Monthly Archives: March 2008

A Month of Couches

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I gave up my apartment in Seattle on March 1st, moving most of my belongings into a storage unit, and the rest into my car. Put simply, I felt done with Seattle, and wanted to try elsewhere, but couldn’t really afford to continue to hemorrhage money on an apartment while I found job somewhere else. It’s something of a risky maneuver, but thankfully I do have friends and family who help, which mitigates the risk of it all nicely.

So, barring a week in Seattle helping my friend Anna move, I’ve spent most of the month crashing on my brother’s couch in Portland. His roommates are aware of my situation, and have been incredibly cool about it, though I still feel bad about imposing on them for so long. I’ve been sending out resumes, and interviewed for a position last week that I really hope I get, as it’s a position I think I would enjoy, for a company I really like (and whose products i use often). That would put me in Portland with a decent (not high pay, but comfortable enough) full time job, which sounds pretty damn idyllic right now. I run into more people in Portland who have made a conscious choice to be there, instead of being drawn for some ulterior motive (work, hipster cachet, relationships, etc), than anywhere else I’ve ever visited or been. That sort of attitude really shines through in the behavior and personality of the city.

Despite having interviewed for a job I am hopeful to get (and remain in the running for), delays in that process (they’re still looking at and interviewing candidates) have left me in a position where I’ll be flying out to DC to help with UberCon and hang out with a lot of the Avatar crew. I could be there for as much as a month (notably if I don’t get the job), though possibly less. We’ll see. In either case, it’ll be good seeing people (and anyone who wants to hang out, drop me a line).

It’s all been sort of surreal. As much as I’m aware of the need and stressed about finding a home and a job, I’m actually feeling pretty good and calm. Maybe it’s the Portland vibe, maybe it’s just that I’ve ALWAYS liked being a floater, but in either case, it’s a pretty good mindset to be in (way better than freaking out about it, at the very least). Largely thanks to Uri, I’ve already met more people in Portland than I ever knew in Seattle. Yes, I’m an introvert, so it’s hard for me to meet people in the first place, but I still think it really says something about the difference between Portland and Seattle.

This is a Test

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This is a body of text meant to act as a body of text for testing out a web template. It is going to contain a number of notable elements, not the least of which is blockquotes, ordered lists, unordered lists, links, code snippets, abbreviations, and citations. This is so I can see how they all look in an actual page.

This is a body of text meant to act as a body of text for testing out a web template. It is going to contain a number of notable elements, not the least of which is blockquotes, ordered lists, unordered lists, links, code snippets, abbreviations, and citations. This is so I can see how they all look in an actual page. Block of text, Nabil Maynard

WYSIWYG

    Test

  1. Get Milk
  2. Get Bread
  3. Get million dollars
    Second Test

  • Ninjas
  • Pirates
  • Robots

Hello, World!
More code.
Who ever heard of a 3 line program?
Blah!

Okay, and now back to real text. This was only a test. If it were a real post, it might actually be useful, and we can’t have THAT, now can we?

Wherever You Go

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I am simultaneously excited and scared shitless by the state of my life right now. I gave up my apartment, and moved out on the first, without having a job or a place to live lined up anywhere — while I thankfully have friends and family whose couches I am able to crash on for a while, I am effectively homeless, without the funds to rent an apartment. I don’t really know what I’m doing or where I’m going or even what the hell I’m thinking. I just know it’s time for a change.

For now, I’m in Portland, and have been crashing on my brother’s couch for the past few days. His roommates are friendly and nice, so there hasn’t been any complaints about it, but I know it’s not a viable position for more than, say, a week. Exactly what I’ll do next, I’m not entirely sure. It depends to some extent on what sort of work I find and when.

It’s exciting and freeing to have no real ties, able to end up anywhere, but to be that completely adrift is also incredibly frightening: I love to travel and wander, but it’s nice to know there’s somewhere that is ostensibly “home” when doing so, which isn’t something I really have going for me right now. (It’s also nice to have some cash set aside for such wandering, and it goes without saying that I don’t have that either.)

In other news, Gary Gygax, creator of Dungeons and Dragons and an essential lynchpin for so much of what the gaming industry and achieved since, passed away last night. Rest in peace, and my best wishes and condolences to his friends and family.

Happy March! Bye!

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I’m about to pack the cable modem and wireless router. My apartment is empty barring the items that I need to put in the car. Had my meeting with the landlady, will hopefully be getting a nice chunk of my final month’s rent back, which would be GOOD.

Time for an adventure, I reckon.