Just a quick note to observe the passage of pumpkins into snow. Sadly not yet in real life (the ninja-squirrels on our porch are still munching pumpkins while we wait for the first snowstorm of the year), but up top and all around this page.

Let me know if the font contrast is too low to make reading functional. I think it’s readable, but my view of the Internet is not equal to everyone’s.

That’s about all to report for now – new D&C below, was able to write last night, everything’s coming up more or less roses. Trying to keep my freaking out about my deadline to a minimum – it’s looking like a real photo-finish is coming up with less than a month to go. But I have to take these things seriously or nothing will work.

I love how a bad day can be salvaged by a good session of writing.

I love how I can transform from feeling utterly unproductive, a blob waiting around for nightfall and wondering why I’m squandering my time, into the most productive joyous person graced with a ticket to hang out on Earth.

Most of my days aren’t bad now, most of them have been productive in their own right with shorter works or web projects or just taking care of the household chores. But when they are, what a nice surprise it is to be saved by the “work” of these days. How strange would it have been for any prior job to save me in this way? To keep me going when the chips were down in other parts of life, even if for only a day at a time?

This must be what it means when people say they love what they do.

I spent the better part of a decade, let alone what kind of a use of time even more years at school were, spinning wheels at pseudo-productive pursuits while somehow claiming that this prevented me from doing what I really felt driven to do. Always apologizing to myself, others, the world at large, my earlier years, that I wasn’t able to be productive, wasn’t on the road I needed to travel.

How satisfying, then, that this is what’s going well in my life now. That this, my work, is the antidote to any troubles that arise.

I hope this doesn’t sound like bragging. I hope it sounds like inspiration. To you.

The streak didn’t end tonight after all (as I just just alluded – in fact, I had one of my most productive writing sessions of the whole week. And the word count was higher than it would have been had I been watching the count the whole time in some silly tracker.

Moreover, I just noticed that the URL assigner is all messed up in this format, somehow skipping numbers. All my posts are numbered and there have been a couple discards, but generally the number of the URL of the post aligns with a straight count of the number of total posts I’ve written. But since I installed the beloved “upgrade”, posts 656 and now 659 have followed 653. I guess it counts by 3’s. Hooray.

You know what other number has 6’s and 3’s in it? 63,315. I like that number best of all. At least for tonight.

Days like this, I miss having Introspection. I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed and uninspired and like I have thousands of things to catch people up on. Just like 2.5 weeks ago, it’s time for bullet points:

• I spent most of the weekend (36 hours from midday Friday till the end of Saturday) at the Swarthmore Novice tournament.  I had a blast, we had 3 teams go 3-2, I gave a workshop (which was filmed and may be visible at some point on the web), LO’ed the demo round, and judged through finals.
• On the way back from the tourney, we had an epic time, including me accidentally entering the Penn Turnpike via an EZ Pass lane (and later talking my way out of a $23.75 lost ticket fee at the exit), endless joking with three novices and one of the team’s juniors, and a torrential downpour throughout.
• Em’s birthday and accompanying party were yesterday, and both went very well.  Emily is now thirty and thanks everyone for making her birthday such a great time.  We had cake, ice cream, enough snacks to sink a ship, and board games at the end with the loyal folks who stayed a long time.
• Next hosted celebration:  October 24th pumpkin carving.  Evite to come soon.
• Em and I watched “The Notebook” last night, which both of us had somehow missed seeing.  Though predictable at times, it was pretty amazing overall.
• For some reason, I’ve just been feeling uninspired on Duck & Cover lately.  I don’t know if it’s feeling disconnected from politics, having disconnected from cable, or not finding much to be funny these days.  I’m hoping to get over that soon.
• I haven’t written fiction in three days either, though the events of the weekend are responsible for that, not some lack of inspiration.  The fact that three days feels like a major drought is a good sign.
• I can’t believe it’s not October yet.  That’s also a good sign, that time is going slowly and is thus full, rather than flying by and seeming empty.  Keep an eye out for the annual theme change ’round here soon.

Today (defined loosely as from noon yesterday till right now), I:

• Took delivery on a flat-screen television, which will hopefully never have network or cable TV thereon.
• Spoke to my parents on the phone.
• Listened to Barack Obama’s speech and…
• …Decided that I am against the current incarnation of “healthcare reform”.  (More on this later!)
• Spoke to Em’s mom in person.
• Welcomed Pandora back into our home.
• Ate a bunch of fried food.
• Had a soda for the first time in weeks.
• Wrote Chapter 21 of American Dream On, weighing in around that magic 2,000 words.
• Played “Hero” by Regina Spektor on repeat for some time.

