Words Overheard in a Business Meeting

Circle Back. Verb. Intransitive.

• "Let's circle back to that point."
• "We should circle back again..."
• "So perhaps we should circle back before we go on."
• "Let's circle back before we circle back to..."
• Person 1: "I was going to circle back to..." [interrupted by person 2] "no let's circle back to..."

It was fitting. We were just circling around in the meeting, moving nowhere at a crawl.

Hint to people who are chronic circling backers: STOP IT! NOW!

Moving(?)

I'm looking at apartments in the Bay Area for various reasons (mainly because, well, I might live here for a while) and the rent here is fairly ridiculous. Since I have a "real job" these days I figure I'd move to my own 1 bedroom place. So I started looking at 1bed/1bath places around the Santa Clara/San Jose/San Jose North areas and pretty soon the Asian miser in me started to ache and scream.

It's not like I'm not being paid a good wage and it's not like I can't afford it. But $1600+ for a one bedroom? Brandon said when he lived here (granted, 10 years ago), he paid something like $1200 for a 2 bedroom apartment. The same complex now, 1 bedroom, easily close to $1800 and 2 bedrooms go for around $2300. There's been inflation but I don't think it comes to 100% over 10 years. The first time I was in the Silicon Valley I got a 2 bedroom / 2 bathroom place with Albert, furnished, for about ~$1600 per month. We thought that was outrageously expensive. Same complex today? About the same price for a 1 bedroom, unfurnished.

Granted, I'm looking at pretty decent places since I could alternatively get a dinky 1 bedroom for like $1300 20 miles away from work. But then again, it's not like any of the places I'm looking at are especially nice. Pretty much all variations on the same basic floor plan, same appliances, same drab (and ugly) interior design, same exaggerated ads ("live in LUXURY on a spacious 3rd floor PENTHOUSE SUITE with MODERN appliances and ALL THE AMENITIES!"), and same inflated prices. $1700 for an apartment means something like at least 2.5K deposit + first month rent (almost 3K sometimes!). Add in some basic furniture and supplies and such and I'm looking at at least a $5k hit on moving in. Ouch. I know people whose mortgage payment on a house is less than that. OK, well, not in California...

The only saving grace is that I think I've found one of the few apartments around here with hardwood floors in the living room (it looks like), a gas range (it says), and less than 2 miles away from work. Going to try to yank it quick but since I can't move out until about October 20th in my current place, I might have to pay double rent for at least half a month. Guess it's not so bad if I get a place I like.

Ok, I'm done whining now.

Jetlag Sucks

Can't sleep. Time to make a list of toys I covet:

• Canon Rebel XSi - The 450D, which would be an upgrade over my current 350D. Do I need it? Not at all, but given its great performance and my lens choices so far (see below), it'd be a nice upgrade. Not really taking many pictures these days though. Should fix that.
  
• Canon 17-55 f/2.8 IS USM - Fixed aperture (2.8!). Image Stabilisation. Useful range. It would replace the 17-40 f/4 L I mostly shoot with these days. I still have a 70-200 f/4 L in the stable and the standard 50 f/1.8 for low light.
• [Ultra]portable laptop - Since I mostly work with a manlier-than-thou Mac Pro these days in the office, I find the big honkin' work T60p more and more annoying. It's certainly not a travel machine. And the IT software on it kills it. I can get into a small Mac portable but the only thing available is the Air which is meh. Though to be honest it probably fits my needs.
• 37-42" Flat-Panel TV - I'm in the dark ages still. Standard definition CRT baby! With prices coming down, maybe it's time I joined the rest of the world. Also, need it for my...
  
• PlayStation 3 - Little Big Planet has me and everyone else hooked. I can also tell myself that since Blu-Ray won the porn wars, I can use the PS3 as my new DVD player.
• Toaster Oven - So that I don't fire up the whole damn oven for things like making a little toast or melting some cheese. I'll pretend it's my own little mini-salamander.
• Good Chef's Knife - I'm so used to the thin cleaver as my knife of choice for just about everything that I never learned to get comfortable with a standard Chef's Knife. Time to change that.
• John Fluevog Marcellos in White - What? I don't have white shoes!
  
• Bionic Legs - My current ones disappoint me. They should be unbreakable and indefatigable.
• A reasonable car of some sort - None of those are really viable candidates except the first boring one, after which it's too impractical, too inefficient, too beautiful, too expensive, and not available in the US, in that order. As for my current car? It's not boring at all but it is a bit impractical, inefficient, pretty, and expensive. GREAT.
  
• A house - This one will have to wait a bit.

How can I survive?? I know.

Baby Koala

Back from a vacation to Melbourne (Australia, not Florida). Working on editing pictures. Here's a Cute Overload-esque preview:


Awwwwwwww.

In Melbourne

Initial impressions of Melbourne, Australia:

• Things are expensive here. $8AU for a 6" Subway sandwich? Brutal.
• Things are big here. Hungry Jack's (Burger King) offers a "Quad" that's basically a In-N-Out 4x4, but of course not as good. Metal.
  
• Internet infra sucks. Apparently it takes 2-4 WEEKS to get ADSL hooked up, plans are expensive, and there are data caps on how much you can download. Homicidal.
• Everything opens late and closes early. Breakfast places don't open until like noon on Sundays and stores close at 4-6PM.
• Weather changes frequently from sunny to cold to windy to warm to showers in the space of a couple hours.
• People say "yeah", on average, about 93 times per minute. It sounds like one long "yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah".

It's not all bad, obviously. I like the look of the city: clean, not too small and not too big, not too diverse but diverse enough, and there's enough influence from Asians that there are good, spicy, Asian foods around here. Also, some downright scary (yet hilarious) mascots for candy. Pictures when I get reliable internet.

On Toys

I've just been told, via email,

"Please don't lube the cubes too much!"

Kinky. OK!

Workin' On It

Been working and running too hard lately.

On the running front, I'm still making the same mistakes I always make (too fast, too far) but I'm slowly unmaking them. People say various things about increasing your total mileage from week to week but I've never paid much attention and I think it's taken a bit out of my already non-existent ass. The general rule seems to be no more than 10% increase in weekly mileage from week to week. I had always thought of it as 10% increase in the long-distance runs from week to week. And then I always break that rule. This time, my weekly mileage has been something like 9, 11, 17, 14, 20, 25. Surely enough, just about 2 weeks ago my knees starting getting a little sore again. Scared me enough for me to take it real easy these 2 weeks and just do light jogging and some leg exercises. Getting back in to it this week but going to try to stay at the low 20s range for a couple weeks. That and run more times but fewer miles each time.

Busy as hell at work and still working too much but it's still fun. Need a reward. Need to be something materialistic. I'm going out of the country for a bit of a vacation near the end of this month so...


Happy...something (Disposable Income Day?) to me! A Glaser 19" duffle. Purty. It's supposed to last 15+ years and 500k+ miles easily, say people who've used these things for that long.

Now all I need is another Glaser A4-sized shoulder bag in calf for daily use and a whole bunch of fake documents, folders, dossiers, and papers so that I can transport them around in a Rocket Bag. Yes. Need.