Blackcap Blog

Published at 22:21 on 26 April 2012

I blew about two hours trying to list an item (yes, just one) on eBay tonight. First I had to go and change all my addresses, and for some reason eBay has four of them, all independent of each other. Then I have to change my two PayPal addresses as well. Both processes mean waiting for and responding to a confirmation e-mail.

Then there’s the composing of the ad wording, taking of the pictures, editing of the pictures, and downloading of the pictures.

Wait, does my ad say the item is in Portland? Why, yes, it does, even though I just told eBay four times in a row that I now live in Seattle. Log back in, and eBay decides it’s unfamiliar with my IP address and now wants to place an automated call to my phone to give me a secret number I have to enter on their web site.

Finally get logged back in and edit the shipping information, which for some reason thinks where you last shipped from several years ago is more relevant than where you just told eBay your shipping location is.

Look at the clock and it’s 10PM already, and that’s just the first item I wanted to list on line. Sigh.

eBay is making just donating my extra stuff to a charity and taking the tax write-off more and more attractive.

Published at 19:21 on 13 April 2012

This is the weekend which, if everything goes as planned, I will get all my stuff back. I’m heading down to Portland to have the movers empty out my storage unit and move its contents up here to my new apartment in Seattle. Then comes the process of winnowing things down until everything fits easily; I’m assuming there will a stack of boxes in my bedroom (and maybe random boxes in other spots, too) for at least a month or two until that process is finished.

Possessions always seem to expand until there’s more of them than can fit easily in one’s home, and I’ve basically determined that a one-bedroom apartment is about as much space as it’s ethical for a single person to demand in this world of dwindling resources.

I’d probably feel differently about that if I lived in a small rural town, where 1-bedroom apartments are not common, venues outside one’s home are limited, and real estate is inexpensive. But as it stands, if it’s too much stuff to fit in a 1-bedroom apartment, it’s too much stuff.

All in all, it’s an attitude that’s a healthy middle ground between being the junior partner in a shared house (and having extremely limited personal space), and having a whole detached single-family house (or most of one) to oneself.

Published at 20:40 on 3 April 2012

Very tired after a long day of moving, because even if I didn’t do most of the lifting, I did enough of it in the unpacking I did and moving the particularly fragile and valuable stuff myself. Even got the Internet connected on the same day.

I’m also glad that I decided not to schedule the cleanout of the Portland storage locker for this weekend. That would have simply been too much, too fast.

Published at 19:40 on 2 April 2012

One last quick post before I pack up my computer. The next time I use it, I will be in my new apartment.

I was going to post a longer entry on how I’ve been surprised by how quickly things have been changing, but that will have to wait. On second thought, perhaps it shouldn’t have been a surprise:

• Everything was basically waiting on finding a job, and I found one.
• It’s spring, the easiest time of year to find a new home. Last time I looked for an apartment in Seattle, it was the winter holiday season, the absolute worst time of year.
• This time I adjusted my apartment-search strategy based on my knowledge of how difficult it is to find a decent apartment in Seattle. (What I did was to cease focusing on a particular neighborhood, and instead be willing to rent anything in a suitably close-in neighborhood that was reasonably close to a good natural food co-op.)

And with that, farewell until I sign on from my new home.

Published at 12:09 on 1 April 2012

In principle, it’s something I like, because I have found that living by myself can be unduly lonely at times.

In practice, I do not think it is for me, because a variety of factors intersect in my life, and the end result of this intersection is that there really are not many suitable shared housing opportunities out there.

The first factor is that I’m nearly fifty years old, and like most people my age, I’ve managed to accumulate a set of personal possessions that reflect both my interests and my life history. It’s not an excessive set of possessions by any means (I haven’t filled up an entire house with them), but it’s more than can fit in a single bedroom.

The second factor is that with one exception, shared-housing opportunities tend to involve but a single bedroom; in other words: just not enough space for me and my possessions. What I’ve done the past two years is to cram about half of my stuff into a storage locker, but I’m starting to miss having access to some of that stuff. The exception is if one is the senior partner, i.e. a homeowner looking to rent out a room. The senior partner is expected to come with a house full of things, and only offer an empty room to the junior one.

The problem with being a senior partner is that I have no desire to become a homeowner: I don’t like Seattle enough to be willing to make such a commitment to staying here long-term. Seattle works well for me right now because I’ve found a job that seems to be a good match. However, if that job vanishes, and I find work in someplace more to my liking such as Bellingham, I want to have the freedom to pack up and leave town.

The third factor relates to collective houses, i.e. properties owned by a collective where I would be an equal partner, not a junior or a senior one. There’s actually one which is a very good match for me here in Seattle, all things considered. But I’d still get merely a room, and the location of that property leaves much to be desired, because it’s surrounded on three sides by freeways. Not only is that an aesthetic downer, experience has taught me that excess exposure to tire dust and other traffic-related toxins makes me significantly less healthy (the dirtier the air, the more often I get colds, and the longer it takes to get rid of them).

