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.