Long 3 day weekend

So I return from East Hampton. 800 miles to empty out the freezer (and then de-ice it with only a metal spatula). Alright, so I’ve had some better trips. At least the Amagansett Farmer’s Market was good. And the surf looked good (if not near-frozen). I won’t go into details, but my weekend consisted of:

• 800 Miles of driving. That’s a lot. Additionally, I got stuck in one traffic jam on the L.I.E., but made my orchestra rehearsal… by three minutes.
• Cleaning out the fridge, bringing in the latter, insulating the skylight, closing windows, bringing in tools, and all of the other things we do to “close down” the house. Not sure why I did it all myself.
• Cutting the large fallen branch of a red-pine tree. It was so large that I had to cut it with my small handsaw… so I could simply drag it across the yard.
• Finding out my favorite pizza place of the last 20 years is now owned by someone else. Instead of Yankees photos on the wall (even I can admit it’s appropriate for a NY pizza joint), the woman who ran my credit card was wearing a VA Tech sweatshirt. That’s simply wrong. Boo, Springs Pizza, boo.
• I gave the chinese place a second chance… turned out to be the worst chinese I’ve ever had. Heh, and the place was called “Best Taste,” of all things.

Now that I am back, my list of tasks continues. Bills are due soon, room looks like a tornado hit it, still trying to rent the basement, want to get Xmas shopping done early. Groan.

I promise to edit the photos soon too… I’ve got about 5,000 on backlog. Groan-again.

Beginning of the fall semester

Tomorrow is the start of a new Columbia Orchestra season. It’s the first rehearsal. I could not be less prepared either. For the first time I can remember, I am starting a new semester and nothing in my life is changing. I don’t have a new place to live, any new classes, any new books/clothes/shoes for school, or even any new school.

At this time last year I was about to return from East Hampton. I was moving into a new house, one I had never seen, and was about to start searching for a new job. It was exciting. From almost nowhere, I decided I was going to get a job writing webpages, or programming, or both. I wrote up a resume, replied to a few postings, and got a temp job. I was offered a regular position within a week-and-a-half and have been doin’ it since.

As an aside, I believe I’ve come a long way. First, I’ve made many new friends, and have been many new places doing many new things. It has been a lot of fun. I have taken my HTML & CSS from zero-to-sixty, learned a ton of Javascript and Rails, and am now looking into usability, design patterns, graphic design, typography, algorithms and more. And I pick up things very quickly, and hope to get even faster.

But back to the semester starting, I’ve got my usual panic. End of summer. Start of fall. Baseball, hot days, and lazy weekends are all winding down. Football, brisk breezes, and rehearsals all starting. Time for something big and new. I just have to figure out what that is going to be this year.