The only difference between these days and the old days is that these days matter. I am writing and that changes everything. My whole outlook on life can be determined through the filter of how much control I have over what I do on a given day and how much of that links to what I feel I was put here to do.

Daily fulfillment is not about the space in between, the margins, even most of the time spent. It’s about intentionality, living deliberately, and whether what is done is part of what should be done. Not on the path there, or some esoteric larger vision of being there, but actually a PART of what is intended overall.

This makes all the difference. And I am grateful, eternally grateful, for every day on this side of things.

We have arrived in Princeton.

Our place is just as small as we thought. The floor is not hardwood as advertised, but something like a parquet linoleum. It may be challenging to even get everything in, broken or not, let alone adding more furniture. On the plus-side, things always look smaller when empty.

Final statistics on our trip include:
39 days
16 states
6,206 miles

Our stuff will not be here till Tuesday morning. Our phone will not be hooked up till Wednesday afternoon. These facts combine to mean that I will be spending a lot of time in the computer cluster, which is thankfully close to our place and seems to be empty a lot.

I am hungry, so I must away at this point. But because of the above, there should be much more from me after my longest posting drought in the history of this incarnation of the blog. Adjusting to this new life is very very strange, so far three hours in.

I am about to become a New Jersey resident. Wow.

We have departed from Berkeley for our 6-week, 16-state tour of eastward travel. The last week has been filled with incredibly busy days and nights of packing, shipping, cleaning, and saying goodbye. Sometimes there just isn’t enough time (or a hooked-up computer) to chronicle the happenings.

Currently in Tracy, CA and on the way to Fresno sometime this afternoon. More updates, likely on a quite sporadic schedule, when time permits.

At least, I hope the cat won’t escape.

Pandora and I are heading to LA today. She’s going to her new two-month temporary home with Em’s cousins in Altadena, then I’m on to the BH to hang with Russ for a while before festivities officially begin for Jake’s wedding.

Given that Pandora has never once been in the car without meowing at least three times per minute with increasingly mournful cries, the next six hours are going to be an adventure.

Here’s the unsuspecting Pando, just moments ago:

Here’s what she’d look like if she knew what was coming:

(This photo is completely unaltered by any program – it’s just a result of the fun effects of flash photography in the dark on cat’s eyes.)

Finally, as a bonus animal pic, here’s a great one Emily snapped in the Academy of Sciences on Saturday:

Updates from the road possible; upon return definite.

Trying to ride Obama’s coattails into ticket sales? Trying to distance itself from the Bill Bavasi era? Trying to highlight an ABCABC three-letters-or-less rhyme scheme? Trying to simply point out that tomorrow is, indeed, another day?

Whatever the motives behind my beloved Mariners’ new marketing slogan, I’m wildly excited to be attending my first game at Safeco in nearly six years tonight. Today opens a 4.5-day trip to the Pacific Northwest, the last venture therein as part of the West Coast Farewell Tour. Emily, her sister, and sister’s husband will be meeting up with me tomorrow.

Tickets to a whole three-game series? Check. Randy Johnson’s return to Seattle? Check. Ken Griffey Jr. vs. Randy Johnson? Check. The only three-day sunny streak in the Puget Sound all year? Check.

It’s 5 in the morning and time to get to the plane station. When I return, it’ll be time to have discipline and get serious about things again. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to rooting for the home team.

So I was listening to the Mariners’ radio broadcast via MLB-TV’s audio package and this ad comes on the radio advertising tickets for the Giants’ series in Seattle, marking Randy Johnson’s return to Safeco. And I realized quickly that I already had tickets to all three of those games. And that it would be after I was free of day jobs and school for the first deliberately chosen time in my life.

And that was really cool.

Tonight I watched one of the most incredible Mariners games in recent history, with the M’s crushing the Angels 11-3 on a grand slam by Ichiro in his first game of 2009, alongside Griffey’s first homer at home for Seattle since 1999. It was one of those thoroughly satisfying wins in every way, with a very close game that the M’s led throughout, capped by a 7-run 7th where they simply romped.

