Apartment Still Up In The Air

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The apartment I am looking to get is still up in the air. Some sort of issue of when I want it vs when they want to rent it. To hedge my bets I am looking again tomorrow with a different broker. My friend Miguel from work’s sister is a broker and will show me places tomorrow. Hopefully I like one of the places, or the other thing comes through.

This whole process sucks. Finding an apartment is not fun. Everyone seems sleazy even if they seem friendly at first. They seem out to get you when it comes time for money. Things they said at first slowly change, extra things come up. I am not a push over and was like WTF. I am dealing with a broker because I didn’t want to waste my time, and now I find myself wasting tons of it.

I have 3 requirements. Why is it that 75% of the time I am shown an apartment one or two of the requirements are not meet? I don’t have crazy requirements. all of them are checkable before I even see a place, but no I am still screwed into seeing places that don’t meet the requirements I setup. Dam bastards.

Yes I am a bit frustrated. At least I still have over a month before I must find a place.

The Blog Was Down Today

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My awesome blog hosting company (cheesy suck up attempt) was down today for a while. We are obviously back online now. No word on exactly why the outage happened. Well actually I do know but I don’t know if they wanted the reason public knowledge!

I also learned that we may be moving to a new blog software. This is partially due to Moveabletype’s change in their licensing for the new version 3.0. More details on that when it happens.

Just in case I backed up my entries again today. I don’t do that often enough. I usually do it monthly. I should do it weekly since I do put time into writing these entries. My rambling is not reproducible so I need to keep it backed up when I can.

This blog entry was written while listening to Superman Kryptonite by Three Doors Down

The Breakup

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I wonder why I don’t talk allot about my personal life on this thing. Then I remember. I didn’t mention my girlfriend for a while, but I felt I was omitting large parts of my life so I decided to mention her at least in passing. Now I have to mention other information. I probably don’t but I feel compelled to bring it up now and not discuss it again. We are no longer seeing each other. This was a decision I made, and I don’t regret it. That does not make it that much easier though. I won’t get into any sobby details. Sorry if you thought I would get all emotional!

I do feel like writing more about it, but that is not my style, or I don’t think it is. I do feel like writing so if I end up babbling about other nonsense topics, you know why.

The Apartment

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I put a deposit down on an application for an apartment. Everywhere else in the universe but NYC it works differently. Here you apply for an apartment, and then they see who has the best credit, is willing to pay the most, and is also willing to move in the soonest and that person gets the apartment. Not first come first serve. It is crappy, but I need a place, and it is supply and demand.

I filled out all the information they needed. This included a letter from my work, a W2 from last year, a copy of a recent pay stub, a bank statement, 2 references for credit, copy of my drivers license, and who knows what else. I offered to give them DNA for their records also. I was told all that was enough for the application. Now I am being asked to come back in for some other reason. not sure why, but if isn’t a good reason I am going to go ballistic on these people. I am not that desperate yet where I will put up with this shit forever.

Not sure if Jayson is having better luck going straight to the owners of apartments, vs my dealing with a broker.

Snapper Mail

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I just downloaded Snapper Mail 2.0 from their website. It is a beta of the latest Palm mail client. I purchased their version 1.9x back in December. it is great, but it didn’t support IMAP. The enterprise version of the new 2.0 does support this feature. I tried it out yesterday and have 60 more days on the demo. So far it looks awesome.

I switched over to the IMAP server that my company uses, versus the second POP account I setup just for my Treo. Now what I read at work will be read on my Treo, and vice versa. I can see what I am doing on both devices. It is great. I use IMAP mailbox’s at work and personal already so this was a great addition for me. Now I can use my Treo, Mac, Work laptop or anywhere and get the same mail. it is the best thing short of Exchange.

So far I am down with buying this upgrade to an already great product. I want to give it a few more weeks to see if I have any major issues. First looks, look great!!!

The Heat

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Not sure what to expect in the temperature department today at work. I am planning for the worst, and am in shorts and a light tee shirt. I hope I am cold, but I don’t think I will be.

I truly don’t remember an office environment where I was not hot. That is sad. I am prepared to take my laptop to the computer room today to escape the heat.

Back From My Trip

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I have been away. I am back now. The trip to Kingston went well. Dan and I left Tuesday afternoon. He rented a soccer mom white mini van. We piled in all the gear we needed to take with us and we drove up to the office. We got there around 7:45PM Tuesday. Dumped our cargo and went to dinner at the hotel. We stay at the Holiday Inn. People around there say it is the nicest Ho/Motel. It is ok, but not the greatest.

We ate dinner, and had a few drinks. There is nothing else to do up there. We got up early Wednesday so we could be at the office by 8AM to meet the electricians.

As far as I could tell things went over without major issue. We left at 3PM Wednesday. I was going to stay over till thursday so I could finish overseeing the cable work, but it was well under way and Kai had it under control.

It was funny Dan and I have done 3 physical moves for our company and several construction projects together. This time we were standing around going what do we do now? There wasn’t much for us to do, and we got nervous because of that. Of course in reality it meant that things were running smoothly, but it is a weird feeling if you are not used to it:)

While we were away, the AC in NYC went out again. Or shall I say the temporary AC’s went out on the hottest day of the year so far. Also problems abound on the project to fix the permanent units. It was supposed to be done by Friday, and the completion date will likely slip.

It was so hot Wednesday that Jayson and Gretchen came over and we all went into the pool after I got home from the trip. We ended up at the out back for dinner at like 10PM. I love that place, but I didn’t want to go, since I was trying to save money. Unfortunately the deli by me was closing and we couldn’t get anything there. Oh well. I wish my only problem was HAVING to goto the outback because everything else was closed. I can live with that.

Packing

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I am on my way home to pack for a trip to Kingston. Dan and I are going for a minimum of one night. I may end up there a second night. I don’t want to be there for 2 days so I will do everything in my power to leave Wednesday night with Dan. We leave tomorrow afternoon right after work.

We are shuttling up some computer equipment also, so we will need time to fill up the van with stuff.

I need to make sure I have clothes and my laptop charger and misc stuff packed tonight. I originally wanted to go see the new Harry Potter movie with Jayson and Gretchen, but I can’t stay in the city for the movie and be able to pack tonight.

For that reason I and many others, I cannot wait till I can move into the city.

Still Building My Laptop

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Sunday I got the OS back on my Thinkpad. Today was spent getting all the other applications on it. Throughout the day I had people come and ask for stuff. I would say, dam I need to install that. I would spend the next 20 minutes doing an install to get 5 seconds of information for someone. Hopefully this will be done soon so I can resume my normal work schedule routine.

Most importantly I still need to put on the VPN and Wireless software on the laptop, so I can be remote when I am in Kingston tomorrow. That is on my agenda for first thing Tuesday.

Still Apartment Hunting

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I saw 3 more apartments today. I liked 2 of them. The only problem is they were both on the high side. Not too high, but if you inch higher in what you are going to pay, the next thing you know you are paying way more than you originally planned on.

Both apartments were nice. One was a big bigger than the other. But the smaller place was in a much better location. I think I am going to put in an application for the smaller place. I liked the location, and the building was nice.

The third place I went, was none of the above. it was not in a nice area, it was not a great building, and it didn’t have a 24 hour doorman like I requested.

The original buildings I wanted to see today had no openings. They filled up between the time I asked to see them, and the time we were going to go to see them. Oh well.

I am going to think over my choices tonight and call the real estate broker tomorrow. Hopefully the place I finally choose is not yet taken. That seems like it may happen. Stuff moves fast in manhattan in the summer.