A lot's been going on... that's meant in a good way! The most immediate thing is this: it's been decided that I'm moving to California's Bay Area for the Summer! I'm beyond delighted to have made the choice to live in an exciting, promising venue for the second Summer in a row! It's hard to believe that only a year ago I was preparing for my semester in Tokyo... Now, today, I've grabbed opportunity by the throat: this time the focus is on my career, ever-looming the closing horizon, and on expanding my professional and social network before we reach a time where I depend on it; instead of study and Japanese, the idea here is professional development. Even if I need to knock on the doors of one-hundred electrical engineering firms then so be it. My folks were understandably confused; I expect it will raise eyebrows when they tell their friends and distant people that I've just "up-and-left" for the west coast seemingly on a whim. Well: it's hardly whimsical: it's not as if the wind is carrying me there, or as if some friend of a friend got someone he knows to pull a job for me there; no, it's strictly out of my own will to purpose that I've set myself to this; nobody is helping me; I'm out here on my own because I've seen the sun and the steel and I can not take any of it back. I'll be sure to take plenty of pictures! `^-^` In other news, the PSU for spitfire (my desktop, and one of the servers in the server-room) stopped working this weekend. The bearings seem to be shot; I think one could replace them but opening power-supplies is messy business, I'd better not risk shocking myself like that. I moved spitfire's drives over to [shelter](https://shelter.prettyboytellem.com/) and (after a few hours of migration) everything seems to be working fine!
[![Maintainance on Shelter...](https://cdn.prettyboytellem.com/dcim/thumbs/2019/03/shelter-maintainance-thumb.jpg)](https://cdn.prettyboytellem.com/dcim/2019/03/shelter-maintainance.jpg)
Hopefully I can get spitfire running as a desktop; until then he'll have to stay under the bed... I've made it a promise to myself to not use the computer as much as I'm tempted to (mostly so I can pour time into other activities I enjoy) so I have no plans to resurrect him soon. Actually this brings up a good point: I'm actively rejecting my fascination with computers and technology in favor of exploring other pieces of myself and other's reality; the trade is worthwhile only once you realize the consequneces: on the one hand one may stay comfortable forever in one's familiar sphere of knowledge; on the opposite, one may discover new and interesting things; I'm intensely interested in exploring what's in the latter hand; the former is too well-known. --------- I will never understand beds; what are they doing up so high? When I first picked up the SysOp reigns (that'd be about 2 years ago) I one night fell asleep on the floor next to [unison](https://unison.prettyboytellem.com/), whose hard drive platters were noisily being etched with a new operating system. This was such a wonderful feeling that I pulled my mattress off my bed and slept next to it every night for that full week of final exams. That next Fall I hardly slept on my dorm-bed. Rather I'd pull the blankets down every night and sleep, curled up in the warmth of myself, and sleep in such a way on the floor that I feel refreshed and ready to handle almost anything in the morning. People who have been over often comment on the incongruity of having a bed and not sleeping on top of it; yeah, it's a little asymmetric; I should just toss the thing out and spread a 布団, that'd make much more sense. ---------- For some reason I've picked up running; much more than I've ever run before. Actually I have no history of ever running of my own accord but suddenly something's driven me to get out there at least three or four times a week to train myself to run farther and faster than I have before; the only *formal* training I've had was the run-conditioning class I took at the university two years ago; that's reinforcing good form for sure but as for this driving feeling,... I'm not sure from where it's come or where it's driving me but one thing's for sure: I'm feeling a lot better since this feeling's invaded me. I'm glad for that, too; I've been going at it every week since late January. Sometimes I go for PR but most of the time I'm just keeping pace with myself. That's to say nothing of the physical care I've treated myself to: washing my face, shaving, exfoliating. All in the pursuit of something...: but just what is that? Who knows. ----------- I made it a point on Saturday to re-connect with some friends; never forget what they mean to you! Call, text, visit: it's important to do these things when talking about *real* friends, of which a few I hold close.