big-ticket

So, we got the new title for the car in record time and within 30 minutes of getting it I have started the process to donate it. One more large loose end tied up.

Just got one thing left...

its in his head

Well, we have seen proof that the only thing keeping Felix from walking is his own personal/mental/intellectual reason. He has been practicing standing on his own quite a bit lately, and every time we go to the library he sees other kids who are around his age or older and sees them running, walking, standing. Every time we come home from the library, he seems to want to try out what he's seen. Last night he looked like he was really trying to walk. This morning while he was playing, he was standing by the couch, holding on with his hand for moral support, when a garbage truck pulled into the alley. Felix is fascinated by garbage trucks in the same way people are fascinated by sharks and bears and tigers: awed, amazed, curious, and a little scared. Anyway, when he heard the garbage truck's tri-tone back-up alarm, he looked up and out the window and without even hesitating walked two steps unassisted, through open air, and put his hand on the coffee table for the last few steps to the window before pressing his face to the glass and trying to see the elusive garbage truck. Andrea was laying on the couch, uncharacteristically partaking of mine and Felix's morning ritual, and i was sitting on the bottom of the stairs. We both looked at each other in astonishment. There was no warning, no wobbly baby-stepping, just, "What's that? I'm going over there NOW!" regular, confident, unconscious walking. Andrea and I immediately clobbered each other in the middle of the living room floor, saying, "Did you see that?! He walked!" and hugs and kisses and the happy random tear, all the while Felix looked out the window and then at us as if to say, "What are you guys making all that noise about? Can't you see there's a garbage truck out there?"

afterthought

Oh yeah. I guess i haven't explicitly mentioned it since Monday (though I maybe mentioned it in passing the other night) but I did get the offer from the company I wanted to work for on Tuesday morning right as I got off the plane and I accepted. So, I think I said I wasn't stressed out anymore since our living arrangements have been solidified and our working arrangements have been solidified, but that's the deal. I got the offer from the company in midtown Manhattan as a "network engineer" though I'll actually be the SMS engineer and application packaging expert. Since the company is only about 1000 employees and the IT is something like 30-40 people, I'll get to get my feet wet in all kinds of other areas. It sounds like its going to be a lot of fun and a very good job for me. I turned down the higher paying consulting job on Long Island for this job. In a way, I did the same thing Andrea did: I picked the job I knew I would really enjoy and grow in, not the one that offered the most money or the shiniest carrot. It really is astonishing how quickly all of these things have fallen into place. From everything I read and hear (even from our new landlord) our experience relocating to New York is incredibly unique and definitely the exception to the rule. In the same regard, I would say, hey, look at us, we're not magical wand-waving wizards making this happen. We aren't even religious and don't attribute any of this success to any external origins like karma, kismet, god, or luck. I guess "luck" in so far as it represents favorable coincidence or circumstance allowing for a less probable positive outcome. I'm sure I'll hear from my mom because she's been praying for us this whole time and may be a bit miffed that I'm disputing the impact that might have had on our outcome...sorry mom, no offense meant. But thanks for thinking of us! It's always nice to know that people are concerned with how things are going. As a material humanist my tongue in cheek response to "I'm praying for you" would be "I'd prefer money." Of course I wouldn't say that to my mom. My parents are retired, after all...

OK, so before this spins off into a philosophical monologue, I'll just say: Got the job, got the apartment, got the nanny, got it all! Just gotta get the house sold.

obligatory

yes, I'm up and its almost midnight so here's the obligatory post.

It is very very odd, this stretch of time I find myself in. Andrea and I are both home all day (meaning, not at work) but we're not fretting about finding work, finding a place to live, or anything. Andrea is focused on what to do to get ready for the move. I'm doing whatever she says she needs me to do. Sure, I have a few of my own things to do, but my major stresses are out of the picture. The house, well, the house. I'm cashing out my 401K (oh no, they all groan in chorus) which should pay for the mortgage until the house sells, or even allow us to help the house sell sooner. Once I'm looking at paying the mortgage AND rent AND bills out of my salary alone, THEN I'll get stressed about the house. But for now I'm in this weird place where I'm not on vacation, but I'm not working, and I'm not freaked out. It's really weird, but in a good sort of way.

Its like a never ending stream of saturdays and sundays, which is really weird in itself, but which also does things to your mind. I'm losing track of what day it is. The largest unit of time I can really remember is an hour. You go beyon hours and I just don't know what you're talking about. Today and tomorrow is about as concrete as I can fathom. Was today Tuesday or Wednesday? I think it was Thursday, actually. Seriously. I've been doing my Saturday schedule for several days now, and enjoying it. Will I be able to adjust to going to work? Is this what a vacation feels like?

I spend the mornings with Felix, playing in the park...he's just about to start walking. I can see he's starting to try.

