The Mandelbear's Musings

... and our Stuff is here. The ship they originally told us our stuff was on is still somewhere in the Persian Gulf -- apparently they moved our container to a faster ship. We are relieved. Also very tired. The house is full of boxes, a few of which have been unpacked.

Fortunately, Monday is also the day when our housekeeper, N", is here. At some point she's going to help us move excess boxes into the storage unit we haven't rented yet, because we took an awful lot more stuff than we should have. Much of that is books; some is CDs and maybe DVDs.

Right now it's about 8pm here, and it does NOT feel like Monday. I'm also feeling cold, and there are boxes between me and the thermostat. I did manage to make sure a few other important items -- like the coffee, and the boxes of cardboard that were already staged to go out Sunday night for pickup next Monday.

It was a week. Not as emotionally taxing as last week, but physically just as difficult if not more so. With five of the seven days spent at or traveling to or from the Whidbey Island house. It isn't home anymore, though it may still be called Rainbow's End. Right now it's still a mess; hopefully Habitat for Humanity (scheduled for tomorrow), the junk haulers (scheduled for Friday) and the cleaning crew (sometime in the following week) will fix that. The new owners, who will start moving in March 1, will appreciate that. Our cats will appreciate having us back.

N has been going up with me; it's very difficult for her, but the project needs an on-site manager, and she's the only one the family has. My back isn't all that happy with me, but (so far) no lasting damage.

I haven't been very consistent about exercise (five days out of seven, and not necessarily a full set (whatever that means)) but I got in three walks and there was only one day during the week where $G logged less than 4000 steps. I had bloodwork done Monday; results look good except for iron; presumably I'll be taking supplements of some sort. Genetic results came in Wednesday, also very good. No music, and not enough sleep.

I should say, no active music-making -- here's a link to Kathy Mar's excellent recording of The World Inside the Crystal. The next track is "Little Green Eyes", which brought me to tears -- it's a beautiful song, but so sad...

( Notes & links, as usual )

Even at 95% or so the eclipse was pretty spectacular -- the twilight was deep enough that the owls started hooting, and it was noticably cooler. Actually the best part was watching Naomi -- it was her first solar eclipse, and she was enthralled.

We are not going to miss 2024 if we can help it -- we'll start planning and make reservations in 2023.

We are still having problems with the cats. Cricket simply won't tolerate having Ticia in "her" space -- N's room -- and Ticia attacks when she's hissed at rather than backing off like a sensible creature. It may be a couple of weeks before we can let the two of them share common space again, and it would have to be with both bedroom doors locked so that neither of them feels like their private space is being invaded. Even then it might not work.

Bronx is a troublemaker.

Other than that I've mostly been puttering; taking boxes out of the garage, putting up shelves, etc. G" took out the recycling yesteday, so we no longer have a huge box of flattened cardboard in the middle of the kitchen. I took the two boxes (so far) of donations and a box of G's stuff out to the garage. The hallway, living room and bedroom are still pretty cluttered. I have ordered more shelving components from the Container Store.

Mentally, I don't think I'm doing all that well. Lots of anxiety, mostly about the cats, finances (especially medical expenses, which are a lot higher than I'd expected), and Colleen. My self-confidence is completely shot, and my self-esteem doesn't seem to be much better.

( Notes & links, as usual )

Nasty, uncomfortable things!

As my dedicated readers (all three or four of them) are probably aware, Rainbow's End is being sold. It goes on the market, in fact, in a couple of weeks. (BTW, if you want a superb 6-bedroom house in West Seattle, complete with concert hall, ...) In order to present the place in the best light, we have vacated the top two floors, replaced the carpets, and removed the stair lifts. Colleen and I have been sleeping on our sofabed in the Rainbow Room.

Saturday, we moved. Or, rather, went out to a terrific Japanese restaurant in Port Townsend to celebrate the Younger Daughter's birthday, while our moving crew hauled what turned out to be three truckloads of stuff to the apartment. The plan was for us to drive home; pick up (cat) Ticia, (guinea pig) Clea, and (guitar) Plink; come back to an apartment full of boxes; and get settled in. Um..., not quite. In retrospect, leaving Clea at home was the best decision I made all day.

Because the keys, with the all-important fob that gets one into the building and then the elevator, slipped off a box and went through the crack between the elevator and the floor.

