Radiant Rachel Reflecting on Ruby, Rails, Righteous Rants and Random Rubbish
Archive for October, 2010
Getting Ready for a Move
October 14, 2010
I hate moving.
Since the beginning of college, I’ve moved probably a dozen times between house moves with my family or moving back and forth from dormitories. This includes the process of deciding what crap to pack, throwing out crap I don’t need or don’t want anymore, the actual process of packing my crap, the physical moving of crap from one place to another, and then unpacking that crap, and figuring out where that piece of crap’s new home with be in the new location.
I DESPISE moving!
I’ve been in my current apartment for two years now and that’s by far the longest I’ve stayed in any one place for a very long time. That being said, I’m very eager to finally leave this place. My commute is a bit too long and being under the rule of a landlord isn’t exactly what I’d call ideal. It would also be a huge improvement to move to a place that gets an equal distribution of heat in all the rooms! 
In preparation of the impending move, I’m beginning to mentally go over all of the items I’ve procured over the last few years. I could stand to do without some things; especially since Adam and I will be coming into the marriage with duplicate items like dressers and desks! I’m a little disheartened to part with my old wooden desk that matches my bedroom furniture, but I can’t see us having space in the new apartment for a desk that is mainly used for its drawer space.
In my lifelong quest to improve myself, as I’ve mentioned before, I’m an avid reader of blogs like LifeHacker. Today they posted a link to another blog outlining “Nine Quick Tips to Identify Clutter.” It’s good every once and a while (especially when moving!) to assess our material possessions and ask ourselves why we keep these things around?
I’m slightly envious of the minimalist home owners out there that are able to run their entire household on the very bare essentials. I’m a sentimental person and enjoy doing things like creating scrapbooks and am susceptible to holding on to mementos which in turn take up space. I also anthropomorphize objects easily which makes it hard to part with things, but that’s a problem unto itself.
Ode to My Couch
October 12, 2010
in Nonsense
O, to ye old couch, to whom I must leave by the roadside in the impending move to my new home in the city of Brooklyn, ye have served me well. Who is older than dirt and is certainly older than me, who was present in my parents’ home upon their purchase of their first house in Pennsylvania. Ye have been to many places, namely Pittsburgh, Cranberry, Hopkinton, Zelienope, and now Westchester, but your time with me is now over. For my fiancé has never loved you nor your brother, the love seat, you attract too much dog fur and neither of you are allowed in the new apartment. I have used ye as a kitchen table, a recliner, a bed, and of course a couch. Many nights after work I would collapse upon your worn, yet sturdy frame, exhausted and find your cloth welcoming. Where I usually park my rear is in the same spot I experienced my first kiss and that will not soon be forgotten. So to you! My couch, a drink to you! I will promise to try to not spill it on you when I go to take a sip.
Penn State University Homecoming
October 11, 2010
in Adventures
This weekend, Adam and I made the 4 1/2 hour trip from Long Island into Pennsylvania for the Penn State 2010 Homecoming. No, neither of us are alumni, but one of my sisters and my dad are and as a perk for being in the Alumni Blue Band Association, they have the option of buying 2 tickets to the homecoming game. Adam and I took up the offer and the other two tickets went to my godfather and his son visiting from North Carolina. It’s always nice to see him because my dad and him have been friends since the second grade and I am bound to hear silly and embarrassing stories about my dad’s childhood.
The past few weeks/weekends have been quite busy for Adam and I due to work, planning for the wedding and our impending move to Park Slope – it wasn’t really an ideal weekend for traveling to Penn State but since we already bought the tickets, it would be wasteful not to go! To begin with, Adam had a crisis going on at work and we left Manhattan quite late and then we got home and tried to have some semblance of a dinner while Adam continued to work. I then suggested to him that we might as well buy a MiFi (I admit, it’s because I’ve been lusting for one since I heard those existed) so he could work through the evening in the car while I drove. The MiFi is pretty cool, you can buy it at full cost without a contract for $150 and then pay $40 a month for unlimited service. It worked pretty well along Route 80 going through Pennsylvania but there were obviously some pretty big gaping holes in service in a few areas. Unfortunately, our car isn’t outfitted with an AC power converter and he failed to charge his laptop before getting in the car so he only got to do some real work for a few hours of the trip. This meant I did most of the driving and he stayed up until 6am that morning working on bug fixes once we got to State College.
We left Long Island around 10pm Friday and only made it to State College around 3am which meant we missed the free pizza and booze with my dad and his college friends. I went right to bed and, as I mentioned earlier, Adam stayed up to work and then we woke around 10am to try and navigate ourselves to Beaver Stadium for the game while still half asleep. I have to mention that I do not miss living in a dorm at all. We were very lucky to have the opportunity to stay with Jennifer’s boyfriend, Hitesh, who lives on campus because our alternative was sleeping in the RV my dad’s friends rented for the weekend. Both meant uncomfortable sleeping situations and questionable restroom facilities, but at least there was enough room to move around in the apartment.
The game was a huge disappointment and the Nittany Lions lost to Illinois but we still sat there in the boiling sun until the conclusion of the game. The Blue Band, as always, was enjoyable, but I think I was experiencing mild heatstroke because I can’t really remember what they played and only that I took a few snap-shots for Jennifer’s scrapbook of the weekend. Afterwards, my dad did his traditional tailgate, albeit on the smaller side, and we attempted to play an awful game of ring toss interrupted by a few curses and the occasional “I hate this stupid game! Why are we playing this again?” We also visited Hitesh’s tailgate and munched on paneer and chicken marinated in yogurt sauce. We were also treated to the drunken antics of his tailgate neighbors who also reminded me why I chose not to live in Pennsylvania anymore.
We wrapped up the night hanging out with the “Hedgehogs” at the RV made up of my dad’s friends from college. Please don’t ask me where that name comes from because I don’t know, and I’m quite certain they don’t remember either. They held their yearly homecoming meeting, inducted new members into the sacred order of the hedgehog and I think I was assigned the task of creating a web site for everyone and coming up with members only t-shirts. Sunday morning we hopped on over to the RV again for brunch and said our good-byes before heading off back north (but not before we stopped at a RadioShack and purchased an AC converter which promptly blew out our car’s cigarette lighter’s fuse whenever Adam attempted to charge his MacBook!)
It was nice to see everyone but I think I would have also enjoyed staying home instead of spending the time driving just because of everything that’s going on. I know we’ll be attempting to recoup our lost sleeping hours this week!