I have started making breakfasts and lunches and dinners...

I don't know how to explain it...on the one hand I feel like i have tons of time, on the other hand, I don't really have any free time for leisure. This few chunks of time I've grabbed tonight are sort of fluky. I htink it seems like i had time tonight because I was doing something that didn't require much thought and i was able to double up tasks. We're manually destroying all of our old records and paperwork that we've accumulated in our filing cabinet, retaining only what we decide is actually useful.

Honestly, I don't know why you are supposed to save all your utility bills and pay stubs and bank statements. Maybe the last years worth, but all of them? We have a wooden filing cabinet that is packed full of papers...most we never even look at again but are stashing away because we think we're supposed to. So now we're going back through them all and blacking out vital info with a sharpie and then shredding the pages (by hand so far, poor andrea). I mean, seriously, why take all of that with us? Is it necessary? It hasn't been so far.

I got William Gibson's new book from the library....had it sitting on my dresser for two days now...and I'm worried I'm not even going to get to read it because I don't have all of those idle chunks of time that you have when you're in the midst of a normal life. No bus rides to work, no lazy afternoons...every moment seems to be full of something. I'm actually sort of disappointed that these few moments I have I'm writing here instead of opening that book. I guess I'll have plenty of time for stuff like that once life resumes. Subways and lunch breaks and weekends during nap time. Those things will all resume at some point in the not so distant future. Right now feels like...hang time. Slow motion. Like pollen drifting through a sunbeam.

shazaam!

Somehow, I think we've actually managed to pull it off. This morning I signed a lease and put down security deposit and first month rent on a beautiful 2 bedroom in thhe heart of Park Slope. Incidentally, it was the only apartment we actually managed to see over the weekend (that's a WHOLE long tale I won't get into right now). We LUCKED OUT, big time. I think what it came down to was that the owner met all of us, saw how determined we were to move, got a good feeling for us, and decided we were the type of people he wanted as neighbors. Seriously, I'm sure other people looking at the place might have had higher paying salaries or better credit (than me, andrea and glen have good credit). Whatever the case, we made a very good impression and they liked us. So I secured the deal this morning before going out to my two interviews. The resul of those is that I am almost guaranteed a job I really think I'm going to love with people I can really get along with in a convenient place (midtown Manhattan)...they just need to pow wow tomorrow morning and contact the placement agency with their offer, which I no-doubt will accept. And that, as they say, will be that. In a matter of days we'll have tied up all of the most crusial loose ends and my world will once again be returned to a state of sanity. I think I've lost 10 lbs during this trip from all the hiking and lifting of Felix's stroller going up and down to the supways and such. No wonder new yorkers aren't fat!

pocket blog

ok... i've been living on my pocket pc while in new york, which is a real bitch for writing emails and blog entries. I have several in progress and several in planning but you're going to have to wait. this entry took 3 minutes to write.

no vacation

It's quarter past five in the a.m. and everybody but me is at the airport trying to get their flight home. My stay in ny has been extended for a number of reasons, not least including job interviews and apartment hunting. Needless to say, both avenues have been both reassuring and stressful. Both fronts have wonderful opportunity but also require us to just wait. And they're all timed wrong. The apartment rests solely on whether or not the financial figures work out. The jobs both hinge on my interviews on monday. It would be so much easier to land the apartment if my job was nailed down. sigh...

so the title comes from a conversation with Andrea. When telling people that we're moving to new york, a common response is, "I love visiting new york but i wouldn't want to live there." Well, when I compare my experiences in new york, including the two times I came out here to visit Andrea during her internship and now this past week, I agree with Andrea's assessment that people have it all wrong. Visiting New York would not be what we consider a vacation. The reason being that you need to put so much time and effort into planning out your trips into the city that it could hardly be relaxing. You see the droves of tourists coursing from the WTC station out and up top China town and you just think, "i would hate to spend my free time trying to pack all of that into a short trip." If you mess up one of your subways or connections, you could end up way way way off course and with tons of stress. New York would be a very stressful vacation, think, unless you are throwing a lot of money down the tube and staying at a hotel in manhattan and using taxis to get all around. Otherwise, all that walking and hauling your shit around, with no place to sit or pee...does not sound like a vacation to me! I'd rather live here an have my own relative homebases like a place of work, a home to go home to at the end of the day, maybe a frequent hangout, a place to really rest up for real. I have not been here on vacation by any stretch of the imagination, but I have had to get all over and let me tell you, I'm beat!

