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RSSLife of Riley Week 24
The Life of Riley is a weekly post that details my activities since I ended a thirteen year career as a corporate drone. These posts are usually long, personal, and geared more for my own memory than the reader’s entertainment.
Sunday (Day 161): The Helper
Raked leaves at #1GF!’s aunts house, taught her sister in law how to burn a DVD, and winterized #1GF!’s Mom’s grass. Went with #1GF!’s Mom to look at the new house, and then ate an early dinner of comfort food at a local restaurant before settling in to watch some movies for the night.
Monday (Day 162): The Officer
Found out that I was made an officer in the Kubb group on Facebook. You may now refer to me as the “Kubb Fu Master”. I then spent the entire day rearranging our new house with Google Sketchup. It was a 12 hour day.
Tuesday (Day 163): The Cook
Did the food shopping while listening to Cannibal Corpse on my walkman phone and then spent half the day working with Google Sketchup and the other half trying to put together the rest of my posts for the week. I randomly talked to another guy named Jon Dyer who has written three books. He wasn’t doing that great profiting from his writing either. Go figure. I ended the day by making lasagna for #1GF!, but I used jarred sauce. It wasn’t nearly as good as when we use homemade sauce, but even half-assed lasagna is better than none all.
Wednesday (Day 164): The Hermit
Worked on my posts for the week all morning, and set out to leave the house at about 1PM because of the 60 degree weather. I ended up writing the rest of the day away because there isn’t anything I need outside and I wasn’t about to go driving around for no reason.
Thursday (Day 165): The Draftsman
I worked with Google Sketchup all day and kept up an e-mail conversation with the other Jon Dyer.
Friday (Day 166): The Editor
I tried to write all day, but had an awful time with editing. I couldn’t quite get an article to say what I wanted. I went through my daily RSS feeds for the first time all week. I was supposed to put some changes into Sketchup, but never got around to it.
Saturday (Day 167): The Draftsman Returns
Spent the entire day working with Google Sketchup. I didn’t mean to spend the entire day, but that’s what happens when I get involved with a project. At least it was more productive than watching TV. Our renovation ideas are now 90% complete, and it’s a matter of figuring out if they are feasible and affordable.
What I learned
- There are other Jon Dyers and they are also writers. I’m less unique than I thought.
- You don’t need a corporate job to get a cool title.
- I’m really learning my way around Sketchup and it has been extremely helpful in helping us to visualize and compare different renovation scenarios.
- Food shopping while listening to Cannibal Corpse is weird. There is something about the sterility of the supermarket that makes death metal seem even more brutal.
- I feel the need to leave the house less and less, but feel like I communicate with more people than I ever have before.
- While talking to the other Jon Dyer about the seasons, I wondered what it is about California that drags New Englanders there. I suppose San Francisco is sort of Boston like, but I don’t think I could move away and leave the brutal winters and hot summers of Massachusetts behind. There’s always something to look forward to here because the weather is awful a lot of the time. I think California is about happy, while Massachusetts is about hope. And it was odd to realize that hope is more important to me than happiness.
November 18th, 2007 at 7:51 pm
Yeah. I had the feeling you were especially looking forward to shoveling snow. Very “Kubb Fu Roadsalt Master.”
Maybe you can do a lasagne post sometime. I like it when it’s good, but mine have been uninspired and I need to find the reset button.
November 18th, 2007 at 9:49 pm
Did you know that Cannibal Corpse was in the movie “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective”? They’re the band playing in the club while the henchmen are after him (just after he gets done talking to his computer nerd friend).
I wonder how well Google Sketchup would run on Linux (or if it would run at all). I have no real need to use it, but it would be fun nonetheless.
I’m just curious, since I don’t live in the north, how exactly do you winterize grass? I’m really thankful when winter rolls around and I don’t have to do anything with it anymore. I don’t know if I could stand going out and winterizing it.
And I totally feel ya (not physically) with the whole hermit thing. I’ve lulled into this mindset that I’d rather lay around the house. It’s really a bad mindset for me, because I don’t spend it communicating with other people. So I guess I’m acting more like a recluse than a hermit? Now I’m debating if I should go stoke the fire that I started outside earlier, add some logs, and sit around outside enjoying the cool weather and fire.
November 19th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
California isn’t so much about happy. It is more about becoming poor even though you make a decent wage. 4 bedroom 3 bath house in the Bay area typically runs you about 1.5 million. Once I thought I was doing well. Not so much anymore. The weather is nice right now. But that isn’t the norm for this time of year. It should be raining for the next 3 months. The sun will then come out again.
The wildlife is cool. I see nothing but hummingbirds, hawks, and Coyotes on my hikes. The coyotes just run away from me, even though I just want to play.
November 20th, 2007 at 2:12 am
just a reminder from your favorite eco-freak…you’d don’t need to get in a car to enjoy sunshine!! go for a walk to clear your brain. you might find some inspiration. i do my best thinking riding my bike to and from work.
November 21st, 2007 at 8:05 pm
Some parts of California may be about happy … but Northern California isn’t really California in that way. Don’t get me wrong — San Francisco is awesome, in its way. (No snow to shovel or ice to spin out on, no smack-your-face humidity to drench you in sweat … but no smell of leaves in the autumn, no warm Spring rains, no seasons that a New Englander would recognize.) And it’s home. But sunny, 90210, The OC, babes-on-the-beach California it ain’t.