Soren Bjornstad

Soren Bjornstad

Software developer, tech thinker, information systems designer. See more.

Sabbatical Update, Week 18: Moving

4 minute read

This was an action-packed couple of weeks mostly characterized by moving.

If you're currently on Control-Alt-Backspace, you can read this post on Soren's Zettelkasten.

Published

Selections from the Zettelkasten:

Around the web:

Reading

Due to moving, most of my books were packed up for a large portion of this period, and I was too busy to read much for the rest of it. As such, I haven't finished any books, but I did make some progress through existing ones, so some will likely show up next time!

Tasks and projects completed

  • Moved from Owatonna to Minneapolis. Preparations, actually moving things, and getting everything unpacked and set up in my new apartment have consumed most of my time. Every time I move, I know it's going to be lots of work, but I still forget exactly how much!
    • My new apartment is in a quirky 110-year-old building. Among other things, the floor is so uneven that my office chair rolls across the room on its own if I'm not sitting in it (I got a heavy rug to add enough friction to stop it), the smoke detector was wired through the bathroom light switch using the hot wires for two different loops (I have no idea how nobody noticed this before, seeing as it was beeping every 60 seconds when the switch was off), and there are six closets, all adjacent to each other (some of the doors open into different rooms, though). I also still haven't managed to back my car out of the driveway in one motion; you have to squeeze between the dumpsters and the corner of the building, then avoid dropping your wheel into a four-foot-deep windowwell cut directly out of the driveway space.
    • But I'll take a few oddities in an old building over the current drywall-and-wooden-boxes apartment model any day. It's a lot more fun this way, and by the time a building gets this old, it would have been torn down if it was no good, so you know it must have some architectural merit. The apartment has also been through so many patches and remodels that nobody notices or cares if you build some extra shelves into the closet or punch a few holes in the wall, which is a big plus.
    • I upgraded from 450 square feet to 700 square feet, plus the new place is much more open and bright (last apartment had a couple of north-facing windows, new place has twice as many windows and they all face south or west), so it feels even larger proportionally. This was actually my third choice (my first and second choices got taken by someone else while I was trying to gather all the information on all my options), but I'm still very happy with it.
    • I've never before lived in a place where most of my daily errands are within easy walking distance, and it's already awesome. (That was one of the main reasons I chose this area, so it doesn't come as a surprise.)
  • Visited family for Thanksgiving.
  • Continued with some job interviews and preparation tasks.

Miscellaneous thoughts and anecdotes

  • I had to get a 20-foot 1/8-inch audio extension cable to connect my computer to my stereo system at my new apartment. There was a big HIGH SPEED logo on the packaging – I guess you're supposed to use this cable when you want your boring talk shows to play faster.
  • I made it back to the St. Olaf Christmas Festival this year, after it was canceled last year due to COVID. Just as good as ever, and it was worth the two-hour drive home in the icy slush afterwards (normally 40 minutes).
  • The choir director at a Minneapolis church I'm trying out was my cousin's college advisor. The Lutheran church is a small world!
  • Comcast has repeatedly emailed, texted, and called me trying to get me to set up this “flex” thing they sent me when I signed up for their internet service. I watch all my TV and movies on a large computer monitor, so I don't have a separate TV screen and it's impossible for me to set it up. Yet another reason to dislike Comcast, as if you needed any more.

Looking ahead

I barely know anyone in Minneapolis at the moment, so now that I'm settled into my apartment, I'll be looking for new friends and communities and reconnecting with a few old ones who live here. I'm also starting to think about my next opportunities for paid employment.

On the online front, I'm hoping to do several more TiddlyWiki videos in the near future, as well as write a few more AnkiCardPatterns and add some general advice to that section.

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