AC Capehart capehart

After much humming and hawing, I signed up for broadband in Virginia with Comcast. I’m wary of them based on their filtering, and other subscribers talking about their dropping idle connections (sometimes, long-lived SSH connections are handy). But I wasn’t able to get much bandwidth from CenturyLink due to my location. So far, speedtest looks downright awesome. Here are the results from my new connection in Virginia. Here’s what I get at the inlaws office where I’m working now.

If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. I don’t recall if that was formally part of my upbringing, but for the most part, I take it to heart. I’ve been pretty quiet lately. In part, it seems to be the norm for social media too. It’s OK to be momentarily frustrated by something, or to need help with a task, but if it’s not funny, engaging, or a bit of over-sharing, it doesn’t belong in your tweet or your facebook update.

I sent an email to peeps at work about my truck. We were considering donating it, but that doesn’t look all that easy either (or when it is, the charity only gets a percentage of the take) so I thought I’d offer it around. Here’s what’s on offer: 1994 Toyota 4-Runner SRV 6-cylinder, 5 speed manual transmission with in-console 4-wheel drive (You don’t have to get out of the car to put it in 4-wheel drive.

I am reminded this weekend of why it is that we uprooted our lives and moved across the country. For starters, weather. As I write this, it’s 2-degrees F in Altoona. Here, it’s 54-degrees F. This weekend, we went to the Berkeley marina where we stumbled upon the Cal Sailing Club which I intend to join. Right there, there was also an adventure park which we did not yet explore and another playground where Sam stomped around in the sand, rode on the swings, and slid down the slide.

While I have been missing some of the aspects of our previous life (see previous post) — one aspect I’m not missing so far is the weather! Today in Altoona, PA, was a high of 48 degrees F with a low of 32 (and a chance of light snow.) Today in El Cerrito, CA was a high of 72 degrees F with a low of 49.

There’s been a little bit of activity on our home in Altoona. We have a contract with a contingency that the buyer needs to sell his home, and we just learned that he had a contract. While I’m terribly excited that soon we won’t be having to pay both rent and mortgage, and glad not to own a house that would otherwise sit unattended through a winter, I’m still a little saddened by it.

I hesitate to say it for fear of jinxing it, but it looks like we’re back! This whole process took much longer than I wanted it to (as you might have guessed.) The following factors contributed: The machines spent a reasonable amount of time just coming across the country in the moving van It took AT&T longer than it should have to get us set up with DSL in our house (especially given the previous resident had DSL set up, and we took over her line, right down to the telephone number!

Not that I needed another reminder about my “semester abroad” as Carolyn has referred to my extended absense from my family, but one struck home this morning. I dunno if you use Centrum as a multivitamin, but we do, and I’ve always wondered why often you buy a big pack, and it’s got this little travel-sized 30-vitamin container in the same package. Well, I did buy just such a package shortly after I arrived here, and this morning, I consumed the last vitamin from that 30-count container.

Phew. After almost an entire month of searching, I’ve finally signed a lease! Carolyn, Sam and I have a place to live in California. Even better, the IRS woes that I mentioned here appear to be resolved. Suddenly, a 4-day weekend yawns before me with no appointments, and no open houses. A weight has been lifted.

My dearest Samantha, As I start writing this, I’m on an airplane flying away from you. We’ll be separated for weeks. Alas, as I look this over for posting, it’s already almost three weeks later. The job, and the housing search have been consuming my time. I had heard reports from a couple of people who had been out of work for a while about how long the days seemed when they finally were back in the 9-5 workforce.