Meanwhile, I was driving home. Attempting to follow slightly confusing directions, on a phone that suddenly did not have a visible display! It was particularly confusing because I had missed a turn, and the phone was trying to direct me to turn around. But I didn't know that, either. I pulled off at an intersection in Kitsap that had a convenience store where I could use a bathroom, and switched to Colleen's phone. Fighting, again, with Google Maps, that wanted to direct me to a route it thought was faster, using a ferry. The last thing I needed was to wait an hour or two if I missed the ferry. Of course, I spent nearly that long in a traffic jam in Tacoma.

The traffic jam in Tacoma was where N called me to give me the bad news about the keys. The backup plan was to get buzzed in using the building manager's door code. Which worked fine until I used it too many times figuring out how to keep the garage door open, and said building manager started sending it to voice mail. (I'd thought that it was automated. Nope.) Leaving me outside in the cold, Colleen and Ticia inside waiting for an elevator, and both our phones, plus the litter box that actually had litter in it (we'd sent an empty one ahead), in the van.

After some kind person finally let me in, we proceeded to the apartment. Which is where we determined that we had no phones, no cat litter, and no way of getting back into the elevator after getting them. After meltdown, panic attack, or whatever it was, I proceeded to knock on doors until I found someone who actually opened the door and said they would buzz me in. I arrived downstairs just about the same time as the police, who were investigating an apparent intruder who was knocking on peoples' doors. This is apparently a standard MO for homeless people in the area.

Fortunately, at this point I was well beyond the panic and able to see the humor in the situation, so I had a pleasant conversation with one cop while another went upstairs to knock on my door to confirm with Colleen that we actually lived there.

It wasn't until I got back to the apartment that I took a good look at the phone and realized that the screen wasn't dying, it had just had its brightness turned all the way down. I also figured out that setting up my phone to let people in couldn't be done without having an account set up on dwelo.com. And we had a nice visit from the young lady who had called 911 to report me.

I've lost track of how many anxiety meltdowns I had; at some point I got over the panic and had a nice bout of acute depression.

We have spent the rest of the weekend in the apartment, finding out what's missing and what we have to send back to Rainbow's End to go into the storage pod after all.

Today has been cozy and domestic, sorting through boxes and figuring out which things we actually have room to keep in our apartment's tiny cabinets. And eating veggie, because while I was able to find two cans of crabmeat, the only can-opener we had was a battery-powered one that Colleen had just purchased. Batteries not included.

Oh, and did I mention the scratches I got as I attempted to corner a terrified Ticia and get her into her carrier? Those too.

Meanwhile, here we are.

( Notes & links, as usual )

posted late because my emacs client is flaking out. Probably due to the HTTPS redirection.

Long month this week. Colleen started feeling ill Monday, and didn't eat anything to speak of; she spent most of the day dozing in her chair, and decided to sleep there at night. About midnight she called -- she'd fallen out of the chair; no telling whether she'd slipped when getting up, or accidentally hit the lift button. Called 911 for help. In retrospect, we should have had her taken to the ER at that point.

I decided to work from home Tuesday, which was a Good Thing. About 3:30 when I went up to check on her she was incoherent -- "out of it". Called 911; she was too weak to walk to the lift, so they had to carry her down in a stair chair. She had about three different bladder infections and was severely dehydrated; it was the low blood pressure from the latter that accounted for the weakness and incoherence.

Harborview's cafeteria is actually pretty decent.

She was discharged Friday; was good to have her home.

Meanwhile, since being with a sleeping person in a hospital leaves one with lots of time, I'd managed to get in about 2.5 days worth of work, and finally got the CR I'd been working on shipped Friday. I went in to work Thursday afternoon after establishing that C wasn't going to be discharged that day, and had my annual review conversation with $BOSS.

I'd been very skeptical about the new annual review process, which is absolutely freaking weird. Peer reviews have two questions, with a 60-word limit for each:

1. What is this person's superpower? (required)
2. Do you have any growth ideas for them? (optional)

The manager's part of it is the same two questions, only I think without the 60-character limit. The self-evaluation part has four questions.

