Getaway day fun

Nothing better than trying to wrap up stuff before heading out of town. And having one department request seven sites for classes that are already running. Morning fun with batch files and Excel! Woohoo!

And speaking of "woohoo,' Fraggles! On DVD!

And British Women in Prison! Also on DVD!

Now, if only someone would combine the two into one great TV show. Peter Jackson, we need you now more than ever!

More on Boston

So, following up on my one-line piece of information last night, why Boston?

Part of it, as many of you know, is that I'm not very enamored of Atlanta. Although it's gotten a lot better in the last ten years (there were about three good restaurants here when I moved here in 1990; now it's a damned fine food town), it's still the antithesis of what I want in a city: few museums, god-awful transit, pedestrian-antagonistic, etc.

I'm a city-boy, and Atlanta's simply doesn't feel like a city to me (and yeah, that's due, in large part, to my Northeastern bias). I never planned on spending fifteen+ years here, and although I don't regret staying as long as I have, it never felt like home.

There have only been a few metro regions that really felt right to me: New York, DC, San Francisco, Chicago, and Boston were the ones that I was always most comfortable with (never been to the NW, and I'm talking about American areas only, else Ottawa would be on that list).

Conversely, 'song is definitely not a city person. But the Boston region is one of the few that's ever really appealed to her, as well.

There are other factors, as well. I need a solid boardgaming group (and as someone who's picky about who I game with, I don't enjoy just going to pick-up games at stores), and the Boston area has that in spades, with lots of people with whom I'm already comfortable. Once jet_li_wannabe moves out of town this fall, I'll be down to LJ-less Gerry (and, although I love backgammon and other two-player games, I'd also like multiple-player mental stimulation).

That last one expands to my social life in general. I've got a ton of friends in that region, and although I'm as much of a loner as I've ever been, I still do need to have lifelines in an area. This one probably has more than even NYC does. And the flip side of that is, that in the living situation we'll be in, I'll actually be able to get true alone time. Anyone who knows me knows how incredibly valuable this is to me, and how frustrating the lack of it is. That's less a factor of Boston than of the house, but still something important to me.

There's also the little matter of where we want to raise Elayna. Once we get past fifth grade, I'm not too impressed with Elayna's options, school-wise, and I like a lot of her choices in Malden.

And, of course, there's academia. I'm still partial to academic jobs, and Boston has a college or three (in fact, the job market is going to be the major factor in determining when we move, so if anyone happens to have leads, by all means feel free to contact me). :-)

So yeah. It's more than just the sum of those reasons (like, you know, seasons), but that's the gist of it.

Off like a thing what goes off

Shutting the computer down now. We're off to FLA. We'll have occasional net access, but not enough for me to reliably read LJ, check email, or even play Kingdom of Loathing.

Be good, or whatever passes for it!