Back of the Envelope

I was planning on going to the 4 pm service at Park Street Church today, but the snow still hasn't stopped. It's pretty nasty out there. Around 4 pm I'll have a look around and see if I can make it to the 6 pm service. I'd hate to miss church completely...

You know, I'm as surprised as you (check the announcements at the bottom of the page). I thought that man was unstoppable, like a borg or something. Me, I get writer's block every now and then. Usually what I do is stop working for a day or two, relax, read a book. About that time inspiration will strike, but it won't be for what I was working on. Then I'll spend some time on the new project, and eventually find my way back to the old one. But I can afford a leisurely pace, as I don't have a daily webcomic with no buffer.

After two weeks of living out of my suitcase, I finally got the rest of my stuff. Of course, it's still all in boxes, and it'll take me weeks to unpack it. I'm going to need to buy some shelves before I even begin to have places to put all of it. Still, I was able to find some dishes and pots and pans, enough to make myself an omelet for dinner. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the dishsoap, so it may be a few days before I can actually wash the dishes I used. Ugh, I hate moving! And no doubt I'll be moving again in a couple of years. If I get a permanent position at Lincoln Laboratory then, I'll probably to buy a house, and if I don't, I'll need to find another job.

Oh, and here's a picture of all the boxes:

There sure are a lot of them, aren't there? You know, last time I was unpacked in under a week, but I just don't think it's going to happen this time.

Well, technically, it's Lincoln Laboratory's fitness center, but at $85 a year, it's a pretty good bargain. Especially since I can get a rebate on the full amount from my health insurace, It has some pretty nice treadmills, and a full weight room and more exercise equipment than you can shake a dumbbell at. But the real reason I joined is because they have classes in medieval swordfighting. Really. They aren't starting up anytime soon, but I'll definitely be signing up for those.

Finally! Comcast came by and fixed my Internet. The modem they had originally given me didn't work with their recently updated cable system. On top of that, only three of my four cable outlets are connected. Anyway, it works now. I think. As I started writing this, it stopped working, so I'll have to reboot it and see if I can get it running again... Remember when people thought the Internet would make our lives easier?

This is a somewhat unusual bleg, but I'll throw it out there and see if I find any takers. As I believed I stated before, I'm running an online d20 Modern game, based on the ruleset developed by Wizards of the Coast. This is a bulletin board game, meaning that it looks like collaborative storytelling, where I set the rules and the setting and each player controls a character, posting his actions once a day or so and waiting for me to tell him the results. It's a lot of fun, and I'm currently looking for another player. If you're interested, please contact me.

I started my job yesterday. This meant spending most of the day filling out paperwork, and today I'll be going through orientation. However, I did get a peek at the project I may be working on. I look forward to starting.

I was travelling when the earthquake hit the Indian ocean, resulting in a tsunami which killed over a hundred thousand in South Asia. There's really nothing I can add to the fine work others have done blogging this (see here for example). I won't tell you which charity to contribute to, but I will contribute any money tipped to my Amazon account for the month of January along with my personal donation, either to the Salvation Army or World Relief, which are two of my personal favorite charities. Of course, I don't usually get a whole lot of tips for this blog, but just in case, you know where it's going.

I went driving earlier today, to make sure I could find my way from my apartment to work and back again. It was surprisingly easy, and only takes 15 minutes in Sunday afternoon traffic. It wasn't bad, but I only hope it'll be so easy Monday morning. Fortunately, it's a reverse commute, meaning that I'll be going in the opposite direction than most other people (out of the city rather than into it). While driving, I noticed anew something about Boston roads that annoys me (I mean, aside from these): uninformative street signs. Take this for example:

Notice anything odd about it? There's only one road named. What's the other road? Street signs like this are very common in the Boston area. Usually the road labeled is the smaller one, the logic being, I suppose, that the driver ought to already know the name of the major road he's on. Unless, of course, you came to this major road from a minor road, which is what usually happens when the road you were on comes to an end at a road whose name is not given, often when one big road ends at another big one (Waltham Street at Mass Ave, for instance). In that case you can drive for 5-10 miles without being able to tell the name of the road you are on. It's extremely frustrating. It would not have been very expensive to name both streets when the signs were originally put up, but I'm willing to bet it would cost millions now.

Okay, enough about my personal peeves. Sooner or later I'll get around to the usual politics and religion, along with a belated Weekly Webcomic Update.

That's the little Saturn that could. It's pretty small, but it's amazing how much stuff you can squeeze into it if you really try. Everything you've seen in the previous pictures was in that car. Er, well, except the fridge. And the lamp. Anyway, there was a lot of stuff in the car.

You know, I used to think the car was dirty before, but now it's starting to get hard to tell that it's white under all that dirt.

The is my refrigerator. As you can see, it's empty. I mean, my fridge is never full, but usually I would have gone out to the supermarket by now and bought a few things. The reason it's completely empty is that the refrigerator doesn't work. It's on: the light turns on when you open it, it hums, a little fan blows air, but all that air is room temperature. The stupid thing won't cool down. I had some Cokes in there, but I realized that they'd get colder if I left them in my car. I'd have complained by now, but I waited a day just to see if it would cool down, as I wasn't sure that the electricity had been on in my apartment before the day I moved in. Then I realized that the main offices of the apartment community were closed during New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. I'll call on the 2nd, of course. Yes, they're open on Sunday. Meanwhile I've been reduced to eating take-out and fast food. Hmmm, come to think of it, that's mostly what I'd be doing anyway, so I guess it isn't so bad.

I wasn't planning on setting up the desktop until I had some furniture to put it on, but I had to make sure that my internet problems weren't just due to the laptop's ethernet adapter. So I set it up, booted it up, and tried with it as well. No luck. In case you're wondering, the optical mouse works perfectly on carpet. Try that with a mechanical mouse!

This is my bed--just an inflatable matress and a comforter bed set. I also have a sleeping bag between the mattress and the fitted sheet, as the mattress turned out to be very cold to sleep on by itself. It's surprisingly comfortable, but it feels too close to the floor. For some reason, that always seems to give my allergies fits, but I'm okay so far. I'm eventually going to have to break down and by a bed, probably queen sized, but it's going to be expensive. I want something with a decent headboard, since I'm getting tired of losing pillows between my bed and the wall. The prices for frames seems to run between $400 and $1300, while the mattresses are even more expensive. (Seriously, a cheap mattress was around $500, while the good ones run to $2000.) Maybe I'll just wait until my allergies start bothering me. Or perhaps I can use the futon, once my old furniture gets here. It's at least going to wait until I get my first paycheck and reimbursement for some of my moving expenses so I can get my credit card under control.

This is my office, dining room, and the only place I have to sit, with my folding table and two folding chairs. If it looks like the lamp is leaning a little, that's because it is. When I put it together, I got the threading slightly off. Of course, when I tried to take it apart and correct it, I couldn't. I had to go out the next day and buy groove joint pliers just to undo the wedged thread and screw it in right. It still looks crooked, but not quite so bad.

New Year's passed while I was writing that last post. I watched it on TV, but didn't want to add anything to the post.

Happy New Year to you and yours. I'm looking forward to this year, as it very much feels like I'm coming home.