As I said, skeptical. But it actually seemed to go very well: it's designed to highlight your strengths, and completely ignore past performance. The feedback I got from my peers (my manager could see who wrote which one, but one gets them unedited) was basically dead on. The fact that $PROJECT was in "friends and family" testing and stalled due to something that wasn't my fault (fixed by Friday) helped a lot.

My favorite superpower was "CraftWeaver". Others mentioned my willingness to mentor and answer questions from newer devs. Someone specifically mentioned the fact that when someone sends out a question in email to a wide audience, I'm usually the one who jumps on it with an answer. The most common growth idea was that I should speak up more in meetings.

Of course, the other thing going on in the household is moving. I got the tools sorted on Sunday, and with several peoples' help got the art sorted, mostly Sunday and yesterday. N's criterion for keeping art is pretty loose, based on the fact that it stores flat and can be rotated. Chaos and the Dwarves also took quite a lot of it; there are comparatively few pictures left in the discard pile. Most of the furniture is gone from the Great Room; the only things left are the klic-klacs (which we're keeping), the blue sectional (which we're keeping through next week), and the piano. Want a free piano?

( Notes & links, as usual )

Rough week. There are going to be a lot more of them.

Almost all of the books we're keeping have been moved out to the pod, and most of the other Great Room stuff as well. So have our CDs and DVDs. The breakfront and buffet have been cleared and sorted; they'll go soon. Half of our booze is gone, as are the 12-string and the M-Audio Quattro and preamp. Our housekeeper, G', has taken the hot tub and has claimed the piano. My brother wants the musk ox (a marvelous sculpture entitled "Here I Stand") and the bound volumes of Analytical Chemistry that have Dad's articles in them.

Haven't started on the garage yet. Need to get the tools sorted and listed. Ugh. Pictures first full week in March -- that'll be tight. We basically have only 19 days left, because the final weekend will be taken up by g's Bat Mitzva.

Things are increasingly surreal. I alternate between nostalgia, regret, depression, and terror, with random, inexplicable stretches of calm and occasionally even optimism. I guess adventures are like that. Nasty, uncomfortable things.

( Notes & links, as usual )

Good grief, indeed! It looks like this post is going to try to cover an eventful two-and-a-half weeks; there's no way I can do it justice.

tl;dr: Our Stuff arrived two weeks ago, I flew down and got the Honda and more Stuff, and we're gradually getting unpacked and settled in. I still don't have a job, or even any interviews scheduled, so I've decided to offer dinner at the Herb Farm to anyone who finds me one.

And now a few highlights.

The movers arrived on Wednesday, having had another stop along the way because our 17,000+ pounds of stuff only filled about 2/3 of their big-rig. Props to Billy, who managed to get the rig parked next to our entrance, which the apartment office staff had assured me was next to impossible. Billy and Pam were the husband-and-wife team of drivers; I can't praise them, United Van Lines, Chipman Relocation, and the loading and unloading teams too highly. A very smooth, painless, hassle-free operation.

... that left us with an apartment full of boxes, of course. We still have more Stuff than space, even after paring down a lot and storing almost half of it in N's garage. Well, we knew the job was impossible when we took it.

Speaking of jobs: I got my rejection from EnergySavvy, so I now have nothing on the schedule because the move totally ate my brain. I have until the end of September before my severance pay runs out.

I do not like it, Sam-I-Am.

Two weeks ago (Monday the 30th), something finally clicked in my head, and the apartment felt like home. I was in the kitchen; I knew where everything was, it was small and comfortable and convenient, and I felt like I belonged here. It's still scary, but only because of the job problem, not the move. I like it here.

I discovered something else about myself: I like giving stuff away to people who will give it a good home. More than like it -- it's *wonderful*. I'd been talking with Nathan, the guy who owns the painting service that did such a good job on the interior. I'd been referred to him because he's in a Christian group with Liz. Anyway, the conversation turned to music, and the instruments we play, and he asked about the beat-up old mandolin in the "what the heck do I do with this?" pile by the garage door. And then the balalaika, which I'd bought on a whim in high school and never learned to play.

I ended up giving them to him. I felt both relief in simplifying them out of my life, and joy -- mudita, actually -- in seeing how happy the gift made him. A very middle-sized-bear thing, I think. And I realized that this was one of the things that was making the move an enjoyable experience.

I also realized how much I enjoy traveling by myself.

