Sundry

Wow, I just realized that I hadn't written in a while, over a week. Anyway, nothing too much is really new really, so there is not much to catch up on with me.

It's that time of year that I love so much and I seem to be enjoying it even more so here in New Hampshire. Today it feels that Autumn has fully and finally settled in. This week we had some pretty warm weather, but then that was all blown out by wild storms yesterday and last night. Today is rather cool and breezy, but very sunny and beautiful. It's feeling rather like Halloween. I actually turned my heat on last night too, it's definitely getting chillier.

I've gotten in the habit of driving home from work the "long" way, down some of the back roads that twist and turn their way through the town that I am moving to (which is one town south of where I have been living all of these months). Not only does it help me to get to know my way around, but it is a lovely drive and a pleasant way to unwind a little bit from the work day. It's been an especially nice drive as the seasons have changed, watching the daily and weekly change to the trees along my route. Once the days get much shorter I imagine I will be back to taking the shortest route home, but for now this has been a very pleasurable alternative. Certainly a far cry from the stress and annoyance of my old Long Island RR commute (or my former subway commute, which was worse). What a difference a year makes.

Things seem to be coming along with the house purchase. I believe all that needs to be in place before closing has been done at this stage. Home inspection, appraisal, title search, second earnest money deposit ... the final thing I did yesterday was arrange for home owner's insurance, so now even that will be in place. I guess it's now just down to waiting these last few weeks for the closing date (scheduled for November 17th). I had a local moving company come by to evaluate my stuff to give me an estimate for moving. They're projecting about $485, so I went ahead and booked them for Monday, November 20th, that's exciting, it kind of makes it "real". Of course, now I need to start to do some packing (I've been procrastinating about that, for sure).

Oh, in my search for the information I needed to establish insurance, I ended up speaking yesterday to the president of the home owner's association. Very nice guy and it was a pleasure to talk to someone who actually lives there. Anyway, he told me that this is actually not a condo at all (here I was all this time thinking I was moving to a condo) but they are what is called, "clustered housing", which is a new term for me. Whatever. Anyway, he said that the HOA offers various discounted landscaping services which sounds great to me! At least now I know I won't have to run out and buy a stupid lawn mower.

Work seems to be going well these days. I just had a meeting yesterday with our customer sponsor who announced that the business has officially decided to adopt our reporting method as their standard. So we are officially out of the experimentation mode and into true development and support mode. This means that there will much more and varied opportunities there for myself and for my team, so it's all pretty good news. I guess I've managed to do something right over these past many months. Because there have been some failures and some successes, it's been a bit of a rollercoaster, so this news is very welcome. After this meeting, I told my manager about this announcement and he seemed very ecstatic (those were his actual words, "I'm ecstatic", LoL). I know he has been working very hard and has invested a huge effort into getting these services in place, and in getting the team entrenched as a force there, so I'm glad that this has worked out so far for him.

Anyway, so things are generally pretty good these days. I'm content here. I go through emotional ups & downs at work where I worry about whether I'm doing a good job, but I have to just try to move forward with the assumption that I am, and use this energy less on worry and more on work and focus. I'm looking forward to my move to the new place (I just wish all the logistical details were over and I was moved in already), but I am also lamenting about a few things that I will be missing here too, so it's a little bitter sweet. Still, it will be nice to finally be settled in somewhere, almost a year after the start of this process.

I have no plans for the upcoming holidays, but that's actually okay. I'm kind of looking forward to my first holiday season here. Settling in, making my house a home. Maybe I'll enjoy my fireplace some and get a second dog. In any case, I think I can perhaps finally relax a little bit.