At this stage, collective living ends up being very much like living in the city of Portland: it’s something which is very appealing in the general case, and not very suitable for me once one brings the particulars of my life into it. So it’s back to living in a single-person household for me, at least for a while.

Published at 15:41 on 25 March 2012

I’ve been missing having all my things accessible (about half of them are crammed into a storage unit in Portland), plus I’m really not all that compatible with my current housemate, plus the neighborhood I’m currently in has gone downhill since I moved here (rowdy partiers moved into the house next door).

I was racking my brain for strategies for addressing at least the final problem (I hate not having peace and quiet at night) while at the same time having to cope with being unemployed in an expensive city. Suddenly, I’m employed again. I don’t have to rack my brain: I just have to sign a lease on an apartment of my own and sign a check. Problem solved.

I’m definitely not looking forward to the whole moving process again, but I am looking forward to settling into my new place for at least a few years. As much as I find things to dislike about Seattle, it’s not all that bad a place when compared to the average big city in the USA, and it is in the ecoregion I’ve bonded with and consider myself part of.

Moreover, while not perfect (is any place?), the apartment I’ve found does have enough of the things on my rather lengthy list of wants and needs (some of which are difficult to satisfy in Seattle) that I feel comfortable signing a lease and bringing an unexpectedly early end to the search for a new home.

Published at 13:06 on 4 March 2012

First, slide film is not dead. Yet. Fuji still sells it, and fortunately I prefer Fuji’s slide films to Kodak’s anyhow. So I figure there’s at least several more years when I can continue shooting the exact same combination I’ve done for a decade now. As a bonus, the more people who do this, the longer slide film will last.

Next, color negative film is still going strong. I don’t like it as much as slide film, but Kodak has released a new emulsion in recent years (Ektar 100) that I’m actually quite fond of. So after slide film dies it will be decision time: is there a negative film available that is good enough? If so, I can shift to it.

If not, it will be time to begin the unpleasant process of learning how to cope with a new but inferior tool. Or perhaps time to abandon a form of photography which, while presently an enjoyable pursuit, will have become unduly tedious and frustrating thanks to technological processes beyond my control.

And I am loathe to bequeath the name “progress” onto such processes.

Published at 13:02 on 29 January 2012

I had what I thought was a better-than-average job prospect, but at this stage it’s obvious it is not going to materialize, since the appointed time for a response has passed with no word whatsoever from the employer.

Maybe it’s just as well, because it would have required relocating at short notice to a different part of the metro area. It wasn’t a particularly bad part of it, but still: if I must relocate at short notice, I’d rather it be to someplace in Cascadia that does not have one of the key glaring downsides that each of the major metropolitan areas here have. In other words, I’d rather get something a little extra for the pain and bother of moving.

If it wasn’t for those downsides (Portland: allergen levels and general poor air quality, Seattle: poorly-planned growth that has a significant negative impact on quality of life, Vancouver, BC: onerous immigration hassles), I wouldn’t necessarily have an objection to living in a larger city. It’s just that each of the three “major city” options in the Pacific Northwest happen to have a serious downside to them.

Published at 17:35 on 18 January 2012

The forecasters really couldn’t make up their minds on this one. First it was supposed to be the storm that ends this current cold spell by dragging the normal mild marine air back. Then, it was supposed to start as snow but turn to mild rain and end the cold spell anyhow. Then the amount of initial snow went up to amounts that would create a slushy mess when the rain came. Then it was supposed to be all snow, huge amounts of it.

Those huge amounts of snow went south (Chehalis, a lowland town that gets no more snow on average than Seattle does, got a whopping 17 inches). We ended up with a little over 4 inches here in West Seattle, still a very significant accumulation for the lowlands.

It all wound up as forecast around 2PM. Or so I thought. I woke from the nap I took after my walk in the woods, and looked out at a puzzling sight: tiny little drops on the outside of the window, a haze in in the distance as if it was still snowing, but no flakes falling and no evidence of the least bit of melting.

I went outside and the mystery was solved: the leaves on the laurel bush out front were becoming glazed with ice. Freezing drizzle. It’s sundown and there’s now a distinct crust on the snow, and the tree branches are making that creaking sound in the wind that they do when encrusted.

Up until this week, I had been worried that this was going to be a dud of a La Niña winter. No longer.

Published at 12:21 on 6 January 2012

To Apply: Please send portfolio URL and resume to [e-mail address deleted]. Subject line should read “Your Name: Backend Developer.”

Really, now? A portfolio? For a back end developer position? Isn’t that about as relevant as asking an electrician or plumber for a set of pictures showing external views of new buildings he helped work on?

This one cuts particularly close to home for me because my last job involved fixing the horrible mess the back-end code was on a site that looked absolutely beautiful when viewed on a browser. Interestingly, this job has been advertised regularly since last autumn, so it seems this employer is having trouble filling it.

Gee, I wonder why…