“I get up at seven
and I go to work at nine.
Aint got no time for livin, yeah,
I’m workin all the time.
It seems to me I could live my life
A lot better than I think I am.
I guess that’s why they call me
The Working Man
Yeah, they call me The Working Man
I guess that’s what I am.” — Rush
Well, maybe they don’t call me that anymore. But I was the working man for a long time, and even though I wouldn’t have expected it since it’s only been a week since I stopped working, my old job feels a million miles away!
Andrea and I got up to Binghamton last week, and things have been going really well up here. We didn’t have TV or internet until this past weekend, and while we were ok living without TV for the week, the lack of internet was brutal. But we now have full-time internet, and we splurged and got ourselves the basic TV channels (the networks and a local access channel!), so now we’re really all set! Who needs 500 channels with nothing good ever on? We can be amused by 5 channels of nothing on! :-p But really, we’re happy not to have too much TV, because it is a big time-suck, and we have tons of other stuff to be spending our time on.
That Rush song that I started out with is one I’ve listened to a lot over the past few years, always thinking how true it was — that I could live my life a lot better than I was, if I only had more time to do it. After giving notice at my job, I’d listen to the song and realize that I had the chance to actually walk the walk and live a better life, instead of talking the talk. So I came up with a lot of goals for myself, things to accomplish with my leisure time up in Binghamton. Work out more. Read. Learn. Practice my guitar. Create a web-page (that one I took care of before leaving, though!). Stuff like that. I’ve only been up here for 9 days, so I’m not going to give any progress reports, but I will say that even without work it’s amazing how the time flies by! You wake up, have a leisurely breakfast, go to the gym, and the next thing you know it’s early afternoon! Check internet, write a blog, and the day is gone! I’ve actually been getting a lot done in terms of my goals, and Andrea has been a dynamo — in addition to being a gym-rat, she’s been working away on the house, really putting in long hours to get stuff done. As she says, the sooner we’re done with the house, the sooner we get to move to warm weather!
Here’s a picture of the Pod where we will be storing all of our belongings while we are scuba-divers:
While going off on our adventure is a fun thing, there are certain aspects of this that are not so fun, and dealing with the house and Pod are among the less fun parts of the deal. The Pod is a great service (like a storage unit, but mobile — they deliver it to you wherever you end up settling), but imagine two people in their early 30s trying to condense their worldly possessions into an 8×8x16 metal box. It’s not easy to consolidate your life into such a small container, and then once you do it’s sad to see how little you have. Selling the house is a bit tough too, with cleaning and repairs and improvements. But I guess those are small trade-offs for a life of adventure, right?
I have to say, I’m pretty excited about the scuba-diving thing, and people I meet up here are excited for us. Today at the gym I met a guy named Duane who is going on vacation next week to the Dominican Republic specifically to get his open water certification (the first level of PADI scuba certification). We had a great conversation about it, and it was nice to meet him. It’s fun to tell people our story about leaving our NYC jobs to become scuba instructors — people are so excited to meet someone who is pursuing a dream. Two girls working at the Cingular store up in Binghamton were teary-eyed with excitement about our plans, a mixture of envy and excitement for someone breaking away from the grind. Why, you ask, am I telling people who work at Cingular about our plans? Certainly not because I get any sort of personal thrill out of hearing how jealous people are! That could never be the reason. :-p
But really, it’s nice being up here because people actually do talk to each other! Suburban life (especially outside the NY suburbs) is very different than city life in ways I really missed. The pace is more relaxed, there is peace and quiet outside your door, and people actually talk to each other and acknowledge each other (which, in fairness to New York, you can’t do when you’re surrounded by 8 million people). Of course, there are some negatives to suburban life as well. Going to the gym requires a 15 minute drive instead of a 24 floor elevator ride. There are very limited take-out options (which is offset by the fact that suburban supermarkets are AWESOME). And it costs a lot of money to fill a car (even worse for our SUV) with a tank of gas. I’ll save further observations about the pros and cons of suburban life for another update, though (hey, not much goes on up here, so I need to preserve material until we get to where we are diving!).
Duffy is doing well, and he wanted me to tell people that he is going to be adding some small video clips to his page. I’m hoping to do a short video on a day in the life of Duffy, but I’m having some issues with the software for my camcorder, so those have to get resolved first. Duffy is at the vet today for teeth-cleaning, so hopefully that will go smoothly. Duffy really likes being in the suburbs, and one sure-fire positive of being out of the city is how much easier it is to walk him! Open the door, he runs out, does his thing, runs back. In New York a Duffy walk was a 20 minute ordeal! Anyway, be sure to keep an eye on Duffy’s Corner for new pictures and video clips!
And for now, that’s about it! Happy Valentine’s Day to all, and we’ll see you soon!
Go Team Schmoop!