Month: April 2001

Today was a busy day. I finished up my taxes, and it worked out so I get a little bit of money back. Not much, but it’s better than owing money to the government. I attempted to visit an apartrment complex in New Brunswick. When I called them yesterday they told me to stop by since they had an apartment available in May. But when I got there they wouldn’t even let me in the door, and they said they had nothing available until June. Basically they wasted my time. After getting over my rejection, I drove around other areas of New Jersey including Highland Park, Woodbridge, Edison, Rahway, Union, Maplewood, and Newark. Every town I saw had some very live-able places, except for downtown Newark and just outside of it. While in these various towns I stopped into grocery stores to pick up local newspapers and those free apartment guides. Tomorrow morning I will be doing a lot of circling ads and a lot of making calls.

After my Jersey drive, I saw Bridget Jones’s Diary (which was very good — even Hugh Grant was believable in his character) with Becca and her father, followed by Sliding Doors (which I had already seen). I would say it’s bed time now.

I’ve been blessed with a four-day weekend for the holiday. I’m spending my time intensifying my search for apartments, but I’ve also been working with my budget, and trying to determine exactly what I can afford.

I am quickly realizing that I cannot afford to live in my own apartment. Even if I were to live in the town where I work (no tolls, little fuel expense, assuming $750/mo rent), I would come out at the end of the month not making any money. Consider the fact that I do not want to live in the area of North Jersey close to my job (it’s generally a hole, and an expensive hole at that), living further away with similar rent payments would leave me with more of a debt at the end of the month.

A solution might be to live with someone else and share the rent. That would be a great solution if it weren’t for the fact that no one I know needs a roommate at the moment, and I’m not a fan of living with a random person. Even if I were to live with a random person, which I have looked into, I’ve discovered that my choices of location are severely limited.

I don’t think I’m being greedy, I think I just have to start making a living.

It looks like my recordings of They Might Be Giants songs I made with a modular band during college have garnered some attention. Word has it that Hide Away Folk Family is being considered for a TMBG Tribute Album. I only wish now that the recording sounded better.

While being anti-drug, a radio commercial I heard this morning on the way to work was also “anti-band.” The commercial was sort of like this:

Funny, I was able to pick it out. I had hoped it was going to be the Chess Club kid, but it’s always the band geek. 🙂

Here are some pictures from Passover at Gwen‘s house. I haven’t had a chance to work on a neat little interface for the photo gallery, so you’ll just have to deal with that for now. Take a look to see how cute Alissa‘s friends from high school are. Unfortunately, my digital camera has problems and does not like to display the correct colors. I’ve done the best I can to fix them up in Photoshop, but I think maybe I’m going to stick to regular photographs from now on.

The temperature is in the seventies today. The weather needs to be timed with the weekends better. It’s 5:00 at work: meeting time. Looks like I may be doing another website redesign…

I hope everyone had a great Passover, whether you celebrated the holiday or not. I had two seders, one at my father’s friend Anna’s house, the other at Gwen‘s house. Both meals were great. I wish I had regular meals more often. I’m such a fan of food and I feel I’m not getting as much out of my life as I want because I don’t eat well.

I escaped from the perils of Connecticut early. Attendance at the conference was light, so we decided to pack up and head home, instead of waste money on another night at the hotel. So, I’m home, at least for tonight. Maybe it will give me some time to think. I don’t want to look for an apartment. I don’t want to move to north Jersey. I don’t like north Jersey; I don’t want to live somewhere that I don’t like.

Tomorrow morning, I’m leaving for the Connecticut Music Educators Association conference, and I won’t be back until Saturday. But I’m not sticking around long–Saturday evening I’m going to Anna’s house for Passover dinner. After that, I’m heading out to Lancaster for a second Seder on Sunday. Then of course, right back to work Monday morning. So if you’re still complaining about my webcam picture, you’ll have to deal with it for a while.

The weather was pretty nice outside. For some reason, I was cold. I was shivering all day, even with my little space-heater on in my office.