One reason I haven't been posting has been the difficulty of connecting to the fileserver from outside the firewall; I think I've finally fixed most of that, but also copied my emacs-based posting client onto the netbook. We'll see how that works in a few minutes...

Loads of links in the notes, of course.

Oh, good grief! An entire week... maybe I should just give up and post weekly. It's been a long month since last Saturday.

The big news was the bad news from Google: they don't want me. All my "cautious optimism" collapsed in a heap Thursday evening, leaving me to wonder how in hell I'm going to pay for the move, the house improvements, and Colleen's ferociously expensive meds. Two months of overlap between work and severance pay would have covered it.

I'm probably screwed. I have one set of interviews scheduled for Friday, but I've been letting the move (and the web :P) take most of my attention. I decided Thursday night that the move had better take all of it for now -- the movers come Wednesday.

*sigh*

I am getting the packing done, at least. A little belatedly; and I'm probably going to panic tomorrow night. The office still has seven boxes and a handful of flats to sort through, and the tools in the garage and bedroom need to be boxed. Gleep! We'll manage, though, because we have to.

"You do what you have to" is familiar, at least -- it was my mantra all through the year Dad was dying and I was flying back and forth to Florida to see him as often as I could. And again, the six months Colleen was in and out of hospitals and nursing homes and I burned through my sick time, most of my vacation time, and about 150% of my cope visiting and taking care of her.

I had help then, and I do now. Liz, Og, and Devon are awesome! And Colleen keeps assuring me "we'll make it." I hope so.

Lots of links. Many of them, unfortunately, are also bad news. Can't be helped.

We got up reasonably early on Wednesday, were on the road by a little after 9am after a huge breakfast at Black Bear Diner, and arrived at the Starport in time to order pizza and chicken wings for dinner. Not staying again at the Grants Pass Travelodge -- the 2-bed rooms are tiny, and even the ground floor isn't really scooter accessible. There's just enough room between the bed and the wall to drop my CPAP into.

Og has done yeoman's work on the living room floor; it looks terrific (as long as you don't look at the edges, which are ragged). Liz and Devon did great work packing, though they apparently didn't realize that we wouldn't want to use paper plates and plastic forks for the rest of the time we're here. Normally, you save things like the kitchen and bathroom for the last minute.

I spent most of Thursday and yestday packing. Thursday mostly the office; Friday included taking down one set of the garage shelves. I'm pretty sure now, looking at them, that the end bays were assembled on their sides and tilted up. I think I'm going to leave one set here.

I still have a huge amount of triage and packing to do, even though most of it is almost certainly junk.

Links, as usual, below in the notes.

A fair amount of packing. Bought more book boxes. The woman who came over this morning to give us an estimate on moving said we have over 400 boxes worth of stuff. I gather that this is atypical.

Some more work on the router configuration, which finally appears to be working more-or-less properly.

I made another batch of black bean and corn salsa. Yum.

I ended the day feeling reasonably contented. That's probably mildly unusual; noticing it is even more unusual. So, yeah.

Quite a few links in the notes.

Tuesday started off with a blood draw at Kaiser for some lab work, and the results dribbled in between that afternoon and Thursday. Notably, this time everything was in the normal range, which means that my triglycerides are under control and I'm officially not prediabetic. Go me!

And I saw the Transit of Venus -- not just via NASA's live stream from Mauna Kea and the fantastic high-res images from SDO on APOD, but in person in my back yard, projected with binocular onto the side of a garbage can. I even persuaded the YD to come out and see.

I've done a lot of packing in the office -- half the bookshelves are empty now. It's progress. I have to keep telling myself that I'm making some. I finally turned up my All World Travel Pass, signed by both of Cordwainer Smith's daughters. Plus some un-deposited checks from the 1990s. Eeep!

I have two interviews scheduled for next week, but was disappointed to get a rejection from Tableau. Oh, well.

[flame] My pension paperwork has apparently not been received. I asked them to send me another copy -- it's been a month. Idiots! (This is Hewitt we're talking about, so not surprising.) Hate. I asked to speak to a supervisor and told them that their website is useless. The only response was that it's only designed to give you estimates, not to actually see the status of your account. [/flame]

The YD, by the way, has been extraordinarily helpful the last week or so. I'm delighted.

Quite a few links. Go look. Oh, and 6.5 Million LinkedIn Accounts May Be Compromised, Change Your Passwords Now if you haven't already.

