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As summer winds to a close, and the pool is shuttered for the Fall and Winter, you start to sense a chill in the air. The temperature drops down to the 60s (mid 10s for my European readers) and you start to pull out the sweaters out of the closet. Its the time of year where you put a log on the fireplace and get that spirit of Fall and Winter coming.

For us who live in the United States it echoes the days of Thanksgiving and the holidays around the corner. However, with the most recent economic news it would appear that Lehman Brothers is going closing their doors, with rippling effects through the Investment Banking industry. This uncertainty with the economy and the elections has people concerned and worried.

So when I say there is a chill in the air, ironically, it applies to many things.

Anyone work those late nights? I am not talking about the typical work late night, but the one you work late trying to catch up on “life?” You know, the point in life when you realize, “crap I haven’t balanced my checkbook, or crap I haven’t paid my bills.” I have slowly started to realize those little projects haven’t been started, completed, or closed out.

How do I know this? Well looking in my living room I see a massive chaos of papers, boxes, books, etc. that have not found their perfect place. On my laptops, I see files, pictures, and projects that have not begun or been organized.

This all goes back to my previous blogs about getting on top of things and getting organized, and my inability to make headway in that. In the end, I think I need a few weekends to really make it happen to make it come together. Until then, I will sit here on my couch and stare at the mountains of everything in a bit of organized chaos.

Tonight I was riding the Metro home at about 11:30pm at night (it was a long night at work) and the Metro was PACKED. I was a bit taken aback when I boarded because normally when I ride after 9pm it is pretty quiet. But tonight it was standing room only, and everyone and their mom was on Metro (in fact I think I saw my mom on the Metro but I can’t be sure).

This phenomenon piqued my interest to find out, why at 11:30pm there are as many people at 7am rush hour on the Metro. Talk about weird and surreal.

So I raced home tonight to get provisions, just in case Tropical Storm Hanna is really bad. I am stocking up on canned food and water, because you never really know. Everyone I have spoken to said that a Tropical Storm shouldn’t be too bad, but I should expect that the power may go out a few times during the Storm due to the heavy rainfall.

Wish me luck!  And hopefully my pontoon is returnable.

I used to travel a lot, for work, school, and pleasure. However, this year has been a bit of quieter year. In 2006 I clocked over 175k miles and in 2007 I traveled about 125k miles. This year I am probably just shy of 30k, which means a few things.

First, it means I am a lot healthier because I am not putting my body through the stress of being in a pressurized cabin at 40,000 feet. I have noticed this year *touches wood* I haven’t been sick nearly as much as I normally am, which has been really nice.

Second, it means I am going to lose status on American Airlines (boo) and will drop down to Platinum if I can squeeze some transatlantic flights in before the year ends. I was really pleased that I had racked up Executive Platinum for three straight years, and now I am going to lose it in 2008. Oh well, I guess my health has a price.

Third, I am saving a fair chunk of change with the lack of flying. Now that airlines are charging you per a piece of luggage, per a carryon, for picking an aisle seat, it seems that not traveling is easier and less stressful than dealing with the nickle and diming that the airline industry has been doing lately. Not to mention the cost of fuel nowadays.

Oh well, I guess I will have to wave goodbye to my airline and hotel statuses. *sigh*

So I have been in Washington DC for over three months and someone just asked me recently how I am liking my new job, new apartment, new city, etc. etc. And my initial thoughts were “great everything is great,” but I realized I was quickly answering it without really putting much thought into it. And today while sitting on the couch or should I say couch surfing, I put some real thought into it.

New Job. It is going good, I like my new coworkers and I think that this is a great opportunity for me to try something new and different. So far the work is challenging and interesting, which is good. I do however sometimes feel slightly overwhelmed by everything, since at my old job we didn’t do as much paperwork and documentation as we do here. I was used to conducting data gathering, analyzing the data, and then writing a report. Here it is similiar but we have a documentation part that is very, very meticulous. I guess that is the difference between a technology and management consulting firm and an accounting firm.

New Apartment. I like the new place, it is a bit pricey compared to San Diego, but it is spacious enough for me and I enjoy the fact I am on floor from the top floor. Although since I am mildly scared of heights, standing on my balacony 20+ stories up is a bit nervewracking. However, I am westward facing I can see the sunset and think of my friends on the West Coast. In fact, I like my new flatscreen and my HD DVR (I mentioned it once before) so much that I sometimes I tend to stay home more than go out and explore. That is the negative side to having a place you like to live in, you don’t mind staying home more.

