Complete. The long transition that Keturah, Mason, Jude, and I began in Northern California this past April and took us through a summer in Connecticut, finally came to a conclusion in Sudbury, Massachusetts on September 1 when we closed and moved into our new house.
Moving a family of four from one coast of the U.S. to another was no simple task. I’m hard pressed to think of many things I’ve found more challenging. I’m struggling to completely encapsulate all my thoughts about this journey, but mostly I’m happy it’s over. I’m happy that the moving company showed up on September 3 with all the stuff we’ve been missing since April. I’m happy that the cable company showed up on September 9, plugged me back into the Internet, and hooked me up so I can watch Red Sox games on NESN every night. I don’t even care that I’ll probably have cardboard boxes in corners of some rooms for months to come.
So instead of a structured post reflecting on the finality of the big move, I give you this random list of thoughts…
- You can go home again. But don’t stick around too long. Yes, it was nice to be back in Glastonbury for a few months, but it never felt like a place I could permanently be. My time there was over. It was over when I was 18 to be honest.
- Speaking of Glastonbury, it’s completely frightening how much Sudbury, MA reminds me of Glastonbury. Really scary. I may not want to live in Glastonbury, but some part of me wanted to raise my kids in a safe place just like it. Which means, Mason and Jude will probably grow up to be completely bored with Sudbury, count the days until they can get out, and kill time via meaningless acts of youthful rebellion.
- There’s just no way you can totally outsource a cross country move with two little kids. I’d say that I outsourced a lot of the heavy lifting and pain points, but I didn’t even come close to making things totally easy on myself. I’m not sure it can be done.
- I highly recommend Moovers Inc for any big interstate moves. They were recommended to me by Delancey Street – and anyone who has ever hired movers in SF knows that Delancey Street is the way to go. Moovers Inc was totally professional, friendly, and fair priced. They were definitely not the most expensive movers I spoke with. Far from it actually.
- Things I missed the most while Moovers Inc was storing most (almost all) of our stuff: my roadbike, the king size bed Keturah and I have, and our espresso machine
- Mostly what I was missing was having our own space. It’s nice having our own closets, our own beds, etc.
- Redfin was a great service for finding a house. We started out with a list of about 12 towns in metro Boston that we were considering living in. Redfin was instrumental in helping us quickly whittle that list down to towns that we focused in on (Sudbury and Wayland) and was also very helpful in helping us find preferred neighborhoods and schools. The people that work for Redfin Boston are great. Highly recommend them.
- Many thanks to Ryan and Sheri Neuman for helping us with our financing. Our personal finances are ridiculously complex and without their help, we never would have been able to acquire the great home that we have.
It was 30 years ago today that MTV began broadcasting. I was a 10 year old boy living in East Hartford, Connecticut – a typical suburban neighborhood where kids rode their bikes everywhere and played kickball in the streets while their parents did their best to shield them from the realities of life. At the time, my family’s basic cable TV system included a tethered punch key system that looked something like this.
That’s right, tethered. As in, no wireless remote control. As a 10 year old boy with little attention span, I probably scanned all 36 channels of that box on a daily basis. It was impossible for something like MTV to escape my attention. Discovering MTV the morning of August 1, 1981 was basically my first day of pop culture education.
That summer, my routine consisted of sleeping until mid morning, eating breakfast, watching TV, then riding my bike to the town pool which opened at Noon. After a full multihour dose of MTV, it was onto the pool where I met my friends lined up outside waiting for the gates to open. Just like we did every day. But this day was a bit different. Everyone was hit by the MTV thunderbolt that morning and the big topic of conversation was “did you see MTV this morning? It’s on channel 25.” Every day would now involve discussions like “Did you see THAT video? It was awesome!”
Basically, growing up would never be the same again.
Nothing can ruin your summer more than having the flu for a week. I’d rather be caught outside in the forest without any bug spray than go through another week like that. Here’s randomly assorted list of thoughts for this Tuesday morning.
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There is no bigger lock for this Christmas than Santa bringing the just announced LeapPad tablets for Mason and Jude. LeapFrog products have never been a disappointment to the kids (or to Keturah and I). The first paragraph of this New York Times article is spot on…
All parents who own an iPad know this: Their kids want to play with the iPad as much as they do, and that means they have to share.
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It’s probably worth another blog post, but a story last week on NPR touches upon some of the reasons why Keturah and I moved the family away from San Francisco. Census data is now confirming what we suspected as reality – families are leaving SF.
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Some good fall tours shaping up. Wilco is playing the Wang Center in Boston in September. Definitely in for that. And The Pixies are touring some small venues and out of the way towns. Places like Hampton Beach, NH and Waterbury, CT. The chance to see The Pixies at a small venue is definitely intriguing.
The first sign of the flu came to me in the form of lower body aches last Thursday morning. Bu that afternoon, it had become a full body ache and I was done for. I would be completely bedridden for the next four days. Then mostly bedridden for another one. Only this morning did I start feeling close to 100%. Here’s a random list from my time with the flu.
- Took 2,456 doses of ibuprofen
- In addition to ibuprofen, my body took on plenty acetominophen, Pepto Bismol, Thera-Flu, NyQuil, DayQuil, and some Advil Cold & Sinus for good measure. If Hunter S. Thompson had shown up and let me choose from the trunk of his car, it would have been a no brainer to add a half dozen or so amyls to that list.
- Thought about 2 dozen blog post ideas that I didn’t write down anywhere and I’m sure I’ll never write
- Ate 1 bowl of soup, a few bananas, a couple slices of toast, and 2 fried eggs. That was pretty much it over the duration of the flu
- Drank 9 32 oz bottles of Gatorade
- Missed a few hundred work emails
- I’d tell you how many rolls of toilet paper I went through, but that would be gross.
- Watched all 13 episodes of Rubicon – which was great until the last episode.
- Read Everybody Loves You When You’re Dead by Neil Strauss from cover to cover. Not a bad read. Recommended if you like reading about rock stars.
Yes. This was a pointless blog post. But I needed to write a pointless, get-myself-back-to-blogging post so here it is. You may now go back to regular programming.
I’m sure that no one will be surprised by this, but my opinion of AT&T iPhone service has changed dramatically since I left San Francisco. My iPhone is even more of a workhorse than it was before. And it’s performing like a champ. I’m doing numerous 60-90 minute conference calls on my iPhone on a daily basis. Once I did an hour long conference call while on the Acela from New Haven to New York. During these calls, I’m putting my iPhone through its paces by surfing the Web, accessing info on the Evernote App, or other things sucking up the data stream. And my call’s aren’t dropping.
Yes, this has resulted in heavy voice usage and the amount of minutes I’m using is skyrocketing. This month, I would have been the victim of heavy extra charges on my bill if not for AT&T sending me a text message alerting me that I’m way over and I should change my data plan to compensate. Thanks for taking care of me, AT&T! I was especially pleased to find out that I could retroactively change my plan back to my last billing date. Overage charges be gone!
It will be interesting to see how things change when I’m in metro Boston full time.