A week from yesterday, on Saturday, June 9th, we're having our last party at Grand Central Starport. It's been a long run, and a good one. We've thrown at least two parties each year since we moved in 36 years ago, and four most years. Over a hundred parties.

We're moving.

Moving out, moving North, and moving on. Parties at the Starport will probably continue -- our renters are fannish. We will certainly continue to have parties, though perhaps not until we move from our apartment to a house, a year or so down the road.

But... our household, our Starport... yeah. Last chance.

We're also downsizing. A lot. So a lot of things will be up for grabs. We're giving away a lot of books, because we'd rather see them go to good homes than get a few cents for them at a used bookshop. A goodly pile of other stuff. Get it while it's hot.

There will be potluck, and soft drinks in the tub -- bring something you know you can eat, plus enough to share. There will be filking. There will be nostalgia.

The maps and directions are, as usual, on the web at the Grand Central Starport Home Page.

Bonus Song for Sunday: "So Long It's Been Good To Know Yuh" by Woody Guthrie [YouTube].

It's been a busy week. I had phone interviews from Zillow and Tableau; progress is being made. And I finished ripping the CDs, or at least the CDs that didn't require manual data entry. And went to U-Haul and bought enough boxes to fill the back of my Honda Civic. (The back seat folds down, leaving an opening to the back of the trunk.)

Wednesday and Thursday were spent triaging the fiction. I think we're down to taking about a third of it. Which is still a lot -- most of it's probably going to go into storage. A lot of what was left has already been claimed; after our party on the 9th whatever's left will get carted off to a used book store.

Naturally, there's still a lot to be done -- not just triage and packing but getting both cars serviced, doctors' appointments (and we're leaving Kaiser's service area, so that's going to be fun after we move), cleaning the house and yard, assorted repairs, ...

No, a month and a half probably isn't going to be enough. But it will have to do.

Gleep.

Only one walk, but at least it was 3 miles.

Quite a range of links this time. Liam Clancy singing "And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" - YouTube was very moving. The Open Goldberg Variations: J.S. Bach’s Masterpiece Free to Download is a very cool idea -- PD performances funded via kickstarter. Sheet music sharing via MuseScore.com is also very cool -- a cross-platform, open source typesetting program, a website for sharing, and a program for synchronizing a score to a YouTube video. That's the really cool part.

For those in the SF Bay Area, you'll also want to take a look at Slothman's "Hold Your Nose and Vote on Tuesday, June 5, 2012".

The Pegasus Awards - nominating ballot is up.

Back in the early days of 2012 we decided to skip Baycon this year and go to Clockwork Alchemy. Best-laid plans? That was before we decided to move to Washington. So we day-tripped the 30th anniversary Baycon instead, to have a better opportunity to say goodbye to people.

Baycon doesn't seem to be in the best of shape. It's gotten noticably smaller over the last few years (we can perhaps blame the other cons in the area for some of that, but I don't think for all of it). I dropped Colleen off in the morning, did some shopping on the way home, worked at home for a while, then left for the con myself in late afternoon. Little to no daytime programming I was interested in; the few concerts didn't start until night-time. I stayed for the open filking on Saturday, but was thoroughly wiped out by the time I got back home.

So I only sang three songs over the weekend, and don't remember most of them. Bigger On the Inside was the last one. Tiny circle.

Some good conversations, though.

I mentioned shopping. REI is having a sale; I picked up an Agility Sling Bag and a Hood River hoodie. The Agility bag, whose name appears to be Angelique, is apparently a redesign of the Mini that I've been using since last year; it's a little shorter and more rectangular rather than tapered. This makes it much easier to get my netbook in and out -- it has a padded sleeve that it fits perfectly into. There's also a nice organizer panel. And it's almost exactly the same size as the Belkin computer bag, and fits perfectly inside Chami. And there are several different ways of attaching it on the outside, as well.

I toyed with the idea of getting a rolling duffle (Ross has 'em for cheap) for gigs, but realized that it would be too narrow to hold the music stand desks. I'll probably get a smaller duffle for use as a carry-on or secondary bag, because the Hartmann and Colleen's SwissGear are already allocated. I used the Hartmann on my last trip North, but could only get away with that because Colleen wasn't going.