New City. Well I don’t know really what I think about DC. It is different, but yet familiar. The commute reminds me of London and riding the Underground. The people are like a mix of California and London, people are in their own world like London and not as friendly as California. On the flipside, people in DC are less flakey than people from California. Here if they say they’ll meet you for happy hour, they’ll meet you for happy hour. Life here is fast paced, a little superficial, and very status focused. Other than that, its not so bad yet, but I do miss a lot of things from California: amazing sushi, great Hawaiian food, knowing where to drive and how to get there, and my friends.

Let’s see how I feel in 3 months.

I did it. I added a link to a To Do List now in the upper right hand corner. To virtualize my To Do List, and hopefully remind me on a daily basis the things I need to do. In a previous post I had mentioned all of the things I wanted to do. Now I have to just stick to slowly knocking out my To Dos one by one. And I have to try to remember to chunk them into manageable tasks, not “Solve World Hunger” as that could take a lifetime.

On an interesting sidenote, summer is almost over and one of the things I wanted to do this summer was get a tan. And yet, I haven’t had a chance yet to do this. I procrastinated in buying some nice outdoor patio furniture and as such I am missing out on prime tanning on my balcony time. *sigh* Oh well. Maybe next summer?

I was reading an article (at 4am this morning since I can’t sleep) about how in London (my second home) it has become difficult to take public photos with a Digital SLR (my second hobby btw). This stems back from a campaign launched in February with the Metropolitan Police. Essentially it was urging citizens to contact the Metropolitan Police if they saw “odd” photographers. So I thought to myself, ok what is the definition of odd? And then asked myself, ok let’s say I wanted to report this where would I go? And voila on the Metropolitan Police’s website there is a place to report suspicious activity.

And when I went there, the guidance on cameras was, “Camera – Terrorists need information. Observation and surveillance help terrorists plan attacks. Have you seen anyone taking pictures of security arrangements?” That makes complete sense, if someone was photographing security arrangements I would probably agree that they should be stopped and spoken with.

However, there seems to be some confusion among the police and the local Public Community Support Officers (PCSOs). People are regularly being stopped, questioned, and occasionally informed that they cannot take public photos. That used to be my favorite pasttime in London, taking random photos in Trafalgar Square or on the street, but now apparently it carries the risks that I would be stopped and questioned, or possibly searched for taking pictures in public, in a public place, of public people. I can’t believe that impromptu street photography has gone this way, and I thought this article must have been mistaken. But sure enough, today there was an opinion piece in the Guardian discussing this very interesting predicament.

So at 4AM in the morning, it still seems that I can be very topical. And with that, I am off to go back to bed.

As a busy professional who works those “9-8s” you don’t get the opportunity to really watch your shows when you want. And then along comes the ability to record your shows and watch them at another time either with a DVR or TIVO. I have become the biggest fan of this magic device, as it regards all of my shows and patiently keeps them until I can watch them in all their HD glory (or sometimes SD if the channel doesn’t have an HD feed).

However, I have hit a bit of a dilemma. My DVR is 95% full, which means any day now I will run out of space. So what will go? NCIS? Law & Order? CSI? Eureka? Robin Hood? Either I have to make time to somehow watch 20 hours of recorded shows, or somehow make the tough decision to delete something.  Sadly, I looked at the “upcoming” shows being recorded and there are more coming in than I can filter out.

Damn you DVR! You are a blessing and the bane of my existance!

I wrote this entry on July 23, the day before my birthday but held it for a while before I published it.  I think it was because I started the entry one way, revised, and revised until it is what it is now.  If you know me well, and a lot of people don’t really know me as well as they think they do, you will know that I am not a fan of big birthday celebrations. The two exceptions have been my 25th and my 30th.

The 25th was because my girlfriend at the time really wanted to put on a big birthday party for me, and it was a landmark as it was my quarter of a century birthday.  I remember it like it was yesterday, some good friends, a nice keg of Seirra Nevada and mellow night of just chilling and having a good time.

My 30th was because, well it was my 30th and to be honest there was a girl at the time I wanted to impress so a bunch of us got 2 VIP Booths at On Broadway and I think at final headcount there was about 50 people there throughout the night, some we got into the VIP Area, some we couldn’t.  I was flipping through the photos the other night and kind of laughed…those days of my hard partying and dance clubbing days are long gone.

Somewhere in my early 30s I started to become more concerned about work, professionalism, career, and education.  I was more concerned with how I looked, how I acted, who I befriended, who I could help, where I was,  where I was going, and where I had been.  Not to wax in religiousm, but it reminds me of a passage from the Bible 1 Corinthians 13:11, “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

Now as I get older, I started to wonder about what lies around the bend…and yet, I eagerly await it.