Meanwhile, the Blazers were pounding the Nuggets to wrap up their first playoff season in many years, clinching home court in the first round of the playoffs to boot.

It’s starting to feel a lot like 2001. This could be a very good year for more reasons than I’ve already compiled.

Wanted to make the official announcement that Emily has chosen to return to Princeton University for two more years of academic rigor. We will become New Jersey residents sometime late this summer.

Many more plans to be announced as they develop, but at least we have a framework and a destination at this point. The decision to stay stateside means we will indeed be making our summer roadtrip (2009 Sunset to Sunrise Summer Sojourn OR 2009 National Parks and Baseball Parks Tour). Coming this summer to a city near you – details to follow pending Emily announcing an actual quit date from her job.

Given the aggregate concentration of friends in states bordering New Jersey (I guess Maryland doesn’t technically border NJ, but it might as well), this decision generally seems to maximize proximity to those we have spent much of the last seven years living apart from. This is probably the most exciting part of the decision, especially since the ground we inhabit won’t be quite as new as originally anticipated. Proximity to Waffle House is also maximized, which isn’t really the #2 positive factor; it only seems that way.

Thanks to everyone for your support and interest in this lengthy decision-making process. We will be seeing a good number of you (most?) over the next few months!

(+C, +H, ??+O, +P, +Y)

Still waiting to hear from two Oxford programs, but Em applied to five schools and was admitted to five schools. Pretty impressive, if you ask me. Harvard surprised us with an earlier decision than expected, but the money info won’t be in till the end of the month-ish. (Though they said that’s when we’d have a decision, so who knows at this point.)

Em will be heading back to tour at least Yale & Princeton (and now maybe Harvard) in about two weeks’ time. As suspected, she won’t be able to join me in LA next week, so we’ll be spending a fair amount of time apart in about a week. Given that we’re preparing to have two pretty solid years of not being pulled apart by work, though, I think I can handle it.

Em’s also been joking about having other people make this decision for her, because it’s hard to break ties. So if you have a vote (based on something other than regional/proximity) favoritism, send it our way.

We can put a + next to the O in our CHOPY algorithm, but it should be noted that there are a whopping 3 total programs within Oxford and Em only got into one today, the one-year Masters in African Studies. So if you’re scoring at home, it should really look like this:

3/3 (?C, ?H, ??+O, +P, +Y)

No word on money from Oxford’s one-year program, though it does put on the table a possible 9-month jaunt across the pond, with a return to one of the stateside two-year programs. The possibilities are multiplying.

In other news, it’s a really bad idea for me to go back to work when I’m still sick. It only took me 4.5 hours to realize how bad and return home. Odds of returning tomorrow (because I’ve already proven I love pushing bad metaphors tonight with my continued use of the code above) are something more like a Panama-USA WBC final in 2012, which is significantly better than Italy-Chinese Taipei. But a quick check with Vegas should tell you where I’m spending the day tomorrow. I mean, come on.

I’m sick and exhausted and about to fall asleep on the couch by the heater with a pile of blankets. Barring a miraculous recovery, my odds of trudging to work in the rain tomorrow are somewhere below an Italy-Chinese Taipei World Baseball Classic final in 2012.

But I wanted to let you all know that Emily was offered a full ride plus nominal stipend from Princeton, squarely putting us back in the dilemma zone. In the best possible way.

With three schools to hear from, it looks like we may see more lead changes yet. Stay tuned…

I know it’s all out in the open and stuff, but I kind of liked the code system.

So, at the risk of ridiculousness…

ELGC-GS: 2/2 (?C, ?H, ?O, +P, +Y)

No word on money yet. The postal service is slow.

Yes, I will be back to major posting sometime soonish. It is March, after all, and in force. But I am hamstrung and that limits creativity.

For a variety of reasons, I have to keep many secrets in my life at this juncture. I hate secrets. They make me sad. As someone who doesn’t really believe in privacy beyond passwords and social security numbers, secrets are antithetical to the way I aspire to live my life. And yet, I have some other obligations and constraints at times in this life.

So all I can offer you now is at the bottom of this message. I promised people I would keep them updated. Someday, hopefully soon, I will be able to use English to convey what’s going on and what I feel.

ELGC-GS: 1/1 (?C, ?H, ?O, ?P, +Y)

Let’s just say it’s a good thing that I’m not trying to write full-time right now. I just don’t have much of anything to say.

