Monthly Archives: March 2013

House Finding and Column Writing

We found the one we like. Hyattsville, old, nice, near the metro, fireplace. These are a few of my favorite things. We’re working now to put an offer in, but I have no idea what the timeframe will look like after that. We were looking at another place, and then changed our minds. That place went off the market last night, literally hours after we decided to pass on it. Woof.

Work has changed a bit, and compensation is now rewarding slightly shorter pieces, which will be a new style for me. Next week is the first time we’ll be working in the new format, and I’m interested to see how the change affects my performance.

In the same vein, I’m submitting a fiction piece to a real magazine for the first time ever, this week. I’m also going to be doing a piece for an economic magazine to see if they’d like to have me around. That’s a long shot, but it would be fun and mix up the tone of my writing, which would be lovely.

First, let’s see how this house thing goes.

It’s Not What You’re Like, It’s What You Like

Tonight we’re having dinner with a good friend from DC who also happens to be a new friend from DC. As an adult, the way you mesh with people — as far as I can tell — is by wanting to do something with them. That means that you both like the same thing.

Erik is a philosophically inclined, food appreciating, music loving, board game playing, writer that works where I work. That seems like a good fit. As such, we’ve become good friends with him, and every time we get to see him I’m inclined to do something new. Read a new book or play a new game or follow a podcast or watch Doctor Who — I’m not going to watch Doctor Who.

Anyways, we’re going to see him tonight and surely, I’ll have a new board game in mind tomorrow. This afternoon, we’re going to play something. I’m looking at the shelves of games right now and I’m torn.

Could go Agricola, or maybe San Juan. I’ve been enjoying Dominion recently and Race for the Galaxy has shown potential. Then there’s stuff we haven’t played in ages, like Alhambra and Carcassonne.

This is what weekends should look like.

House Hunting in DC is Fun – ish

We’re looking for a house. It’s an experience, to be sure.

Today, we saw five with our excellent realtor. We liked two, and then we really liked just one. It’s in Takoma, but not Takoma Park. Regardless, it’s a fifteen minute walk to the metro and a fifteen minute walk to the farmers market. Those are both big deals.

The house has been recently renovated — read, “flipped” — but in the nicest possible way. They did, what appears to be, a great job.

We’re still mentally in love with this place in Hyattsville, but we haven’t seen it yet and the inside could be all shag carpet and rat assassins. Hopefully, we’ll see that one later this week and then see a few more in Takoma and then maybe see one more and then just that last one and then be ready to think about making an offer only to have the carpet pulled out from under us because, hey, someone already made an offer on that place.

It was surprisingly enjoyable today, and I hope that feeling keeps going. I’ll let you know.

The Premise

I realized the other day that my life has become inundated with hobbies. I do lots of things, and because I’m me, I often forget some of the other things that I should be doing. I’m hoping to change that.

The idea of this site is to show you —  the above average Joe — what I’ve been up to recently. The real idea is to remind me of the things that I should be doing, and how infrequently I’m actually doing them.

Ostensibly, there’s going to be a series of hobby types, which should cover my main concerns. In reality, this will all fall into a mishmash of hellish nightmare hashtags and hipster references.

But that’s me, and this is my life in hobbies.