log entries of timotheus

I haven’t written on here for a while, because I’ve been reluctant to write all that has happened in the last months. So, instead I will do a quick sum up in one sentence.

I am now living in Berkeley, CA, where I and my friends/housemates/co-owners of cog motive are working to make our company help others and support us.

How about that? There, now that it is out of the way, I will feel more inclined to write here again.

I did all sorts of fun things this weekend. Saturday I woke up and for some weird reason was motivated to clean. I cleaned the kitchen, and actually scrubbed the sink. I don’t know what came over me.

In the afternoon, I went up to the Uncle’s house and met up with my cousin Dina. It was such a pretty day, and oddly warm out that we went for a short hike. I took the camera, and many pictures were taken.

Pics from the hike.

Then we went back, and I visited with everyone for a bit. Later, Mike and I went to Towson University to see Dido & Aeneas, which is a short opera. I really enjoy hearing a live orchestra, and the opera was actually pretty interesting and well done. Afterward, we went back to the house, and it was social time.

I stayed up there all day Sunday as well. Had some great cinnamon rolls for breakfast, then hung out with Christian mostly all day. We played lots of poker. Around dinnertime, Mike and I made the pilgrimage to Maria’s Pizza, where you can get an extra large cheese pizza for under $6. It is a magical place. After, we watched “The Phantom Menace”, where I remembered why Qui-Gon is my favorite jedi. Then we saw “The Prestige”, which was really good.

Then I made it home and went to bed. A good weekend, filled with social happenings. I am refreshed and ready to be productive this week.

It is the end of the month. I realize I haven’t been doing a whole lot since I arrived from Baltimore, not work related anyway. I have done a fair amount of reading though, so that is good. Still, I need to get back on my schedule I was on for most of September, which was a minimum 5 hrs of work stuff a day.

My first thing on the agenda tomorrow morning is to take a little while and map out some milestones I want to accomplish this month. When I have them, I will post them here for all to see. Maybe some accountability is good for me?

I am currently over halfway through my visit to CA. I flew in on the 24th of September, worked a day then traveled to Berkeley to hang out with maiki, Susan, Justin, Kimi and Jason. Colin came up for a day too. It was really great to see everyone, and to work on getting our main site done. I also had some really good design talks with maiki, who gave me some really good inspirational ideas. Specifically, I had a moment of insight on my finance app. It needs to be easy to use, and obviously helpful to people. I was trying to push some of my financial beliefs onto users with the interface I was using. It will be very basic, with an ‘advanced interface’ option later on.

I got back to Sacramento on the 1st. I worked the next day, went to lunch with some co-workers which was nice. The 2nd, I had some errands to do around town, and those were all put on hold when my tire on the Crown Vic decided to leak air? It was covered under the Costco warrenty, but that was 2 hours out of my day. Wasn’t fun.

Saturday I spent some time with Greg. We got lunch, then went over Eric’s house and let Chino and Kade (dogs) play around outside. Jenn, Teresa, Elly and Jeff met up with us later on and we went to Sutter St for some dinner. Afterward, Greg had to go home, but I stayed out for a while, visiting with old friends. Got home late that night.

Since then, I’ve been mostly working, though I think today is my last day. I picked up some books from my old library, and I am going to try to read them all before I leave. I realized my reading has actually declined since I moved, which is a travesty!

All I have coming up is my sisters wedding on saturday, then I fly back on the 14th. I’m looking forward to getting home. I miss my house, my friends and family, and green growing things!

I realize this post isn’t very exciting, but it is more of a log then anything. I want to be able to look back at this trip and know what I did.

So, yesterday was my first day at Towson University, and I was planning on sitting in a cryptography class. Well, the bad news was the class was full, with people trying to add. I didn’t feel right taking a chair, so I left. It also seemed pretty intro; I knew most of the crypto stuff they were going to cover anyway. But no one said anything. I’m going to look for another class to try for. I did spend a lot of time in the library though.

I did something I’ve never done before. I pulled a book of the shelf, “When we were Orphans” by Kazuo Ishiguro, which was on my to-read list, and read it cover to cover, then put it back. Only took around 4.5 hours or so. It was a pretty neat book, about a British guy growing up in Shanghai in 1915, then going back in ’38. I also found a great spot with power and great wifi signal, so next time I’ll work on my laptop. Even if I don’t end up going to any classes, I think I’ll be using the library a lot. It’s a great resource when I’m working.

I can’t believe it’s September already! I have a lot of projects I want to complete before I leave for Sacramento at the end of the month. I’ll be picking up some hours while I’m back there at my old place of employment, which is a good thing. It will keep me busy.

