Archive for October, 2007
Instead of doing this in the ordinary fashion, I am going with the biggest news first. Today I have secured a spot on a Lufthansa aircraft for my BMW to cross over the Atlantic. For what I was originally quoted for, no less. I get to ride my bike straight to JFK airport and hand over the keys to the shipping company. A few days later I hop on a plane myself and ride off into the sunset. Or blizzard, considering I’m flying into Munich, Germany in December. Munich, you ask? Well it is a bit further north than originally anticipated, but for the price and convenience it’s worth it to me to be 600miles north of my final destination. A freezing 10hour drive and I will be basking in the 50deg sun of southern Italy.
So it’s mostly official, December 4th being my last day on American soil. Two weeks over my hopeful day is pretty darn good, for me that is. Just need to buy that plane ticket for myself and I’m good. Then all I need to do is make a crapload of money between now and then. Actually Bluu has been making me feel better and better about this. If we stay at the pace we are at now, I can fly over with less than I had originally anticipated and just earn from over there. Oh how thankful I am of this great and wonderful internet.
So besides solidifying my departure plans, this past week and a half has just been filled with work. A lot of it. Between GEA, Bluu and a fair amount of side work for family I have been busy from dawn to well after dusk. Every day. Throw in a Halloween party that we all throw yearly and well I ran out of free time. So after today, I should be able to get more out and posted up to this journal. No pressure, but will definitely aim for it.
For some reason I can’t get myself to sit down and write but I know I have to. There has just been so much going on that I feel overwhelmed by everything that writing gets thrown into the back seat. Not to mention the lack of time that I seem to have. I finally have my bike and registered in my name. So the next logical step would be getting it shipped to Europe. Feeling like I already had this basis covered, from the extensive amount of research and quote getting I had done a month or two earlier, I figured this would be a breeze. Hah! Of course not. Well now that the 3 main shippers I had been relying upon have either told me they can’t ship it or have doubled their rates, I’ve been on a tear to find a reasonable shipper. Apparently they don’t exist. The big boys don’t want to deal with shipping such a small shipment, and the little guys want to charge an arm, leg and even a kidney. So this little chore has taken up as much of my free time as I have.
On top of this, this past weekend was a drunken mess. Two good friends of ours decided to tie the knot on Sunday, and in true fashion the whole weekend became a blur in my memory. From the rehearsal dinner Sat night, to the actual wedding and after party, I don’t think I went more than five hours without a drink in my hand. So productivity was at an all time low. Oh and did I mention that my Monday was spent in bed recovering? Yeah, way to go Mike, we’re only a few weeks and thousands of dollars short of departure. Good thing I’m using my time (and money) wisely.
So in case I haven’t beaten around the point well enough, I am stressed. Bad. To the point where I am struggling to get the tasks at hand accomplished because I’m not focusing but rather being consumed by it all. I had been organized and functional at one time. Being able to itemized a list and take things out one by one. I actually do this for my business partner with Bluu. Build daily punchlists for him to take down, one item at a time. But I am struggling with it myself. I think my biggest problem is switching from having a nice large desk, with a dual monitor setup where everything was spread out before me. Now I am working solely off a laptop from numerous different places, with no set schedule or order. I feel like I need a day build a strong routine that I can hopefully follow. Perhaps Saturday is my day.
Sorry, this post has been almost as disorganized and confusing as I have been as of late. I need to fix this…
Coffee houses are wonderful things. Ever since I started Bluu a year ago, I have used random coffee houses throughout Westchester County as impromptu offices. Where else can you sit around all day long, hold meetings and have web access (most of the time) and it be considered socially acceptable? Free to boot. Well with the coffee and most of the other available food and drink for sale being overly priced, it does cost a little, but still way underpriced for being able to have a remote office in pretty much any town where I would have potential clients. So here’s to all the coffee houses that have helped support my dreams of being a vagabonding business owner. Cheers!
I began writing this post sitting in Coffee Lab Roasters in Tarrytown, NY and am now completing it at the Peekskill Coffee House. Two completely different places that share a common theme. As I have been frequenting more and more coffee shops, I’ve been coming to really appreciate my home town shop. Just a very cool place to hang out where there is an adult crowd, lively and friendly staff and late hours. Pretty much 90% of the posts that I have posted up here have been generated sitting in this eclectic old building. Not sure if I can place the reasoning, but I could barely get out more than that opening paragraph while sitting in Tarrytown, but here in Peekskill the words just flow right out. Might just be a comfort issue.
Now if only they served alcohol here as Jeremy just recently pointed out. Not a full bar, but perhaps some wine and cordials. You don’t want to turn this into a bar atmosphere, but how cool would it be to just go sit at the coffee house sipping cognac and discussing worldly issues? Helsinki, Finland you could do this. In Finland it is a lot more socially acceptable to go and meet friends at the local pub at any time during the day. Not to go and get drunk (although you could), but to just sit, relax and shoot the shit over a Lapin Kulta. Hell we even had a Trivial Pursuit match one lazy afternoon at the corner bar.
Let’s just hope that I am as fortunate as I am now to find such places once I cross the pond.
Why do all commercial/business toilets have a U shaped seat and all home installed toilet seats have a full elliptical seat? Is it because less material equals less cost? Is it so your junk doesn’t touch where someone else’s has been? And if so, do you really want to share that intimacy with someone else in your household?
Hello! This blog which is solely about my life and my rather near future move across the pond, is a little disorganized at the moment. I do apologize, but you see I wasn’t really planning on ‘releasing’ this site out into the public just yet. I had figured that I would allow some friends and family to follow along as this blog slowly got up and running properly. Apparently I need to hurry up.
So please come in, relax and enjoy. If you scroll down to the bottom you will see a previous tab, click that and you will be brought back to the the beginning of my story. And please do comment, all criticism is welcome. Unless it’s about me, of course.