Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Finally moved into my new apartment in Bellevue, Washington

Sunday I finally took possesion of my new apartment in a brand new high-rise apartment building in Bellevue, Washington, which is the next town southwest of Redmond. Actually, it's more of a city. My building is 23 stories tall and isn't even close to being the tallest building in downtown Bellevue. The Westin hotel occupies the first 19 floors of a 42-story building and there are a bunch more tall building as well.

I'm only on the fourth floor, but the building is on a slight hill and gives me a nice view of Mt. Rainier. There are plenty of restaurants and lots of shopping here in downtown Bellevue. It definitely has more of an urban feel, which I miss since I moved out of New York City. Downtown Redmond has more of a "sleepier", suburban feel.

My apartment is so new that there are half a dozen unfinished work items including shelves and installation of a microwave oven.

The rent isn't too bad. I only have a studio, but it is a decent size. It has built-in washer and dryer and air conditioning. There weren't many places that had studios when I was looking around, so I would have had to get a one-bedroom apartment and pay more than the brand new studio I got.

I'm going to stick with dial-up Internet access until I pay off a big chunk of my back taxes. That may be another year, but I'm not into all the video and music stuff that forces many people to be dependent on broadband.

-- Jack Krupansky

2 Comments:

At 12:13 AM EDT , Anonymous Anonymous said...

>>> "I'm going to stick with dial-up Internet access until I pay off a big chunk of my back taxes."

Jack, what are you thinking? A broadband 'net connection is going to cost you $50 a month - what are you going to say to The Boss when he asks you to work from home one night via Terminal Server on an important project that Bill and Steve want to see in the morning? "Sorry Boss, I only have dial-up"? Are you nuts?

Invest in your future and at least get yourself wired-up. You are _not_ that broke.

 
At 1:41 AM EDT , Anonymous Anonymous said...

We'll see!

Besides, my personal preference is to work at work where I have all the resources at my finger-tips anyway.

I invest in my future by spending a few more hours a day at work on "normal" work days working at a sane pace. I think that will pay off a lot more in the long-run than "investing in the illusion that working from home is a productive thing to do.

Sometimes I go through phases where working from home is preferable, but other times, like now, working in a high-productivity office makes a lot more sense, for me.

A lot of people work from home either because they have families to attend to or because they like to work before they get dressed or after they've relaxed a bit in the evening, or maybe simply because they find the office environment too noisy or distracting.

Someday even I will have broadband, but I can't justify it economically at this point in time.

Instead of "investing" in broadband, I've decided to "invest" that $50 in... monthly maid service. Now there's a real productivity improvement!

Besides, didn't you hear... BillG is on his way out the door, phasing to part-time over the next two years.

If Steve, et al were really anxious for some big project in the morning, I assure you that I would most certainly choose to camp out in the office even if I had maximum broadband at home.

For now, I'm such a low-level cog in the big machine that hardly anybody even knows that I exist.

And finally, I really do intend to pay off enough of those back taxes that I can cut more than enough of my monthly tax payments to afford both broadband and maid service within a year if not by the end of the year. But for now, my money goes to pay for services that maximize my productivity.

At this very moment, as I type these words, broadboad would have absolutely zero added value since the comm link is (or *should* be) essentially completely idle.

In any case, you are wise to caution me not to be "penny wise and pound foolish".

-- Jack Krupansky

 

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home