Posted by mobile phone:
So my buddy Greg just left wednesday to go back to Sacramento. We had a pretty good time, it was good to catch up. We’ve been friends for so long it was exactly like no time had passed. That’s always a good feeling.

Tonight I went to my great aunt’s apartment and helped her fix her universal remote. We spent some time catching up, and it was nice! I’m taking her to the grocery store. We’ll get some shopping done, a little chit and a little chat.

Next week school starts up at Towson State. I’m not enrolled per se, but will be attempting to observe some classes. Either way, I’ve got it set up with my cousin Mike, who also attends. We’ll carpool every tuesday and thursday, 12 to 8. I’ll have lots of time on campus, even with the classes I want to see. I always get a lot more work done when I’m not at home.

I’m planning on September starting my mad levels of work. I will be heading to Sacramento for a visit in the end of September, so I have a big todo list for just 25 days. I look forward to it as a type of cram session.

Now I return you to your regularly scheduled internets.

Ok, so it’s been a while since I updated this. My reasons are, I just moved to Baltimore, and am super busy. When I’m not super busy, there’s so much stuff to write about that I kind of get overwhelmed, and end up not writing anything. So, I decided to break my moving tale into this:

I drove from Sacramento, CA to Baltimore, MD in four days. My Dad came with me, and it was a good time. When we got to Baltimore, we visited with family and prepped the place I’m staying. Now he’s back in Sacramento, and I am here, and things are going good.

There.

What I want to talk about today is the grandfather clock that is in the back room here, where my office / living room is. It’s from my great-grandfather, so historically it’s nice to have around. The issue is, it hasn’t ran in over ten years. When my Dad was here, him and my Uncle properly seated the face of the clock, and got it running. Now, it needs a cleaning, and as a result, all the chimes are a little bit off, and some of them don’t always hit.

Result? It sounds like a haunted house grandfather clock. At first, it kind of creeped me out, hearing the discordant chimes every fifteen minutes. Especially at night. But now it just kind of makes me laugh, so I’m going to keep it alive, by raising the weights on it every couple of days. And I like hearing the manly ticking noises it makes. Makes it feel very Victorian around here.

Anyway, now I need to find a bank to join around here.

So we started at Park City, UT and ended up in North Platte, NE. Almost 650 miles. It was really touch and go for a while, the weather was looking NOT GOOD. Until 6am today, part of interstate 80 we were going to use was closed due to blizzard conditions. But by the time we got there Mr. Snoeplow took care of business.

It feels a little odd driving in the snow at 75 miles per hour. It’s what the sign says though, so I’m sure it was safe.

My gallery is acting wacky today, my pics are up at flickr for now. Check them out here.

Tomorrow we’re thinking of going crazy and shooting for an 850 mile day, to get right up to Indianapolis. You will be kept ‘posted’.

Made it to Park City, UT. Covered 670 miles today. We might be kind of stuck behind the genormous storm that is crossing the US. Hopefully we can continue to at least make 500 miles a day the next two days. We’re going to shoot for at least getting to Cheyenne, WY tomorrow if we can make it. 550 miles, but there will be some light snow we need to go through..

I added a couple pictures to my gallery.

I’ll do better tomorrow; I’ll use my neo to work on my post when I am on my passenger shift..

Hopefully no one will hate the Twitter tie in thing. I just wanted a record of all my twitters, and it’s neat to look back and see what I was doing that day.

So, after a fun long weekend in Berkeley with my friends maiki, Susan, Kimi, Justin, Jason and others, I’m back at work. It’s just 3 days, so it won’t be too bad.

Anyway, back to the visit. I had a really great time! We helped Katie and her roomie move into their new apartment. We used the A-team soundtrack for motivational purposes. It made the job a lot of fun. We also implemented a ‘bucket brigade’ method of moving boxes and most light furniture. A person was places every couple of paces, and we just ferried the payload from person to person, even up steps. It worked great, and it made it fast too.

Friday I tagged along with maiki and we went to a coffee place called Village Grounds. (Which, interestingly, has a flash website that delightfully hits all our talking points on why flash is bad for web design) He worked on some web stuff, while I did some fiction writing. I wrote by hand, which I haven’t done in a while. I remember why I used to do it though, ideas flowed very well. I think I’ll stick to that from now on. After about 3 pages worth, we made our way back, snagged a burrito from Monte Cristo, which was excellent.

I don’t know, lots more happened but the days all kind of blur together. And I’m lazy.