Life (so to speak) I've not had as much time as I'd like to use it. As it is I've got it set up to my preferences to a minimal state. It will be a while yet before I really go all out and bring all of my old files and stuff on-line. I really need to get my music on our home network. I've not been able to swap out the songs on my iPod since December. My car broke on Friday! A pipe in the exhaust system rusted through and collapsed such that the car was very very loud and rumbled a great deal. I literally wore my heavy-duty firing range earmuffs as I drove it to the repair shop. That saved me an enormous headache. Fortunately it was not a terribly difficult problem to fix. I shopped around and found a place that would do the work for not much ofer $100. They did a good job, and had it ready for me Saturday morning. Interestingly enough, the car runs much more responsively now. I guess I'd had an exhaust leak for some time that was sapping power from the engine. PS Exhaust leaks are dangerous! They can cause carbon-monoxide poisoning for those in the car. Some of you might find it interesting that I got my mom the first season of Lost for Mother's Day. She's quite liked it. We've been watching it pretty much non-stop. It cuts into my FFXI time, but family time (and Lost itself) is good too.

Leaving.... on a Jet Plane!

Boarding pass is printed out. Car is reserved. Time to get some sleep and head out for the airport. I imagine I'll be in Provo sometime between one and two. Get ready to rock.