Boston

by Augustana from All the Stars and Boulevards

Hello again after another huge break from blogging. I decided to head out to Coffee Society in Campbell to specifically add this entry. It was a gorgeous day here in the Bay area so I decided to head out for a night on the town...well by myself. So what has been happening lately? Last week I was in Boston for the CHI 2009 conference. As some of you Dave blog readers may remember, it is the same conference that rejected by case study for well being far too practical to the real world and for its lack of real long SAT words. Anyway, it was a good conference. I did the smart thing and only attended sessions I was interested in going to rather than trying to jam everything in. I wasn't as tired out at the end of the days and I think I remember more of the sessions that I did attend as a result. You could definitely tell there was a recession going on as in the parties were a more toned down affair and sad to say, not many of my fellow grad schools mates made it out to the conference. I only counted 2 or 3. Even with that, I did some interesting new people and I think almost every single Carnegie Mellon HCI Masters student because I drew job fair duty at the Google booth. In addition, I also did do a mini-presentation at the Google CHI Lab Tour the day after the conference.

As for Boston, I did skip out on the last session to check out the town. I walked along the Charles River to Beacon Hill and then walked back through Boston Commmons. I also checked out the MIT Media and Harvard and the accompanying Harvard Square. Pictures can be seen on my flickr. Despite getting many recommendations from friends about restaurants to eat in Boston, I didn't end up going to any of them including Legal Seafood much to my disappointment. But of what I did see of Boston, I have to say call me impressed. I can see why so many students want to come to Boston for college. It is a cool place. For trivia's sake, it was also one of the places I asked to located at when I got a job offer from Deloitte Consulting many years ago. Alas, they decided to offer me Detroit, Cleveland, and some other loser cities instead. No offense to anyone currently living in said cities.

I have been thinking lately about this recession we are in. Other than pissing me off that at the very root of it is the completely idiotic belief that housing prices would never fall, I have been noticing its effects in my personal life. And for those of you who think it is selfish for me to write about the recession affects me personally even though I still have my job and earning a pretty decent living then I suggest you start your own blog! Anyway back to the point, I have felt its effects. People I know have gotten laid off, perks and other things have been cut back at work, there has been a noticable drop off in new cars on the road lately. Also places have been closing. I just drove by Century 25 in west San Jose, where I grew up. They finally closed it down which made me a little sad because I watched many movies there. Make no mistake it was a dumpy theater that in recent years had been serving the still showing the movie after it had been out for 2 months and independent movie niche. It is not surprising that they closed it. But remember watching The Rock, Broken Arrow and one of my favorite movies of all time, Before Sunset there. And yes, watching them well after their release dates. So how have I been responding to this economic crisis? Well but not doing much quite honestly. Yeah, I realized that I didn't live a very extravagant lifestyle to begin with. My biggest monthly expense is rent, followed by student loan bills. I eat most of my meals at work. None of my hobbies (going to farmer's & flea markets, biking, reading) really cost that much money. I don't really watch that many movies anymore. So when I was looking at things to cut back I realized that yeah, I don't really have that many luxary unnecessary items. Yeah, I have premium cable, subscribe to two magazines, and pay a ridiculously low monthly fee for my bootcamp class at work. But other than that, yeah I live pretty modestly to begin with.

Yeah I would be remiss in not mentioning that in a few weeks, I will be turning the big 30. I am not freaking out yet but I am feeling a freak out coming I suspects. Related to what I said above, I tried thinking of what I had done by 30. I have to say it is both enlightening and depressing. On one hand, it is great to see what I have accomplished so far. I can actually go back and see the goals I had for myself and see that yeah I accomplished many of them. That makes me feel pretty good. On the other hand, reaching a milestone like this makes you see how unplanned and unstructured your future looks. I mean for most of my life, there was always a set plan of steps to follow. Do well in school to go to the next grade, get into college, graduate from college, get a job, get promoted at that job, etc. However, once you have done that, the rest of life is a bit scary in its unstructured. So you end up making up goals instead. Sure I can go for a promotion at work. Well there is my health which is something you can goalpost like a target ideal weight or being able to do finish a marathon or something like that. Financially I can shoot for a certain # in savings or paying off my student loans by a certain age, etc. So yeah it feels like I am making up little journeys to complete to tick off as I grow older. Yeah, and people around you don't let you forget the times they are a changing. I think for the first time in my life I know more people (including myself) that are in relationships, engaged, or married than single people. I heard a long time friend say she is looking for "husband material" then yeah you know people are maturing. Plus I have given this some thought that yeah, perhaps I should behave in a more mature manner at work rather than being known as the guy who drinks too much at happy hours and nearly hit the director of our group with a water balloon at the last summer picnic. Anyway, I have much to think about it in the next few weeks.

But enough of my rambling, in happier news, I am seeing Spinal Tap, well unplugged and unwigged, next week and then in May, I will be seeing Flight of the Conchords again! Woohoo! So until next time, peace.