Did I mention that I'm a luggage addict?

In other news, I set up phone interviews with Zillow and Tableau, and paid the security deposit on the new apartment.

Way too much to do more than summarize briefly -- I spent most of the last week in the Seattle area, mostly hanging out with Naomi (and, briefly, Chaos), apartment-hunting, and interviewing. (The latter was mostly by phone, but there was one fairly grueling coding test at PopCap. I may or may not have squeaked through that, but it made for a fascinating learning experience.)

The phone interviews mostly went well, I think. A few stupidities on algorithm questions; I got extra points for having at least heard of topological sorting, even if I didn't get the algorithm right.

The apartment search fairly quickly narrowed down to three complexes, fairly close to Naomi's house, that had 3-bedroom apartments available. As it turned out, we ended up in a large 2-BR; the 3's were either too small for us, or not accessible by scooter. But we have a place.

Friday I had lunch with Chaos at AFK Tavern, a gamer joint. Fun.

Saturday, N. went to an all-day workshop at a massage therapy school she's checking out, and took me along. Great fun -- not enough for me to consider a career change, but enough that I'll strongly consider taking a couple of classes for the fun of it. In my copious spare time.

The only major screw-up, and it was major, was forgetting my meds. Fortunately, the only one I expected to have real trouble with was the SSRI; I picked up some 5000 IU vitamin D (my usual dose is 2000) and St. John's Wort. Worked, apparently.

The big disappointment was that it was overcast on Sunday, so we missed the eclipse. We did see the light change -- it was pretty noticable.

Plenty of links in the notes.

A pretty good day; mostly sort of relaxing. I got in a two mile walk to Zanotto's, the local high-end grocery store, to pick up a few missing ingredients for dinner. And ordered moving boxes. Tapeless moving boxes -- the best kind.

Ogg and Liz came by early to take four van-loads of junk off of our driveway and into the Cleanup Day dumpsters. A lot of the mess is gone now. We still have a lot in the garage and the office, though.

I finally got around to editing Naomi's narration into the Lookingglass Folk at Conflikt 2012 page. Only four months late.

The Mutopia Project looks cool. Crowdsourced PD music scores. Go for it!

So here's the itinerary for the next couple of months:

May 17-22 -- Shoreline, WA

I'll be up there looking at apartments, and hope to have a couple of interviews scheduled.

May 25-28 -- Bay Area conventions

We'll be day-trippingBayCon and Clockwork Alchemy

June 9 -- Grand Central Starport

House-Cooling Party -- the usual potluck bash.

June 26 -- Logan, UT

I'll be driving out for my brother's wedding, then up to Shoreline.

Late June - early July -- Shoreline, WA

I will again be available for interviews. Colleen will be flying up to join me. Not clear whether the YD will be going by air or by car.

July 5-8 -- ConClusion: Westercon 65

Lookingglass Folk have a half-hour concert gig.

Late July - early August -- moving!

We expect to be moving to the Seattle area -- specifically somewhere around the North end of Lake Washington -- hopefully around the first of August.

Watch out for low-flying bears!

As part of the effort to clean out the garage attic, we've uncovered several file boxes of ancient software. We're talking mostly Windows 3.1, but also some Mac II (Myst, anyone?) and Windows XP games. We haven't had a machine in years that can run some of them.

Give it away, or send it to the dump?

Meanwhile, if you're in the area, feel free to come by, gawk at it, and take whatever you want.

We also have a huge pile of old PCs. Some were working when they were retired. Most have halfway decent cases, SCSI cards, and so on that might prove useful to someone.

It's been a week. More specifically, a week in Seatac (Norwescon) and Shoreline (apartment hunting and hanging out with Chaos and Naomi). I really have to set things up so that I can easily post from my netbook, don't I?

I had a good con. Nothing on my schedule except a handful of concerts and hanging out. Met Naomi's friend C, who is a delightful person. Bought little posable polymer dragons for me, Colleen, the YD, and Naomi. Our rooms were across the street in the Coast Gateway; I think there are parts of the Doubletree that are actually farther from the convention's function space.

We kept N's room until Monday so she could get some rest, but actually checked out Sunday night. Worth it. Monday we looked at apartments, and talked about job-hunting over dinner with egoldberg. Tuesday I looked at more apartments, and had lunch with Chaos at a Chinese restaurant that's walking distance from her new apartment in Linwood. A couple of good prospects on that front.