sleepless in minapple

Yeah, when she sees this I'm sure Andrea will ill me, but what the hell. If she is asleep right now, it is only because her body has shut down. SHe said she couldn't sleep at all last night. Well, I slept fitfully last night and tonight I'm wide awake. So I'm tootling around the house, trying to do little things here and there to ease our transition. We fly out to NY tonight on a 6:55p flight, but travelling with Felix, we're going to try to get to the airport at about 4pm. We will arrive in NY around 10 something local time. No idea what shape Felix will be in. Then we hightail it over to Jersey City to crash at Ally and Mushi's. Then we have to be up at the crack of dawn. I have a round of interviews starting at 9am in midtown Manhattan, Andrea has a tour of a daycare, I have another interview at 1:30pm in midtown, Andrea wants to stop in at the studio and get her paper-work started as well as pick up her check for the freelance she did and her letter of employment, then we are camping out in a park to interview nannies. All this time, Glen will be interviewing at various restaurants. Friday we have another daycare tour and more nanny interviews. Saturday is designated as our day to go to open houses or visit apartments and try to get one secured. Sunday, Andrea, Felix, and Glen probably fly home in the early morning. I will stick around for an interview on Monday out on Long Island. Between now and then, we may all add interviews on any given day...this trip will be packed.

Somewhere in there we have to eat, let Felix stretch his legs, sleep, get Felix some naps, and try to keep from losing our minds.

So, here's the tag line for this particular NYC full length feature:

One apartment, Marry Poppins, two jobs...can you find all fo these in New York City in three days? You'll find out soon enough!

yes no maybe NOT

Wow. SO now I'm like, unemployed. It feels very weird, very scary. I think its scary because I have no idea how long my hang-time is going to be. The deal with going right back to work with my previous employer is all but off the table since they discovered (rather late in the game) that they did not need our direct VP's approval (my boss's boss's boss's boss's boss) but actually the "pyramid executive" which turns out to be the CIO. So...yeah. While everyone was all confident that they'd make it happen, slam dunk, etc, now they're all "Oh, gee...I dunno if we can really make a good case to her..." Wtf? It's the same damn case, isn't it? Or maybe its just too embarrasing or something, to admit that you have a little team somewhere that relies on a small handful of people to keep things not only running from day to day, but keep things moving forward. I have no doubt that my old team can keep chugging along pushing their buttons and accomplishing their day to day work without me. But what they'll find is that not much new happens. Anything new that happens will come from outside of the team, and let me tell you, it sucks a huge load to have someone external to your team start calling the shots. But, you know, I've been saying half jokingly that once I'm gone the team will be dissolved and the functions will be dispersed to various similar type teams. I actually sort of left a proposal for just that in my last project update.

Who knows. Maybe when my old new boss gets back from vacation he'll decide he really REALLY needs me back (but I really don't think so) and I'll get that phone call.

Here's the part that I hate, though. I have my next paycheck coming up which will be a full pay period worth of pay PLUS about 6 weeks of vacation paid out. Then, somewhere from 2 to 3 weeks after that I can cash out my 401K which will be another nice lump sum (side not: everyone groans and says "Oh, you get nailed on that cash out, though, ugh, its horrible! Don't do that...") but you know, for me the 401K is a lot like a tax refund. Even though I always kept tabs on it and sometimes adjusted my contributions or the way it was "invested", that steadily growing number was more like a video game score, not like real money, because it wasn't connected directly to my day-to-day well being. On the one hand, yes, it sucks that I'm going to lose thousands of dollars by cashing it out and I will effectively have to start from scratch with my retirement savings. But those are all things that I don't really feel right now. Even at a number somwhat less than that arcade score I've been monitoring, it'll be like real net positive cash flow that will be desperately needed even if I don't start working immediately. So, in the next month or so I will actually have a lot MORE money on hand than usual specifically because I left my job. Bit it doesn't feel like that's real, either, until it happens.

And of course we also have special circumstances all around that make that infusion of cash no longer a luxury, but a necessity. So, while I'm quite used to and capable of floating through the second week between paychecks on a couple hundred bucks, it feels a lot different when in the middle of that week we're taking a trip and will need to have money at our disposal for traveling expenses. And of course we'll need to put down a hunk of cash for an apartment which could eat up all of my vacation and some of my regular pay, and then there's moving costs, which is going to be a couple grand, and of course we'll have to keep paying the mortgage until the house sells... so, even with large than usual amounts of money flowing in, we're still doing a delicate dangerous balancing act. And even if its not as bad as I'm making it out to be, the point is that it FEELS that way. This stands to be our most tense and stressful month yet.

And to make it worse, I'm now without many of the resources I'm used to having at my disposal, like decent laptop computers, access to almost any computer-related or business-related book for free (books 24x7 is one of the great untapped benefits at my preious employer. I used to tap it all the time), health insurance, dental, prescription...sigh. There are so many things we probably should have made sure we did first, like get a 3 month supply of prescriptions, any last checkups or things.

Sigh.
Felix calls. I have to go.
Good luck.
Send money.