Connection in an isolating age
For once the shadows gave way to light
For once I didn't disengage

Rent, "What You Own"
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Both new bunkies are in for DUIs, with Mike given a longer sentence because he was already on probation, so they gave him an extra 15 days for violating it. They're both pretty cool; Page is a Persian guy, semi-pro backgammon player who also wrestled. Mike is a big white dude who works at Vitamin World in the outlets (that shopping center must love the fact that furlough inmates are desparate for work; it's a steady pool of semi-slave labor) who also happens to be buddies with Scott Fujita of the Kansas City Chiefs. We find rapport instantly when I tell him that I'm a Clippers fan.

I've been using Yodlee to be my finance manager, figuring that since Yahoo! used them as a 3rd party, I might as well use them as a 2nd party and remove one layer of abstraction. I'm able to take a look at how my 401(k) and my brokerage accounts are doing, alongside bank accounts, mortgages and credit cards. It doesn't take into account equity in my home, nor does it take into account the virtual or actual gains of stock options and purchase plan shares, so currently my net worth is at a cozy negative one hundred fifty-thousand (see how much more epic I'll stop now). If I figure in equity plus the paper value of the shares, the actual net worth becomes a very large positive number.

I'll be honest in that I'm tempted to follow suit and move to Albuquerque with Greg, Dale, Grant, et al, but in my mind that's an adventure with a safety net, and I feel like I'm more willing (and more able) to do what Jacob or Hack are setting out to do, which involves international travel. My desire to translocate to the south island of New Zealand is no big secret, but what will most likely happen over the next couple of years is that I'll continue to work here at the company, but moonlight as a chef in some kitchen. When the time feels right, I'll sell the house, beg Brendan for a job in Bobby Flay's kitchen, move to Vegas, and wait for either the California housing market to depress a little so that I can move to, ranked in order from safest to craziest, either San Diego, Albuquerque, Seattle, Portland, or Christchurch.

As I explained to Kim (yeah, that Kim), expressing my wanderlust is part of my therapeutic process, so take that last paragraph with as many grains of salt as your arteries allow. I won't be buying Poronui Station, primarily because I don't have US$62 x 10⁶ to spare (though the actual sale price will probaby be around forty bills). The cool thing about real estate is that I can combine a love for travel without having concede an eye for business, and so all of the moves that I have in mind will inherently mix business with pleasure.