Staci pointed out the other day that I hadn’t posted in a while, so what do I do? I wait to post even longer. Not on purpose, I just kept finding other things to do:
- work
- play tour guide to our first visitors, Andre and Amber
- stay up ridiculously late so I can watch the Yankees lose to Cleveland in the baseball playoffs live
- not leave the apartment for days on end
- play with my new iPhone (no, that’s not a euphemism)
1. So this month work finally picked up, which is good, because it gets hard keeping myself occupied sometimes. I have personal projects to work on, but I was getting a little burnt out on the one I’ve been developing lately, so work was a nice change of pace.
2. Some friends of mine came to Amsterdam and Brussels for a couple of weeks for vacation, and while they were in Amsterdam I got to hang out with them for a couple of days. Andre is the creator and administrator of an online community I’m a part of, and Amber is his soon to be wife, who is perhaps one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. I had a really enjoyable time crashing their vacation. It’s too I didn’t think about dragging them down to Amstelveen for a tour of the suburbs. Actually, it’s probably a good thing. 
3. Games were being shown live here, which means they started at ~2:00A. One night I was up until ~6:15A. I don’t think my body is as easily prepared for such late bed times. (I don’t want to talk any about the games. They weren’t interesting.)
4. I seem to be going through stretches where I don’t leave the apartment for 5-6 days at a time. When you work at home, it’s kind of an occupational hazard. Fortunately, trips to the grocery store to mingle with the old ladies and watching them participate in their national sport: Sudden stops in busy walkways. Doesn’t matter where you are, grocery store, mall, train station, airport. They’ll be walking along and then BOOM! dead stop. This country is full of potential Hall-of-Famers and World Champions.
5. My new iPhone. Jon & I both got one. They’re not available in Europe for a couple more weeks, and haven’t been planned to be released in Holland or Belgum, and they’re going to cost way more than back in the U.S. even with the cost of over-night delivery, so last Friday I had my friend Andrew if he would be willing to go pick up two iPhones and ship them to us. Andrew, being a like-minded geek like Jon & I, gladly said yes and went that morning and picked them up, then took the time on his lunch break to ship them. (I can’t thank you enough, Andrew. Lunch on Jon & I when we’re home in December for Xmas.) After the an extremely long weekend, the package arrived Monday morning. Needless to say the rest of the day was pretty much shot while I played with my new toy.
Now some of you may be wondering (though not likely): If the iPhone isn’t available in Europe yet, and it’s not going to be any time soon in Holland or Belgium, and they’re locked to specific carriers (AT&T in the U.S., for example,) how are you going to use it in Europe without signing up for AT&T and incurring huge phone bills? Well, that’s what I was doing on Monday: unlocking the phone so I can use any carrier that uses SIMs, and putting 3rd party software on the phone so it has way more cool features. I won’t go into details, mostly because the process is long and boring and already spelled out in great detail on the Internet, but I have to say, I LOVE my iPhone. It’s just such a slick device. iPod and phone all in one. Aside from having less space than a traditional iPod Classic or the iPod Touch, it’s so worth it. (Thanks, Andre for having one and bringing it with you while on vacation and letting me see it in action.)
So that’s what I’ve been up to for the month of October. I’m positive there will be more posts from me in November. It’s stacking up to be a busy month. We’re heading to London for a weekend, going to see Silversun Pickups and Kaiser Chiefs in Antwerp, Belgium with Jon & CJ, Ohio State plays Michigan and Thanksgiving. Stay tuned!