I turned 29 last Friday. Emily pulled off the first surprise party I think I’d ever had in my life, with a bunch of folks from work. I was having a terrible day and in a foul mood up till that point, even though I knew we were on our way to eat green chile in San Francisco’s new New Mexican restaurant. I was so legitimately surprised that my bad mood evaporated entirely.

We watched the worst Oscar show ever on Sunday, while playing my new favorite board game (Thebes) with Gris & Anna. There were even a bunch of movies I really liked winning, but they really have to start replacing that show with a monotone script-reading or something.

The jury I was on disbanded on Monday, after the case was settled. I was pretty sure I’d be excited to write about that experience, but the conclusion of the proceedings were so anticlimactic as to seemingly render the experience moot. There were two phases of the trial and our ruling on the first was supposed to lead to the second. Instead, it prompted the parties to settle the second rather than have a few more days of trial. Clearly the preferred solution for the parties and for my fellow jurors, but I was hoping for a full experience. So it goes.

The week was another week at work. I’m trying to appreciate them but most of my efforts are coming up short. I’m taking joy in my statistical reports while lamenting how little response they garner and how little they’ll probably influence anyone’s decisions.

The weekend was lazy and unproductive by design. Kind of like a decision to binge-eat junk food – it sounds good at the time and one gets settled into the idea and even excited. And agreeing to do it makes it better, but fails to leave one with something other than a bad feeling in one’s stomach at the end. Something like that.

March, I expect better of you. I should be all inspired and stuff by now. Maybe I’m just too old.

Been a little while since I posted. I haven’t exactly had blogger’s block, but I also haven’t felt particularly like crafting any vignettes about my life either. One of those periods of time where I’m sort of glad that I don’t have my self-imposed daily posting requirements. Although it can run the risk of there being “missing time” from the proverbial posterity record. So to rectify…

In the last week, I have:
-Had 3 mini-migraines (less than 24 hours each), seeming to represent “aftershocks” of a sort after the 54-hour fiasco last week.
-Been even more focused than the recent normal on stocks, but with admittedly pretty good results.
-Gone to Fresno on the train, staying for 2.5 days, and returning in the van with the IV family. The trip was marked by remarkable evidence of recovery for Em’s mom, a critical mass of overall noise in the house denoted by an increasingly critical mass of children (6 and counting), tremendous failure at gameplay on my part (we played plenty of games, but I only won once and the game setup made it not really count), and spending a lot of quality time with the two eldest children in the Garin Clan, who have finally reached levels of maturity and verbosity at which I start to find people interesting.
-Been empaneled on a jury, with opening statements yesterday and a roughly week-long schedule ahead (more I am legally bound not to say, yet).

It’s been an interesting little run of small breaks from the routine, though it still pales in comparison to the level and rate of change I am anticipating for later in 2009. Other than the hefty spate of migraines, though, I’m not complaining.

Hopefully I’ll be able to return to a regular schedule of descriptiveness sometime soon. I would imagine that this March, in particular, will bring the typical seasonal deluge of activity and inspiration.

It’s simply miserable in San Francisco today.

It’s cold and rainy and the type of weather that most anywhere except this good-weather-forsaken vortex known as the Bay Area would bring thoughts and hopes of overnight snow to salvage the otherwise dismal atmosphere. The utter impossibility of snow, the hopelessness to even thinking about snow, is perhaps the greatest curse among many weather hexes in this region.

I made the mistake of going out to lunch, instead of just holing up with my cereal in the office and hoping to not get too hungry. I had to amend my course from Chipotle (crazily optimistic, being about a half-mile away) to Herbert’s Mexican Grill, a far cry in quality at a third the distance. I wound up with under-cheesed nachos on a noticeably sticky tray.

Shortly after starting to eat and read, a series of women sat down at the table adjacent mine. They were all casually dressed but had this remarkably similar look to them, a quality almost that was hard to exactly typify. Upon a little listening to their conversation, it became clear that they were flight attendants, apparently on a brief tourist stopover in San Francisco – long enough to change out of the uniforms and get up to the cable cars.

And then they started talking about January 16, 2009.

“I was on a LaGuardia to Denver the day after, scheduled on an A320. The day after, you know. And everyone on it just kept going on sick list. And they’d refill the flight and then all the new people would go on sick list. I had a friend who offered to vouch for me and put me up if I wanted to too. She said she had a hotel room for a week and everything.”

Prepare doors.