All in all a good visit. I'm still getting used to the idea of moving up there. To the idea of moving at all, after 36 years in the same house, and 43 years in the Bay Area. It's a lot of change to be taking on all at once, but... It was going to happen in the next five or six years anyway, and I was both dreading it and planning for it.

I've spent all morning going through a week's worth of mail and two days' worth of email; I'll spend the rest of today on my resume and my taxes.

There are plenty of links in the notes; go for it. Have a great Yuri's Night!

I have finished my penultimate day at Ricoh Innovations. Yesterday I was grieving. Today was more... I don't know. It was exhausting, but there was a certain lightness after boxing up and handing off my notebooks, and putting the last three boxes of accumulated files -- 19 years worth -- into the recycle bin and the secure destruction bin.

I ran out of space in the shredder bin just as I was finishing the second box of files. Then I remembered the ones in the desk's file drawer. Then the man came in and emptied the bin, and I finished my task...

... and did my last backup. Yes, very odd.

The signs are auspicious. The Spring equinox, with the sun rising higher in the sky with each passing day. The weather going from cold and wet to sunny and almost warm. Green hillsides, and leaf-buds. A renter for the house, found on the very day we mentioned that we were looking for one.

I'm not saying it's all going to be easy. We'll have to use a lot less money, and fit into a lot less space. It'll be great if I find a job right away, but I'm 65 years old and have to assume that I might not. It won't change our plans.

As of Saturday I'll be retiring for the first time. Maybe not for more than a couple months, this time, but it's the new steady-state for a bear who is no longer middle-aged. I'll be back. Maybe not for another five years, but maybe sooner.

We'll be moving to an apartment in or near Shorline, WA sometime this summer. Leaving a house we've lived in for over three decades. That we've gotten comfortably stale in. Getting rid of or storing most of half a lifetime's accumulation of stuff. The Buddha had a point -- you get too attached to stuff, and it weighs you down. Time to lighten up. Time to get moving.

Maybe it sounds like I'm trying to talk myself out of a depression, and maybe I am. But I'm also trying to say that I'm basically okay. It'll work. It's an ending, sure, but only the end of a chapter. I'm looking forward to the next one.

Just Friday I wrote "ideal would be to rent the house to fans/hackers. It's perfect - server closet, 2 physical phone lines, shelf space... By Saturday evening we had a household lined up. They're fans, and want to carry on the Grand Central Starport traditions. The rent will cover the mortgage and insurance, and if we're lucky the market will bounce back a little over the next few years.

I spent a goodly amount of time Saturday working on my LinkedIn profile, and a little on my resume and portfolio site (at Stephen.Savitzky.net), and updated some of my other sites.

I took a walk on Friday -- a full three miles. Felt pretty good. And Saturday, after looking at quite a few alternatives, we ordered Colleen a new scooter, the Pride Go-Go Elite Traveller Plus HD. It's about an inch longer than her current scooter, and the deck is about four inches wider in front, which means she can get into it more easily and have a place to rest her feet. The wheels are bigger, too, so it will have less trouble with the kind of obstacles one encounters indoors and on the sidewalk.

Did I mention that I finally dealt with the $1K denied claim in my FSA account last week? It'll help.

We have started to friendcycle cookbooks. Fiction, and the nonfiction books in the office, will have to be tackled soon.

For today's link, see ysabetwordsmith's poem: "Ari and the Atheist" What does it mean to be an atheist in a world where everyone can see that the gods exist?

Hewitt, which manages my benefits, has a wretched website, but I finally got connected and, more importantly, found out why my claim for Colleen's lift chair hadn't gone through -- apparently the sales receipt, one of the three pages I faxed to them, didn't arrive. OK, I now know how to troubleshoot that one.

I also got in touch with the pension side, and made the decision to take my accrued vacation in a lump payment with my next (last) paycheck. That lets the pension start up a month earlier, in addition to helping me pay off some of the currently most obnoxious debt.

And, also on the work side of things, I finally got it together and joined LinkedIn. I can see how it could be time-consuming to get going there, but I've already found quite a few people from the DW/LJ and filk communities there.

In other links, here's a video of "Little Boxes" performed on... little boxes. Cute.