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My software-engineer roommate is taking the plunge and moving in with his girlfriend this Saturday. My loss, his gain: he’s been a great roomie, and she seems like a nice girl. Due to the short amount of notice he gave me for finding a replacement, he offered to pay rent for the entire month of May. Although I appreciated the offer, this didn’t sit well with me; I’d have a hard time charging someone for something they won’t use.

Instead, we came to an arrangement: he pays for the month’s utilities; and in exchange for my paying May’s rent, he’ll give me six one-hour lessons in any programming topic of my choice! This is really fantastic. I’m leaning towards PHP, since that’s what powers this Wordpress blog. If you come back here in July, don’t be surprised to find Rich Text pimped out and fully customized!

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Never eat shell-fish in months that don’t contain the letter “R”. Dad handed this pearl down to Sprouty and I during dinner at Legal Seafood in Providence, after picking him up from the airport. This word of caution came from the old days, before the advent of efficient mass-refrigeration, and it makes sense when you consider that the months in question happen to fall during summertime. How about that?

• May
• June
• July
• August

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This afternoon, my landlord hit me with some bad news: come this fall, I’m out!

Have I been evicted? Nope. Do they hate me? Not a chance: I’ve been a model tenant (their words, not mine). So…what gives? Why have they decided to give me the proverbial boot? The answer, dear reader, stems from the fact that this apartment was almost too good to true, right from the beginning. Allow me to explain.

After college, I took a job which required me to spend two years traveling, almost continuously. Since I spent 70% of my time on the road, it didn’t make any sense for me to spend any money on an apartment. In August of 2005, however, my situation abruptly changed. The traveling ended, and consequently the time was right to get my own place. I casually mentioned this to my sister Kara, who fortuitously found an apartment listing on the bulletin board of the JP Licks in Davis Square. I called the number, interviewed, and was accepted into the apartment of my dreams:

• 2 minute walking distance from the Davis Square T stop;
• Large living room, dining room, and full kitchen;
• Washer/drying inside the kitchen; and
• Cheap Rent!

The landlords, a very nice older couple living on the second floor, have an adult daughter who is carrying their third grandchild. The plan is for she and her husband to move into the first floor. This is entirely within their rights, since my lease is up in September. Still, they’ve always treated me very decently, and it’s hard to hold a grudge against nice people. While I’m not thrilled with the prospect of searching for new digs, 3.5 months is plenty of notice.

So, I ask of you, my legions of loyal readers: anybody know of any apartments opening in the Cambridge/Somerville area this summer/fall?

Note to prospective roommates: although my official move-out date is in September, I can be flexible for an attractive apartment.

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Although I’ve never worked in HR, I imagine that most of and HR worker’s day revolves around reading resumes and then trying to make sense of them. This is no small task; people put lots of information into their resumes, some on which makes less sense than the chirping of dolphins. As a gesture to any hiring managers who be perusing my blog, I’ve created the Work History category, which contains posts dedicated to making some sense of my own C.V. I’ll start with my work managing “logistics”.

For two years, Brickman Consulting provided wood flooring consulting and maintenance services to a major computer retail chain, with stores all over the continental US. I was tasked with planning, organizing and implementing the logistics that supported these activities.

We would typically send traveling crews of 2-5 workers on multi-city tours lasting up to eight weeks, with as many as 12 stores visited. I planned travel routes, made advanced hotel reservations, prepared budgets, and made arrangements for the drop-shipment of expendable materials (there’s only so much gear that will fit in a van before you have to begin tying passengers to the roof with bungee cords - OSHA frowns on this). Some trips required us to fly into distant/remote locations. In these cases, I also made flight reservations, vehicle rentals, and shipped our equipment in site using land-freight.

I also traveled with the work crews to provide quality supervision, track expenses and to make sure my logistical plans were adequate to the task.

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All men look for love; many look in the wrong places.

One such gent just sent Kara an amorous email via Friendster; something tells me that he’s nursing delusions of fluency in the English language.

…i’m seeking a single lady that does not have the heart to tease me up with her sugar coated mouth, telling me she loves me, at last what she has for me was just to enjoy the sweetest part of me and left me lonely….. i want a woman that i could be with, with an endless journey or till the calls from heaven….

This is powerful stuff; Dead Poets Society woman-wooing stuff. His ardent entreaty continues:

Because I am so motivated by love! Nurturing is a huge characteristic of mine,
Not torturing.

I ask you: is there a red-blooded woman alive who would not swoon with delight upon receiving such a message as this!

The text of this Leibesbotschaft can be found in it’s entirety on Kara’s blog. May this serve as a cautionary tale against spammers labouring for love on the World Wide Web!

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For those who may not know, I paddle on a Dragon Boat team on the Charles River. We hit the water about two weeks ago, and the vast majority of our practices to date have been in the blinding rain and cold. It always seems to happen this way: the build-up to our first race always seems to occur during nasty weather, then the rest of the season is gorgeous and idyllic.

My team is set to rock and roll at our first race, which happens to be in Boston! June 9-10, come out to the banks of the Charles River near the Weeks Bridge and cheer us on! Or come paddle with us; we’ve still got several slots available on one of the THREE TEAMS we’ll be fielding!

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A couple of weeks ago, I participated in the 48 Hour Film Project. The way it works is that teams of writers, videographers, actors, editors, and others meet at 7pm on a Friday night. The team leader (or producer) gets a call from from the project’s organizers, who tell him/her what their team’s assignment is; this consists of a film genre and several things that their finished movie must contain in order to qualify. In our case, the genre was Science Fiction, one character had to be named Thea Quimby, a shoelace had to be prominently displayed, and the screenplay had to contain the phrase “When you come up with something good, let me know!” The team then has 48 hours to write, produce, film, edit and submit a finished film.

Our movie is entitled Extraction; it centers around a dentist/novelist who derives inspiration for his books from his patients. He yanks their teeth out, then hooks them up to his computer, which then turns their life stories into a finished MS Word document. Bill Gates is such a clever fellow!

I played Roger, a frat boy/stoner. This was a bit of a stretch, since the closest I’ve ever come to an herbal experience is the time I spilled an entire container of oregano onto the chicken breast I was cooking. Personally, I think I did a better job as Scrooge in my 5th grade production of A Christmas Carol.

Nota bene: Kara typed the text of the story that the dentist extracts from the tooth in the final scene. She did a really great job! It’s posted on her blog; I highly recommend checking it out.

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On Memorial Day, we honor those who’ve served our country and made the ultimate sacrifice. Politicians shower praises in the form of glowing orations, Boy Scouts place wreaths and tiny flags on the graves of the fallen, and we all celebrate their heroism through a national holiday.

As my humble offering, here’s a video of an Air Force cadet boogying down in his dorm room. If this guy turns out to be half as good a fighter pilot as he is a dancer, the Republic is in very good hands; but watch out ladies, he’s made an oath to bust moves to all funky beats, foreign and domestic!

Note: I really do cherish and appreciate what our men and women in uniform do for us every day; I feel silly saying so directly, but I don’t want any to get the idea that by posting this silly video around Memorial Day that I take a flippant view of the steep costs they incur on our behalf.

I also wonder if my dad could dance like that when he wore the Air Force blues!

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