Rocket Silence » Personal

Election Day, 2008

Carlos — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 17:55:14 +0000

For the first time in a long while, I’m excited and hopeful for the future of this nation. Join me in fulfilling our civic duty.

Back from SF, catching up.

Carlos — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 06:59:42 +0000

Photo Credit: randomtruth on Flickr – used under CC license

Well, after three weeks, I’m back in Santa Barbara and have returned to UCSB just in time for two back-to-back midterms and a paper due on Thursday. The time in San Francisco was fun, but I’m glad to be home. While there, I registered as a communist, bought a Prius and was forced to marry Clay Aiken – I guess there’s some new law? In all seriousness, I saw more people wearing Barack Obama shirts in five minutes downtown than I have in Santa Barbara in the past twenty months. I’ll add a few photos to Flickr when I have a spare moment and sort out all the things I’m behind on.

Posting should return with some semblance of regularity later on this week.

In San Francisco, VCs – Call Me.

Carlos — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 06:36:46 +0000

For those wondering about my whereabouts recently, I’ve been in San Francisco and its surrounding areas for the past week. I’ll be here for at least another week and a half for obligations I couldn’t get out of or complete closer to home. Keeping up with school work remotely isn’t too difficult and I, luckily, am keeping up with the reading and notes for my other courses. On the upside, I’m wandering around a city I haven’t been to in many years and am enjoying the cooler weather. It’s an opportunity to be in a place with some history and places to see, although there hasn’t been much time for that just yet. On the plus side, I have only been accosted by two hippies, but I escaped with my political ideologies and virtue intact. I’ve posted a few photos to Flickr and I plan to take a few more at more scenic locations before I head back to Santa Barbara. So, I just wanted to update on why posting has been infrequent as of late and why I might be harder to reach. The Flickr set is embedded below, if you can’t see it, click onto the static set.

Home is where all my stuff is.

Carlos — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 08:08:53 +0000

Tomorrow morning, I will finally be moving into my first apartment and I’m sure it will be interesting to say the least (read: everything that can go wrong will go wrong). I sent in my application for the property back in March and signed the lease in April. It’s a bit under a mile away from campus which is less than ideal but it’s far enough out in the small college town of Isla Vista that it will at least be quiet; something that was my greatest concern. Over the first week of summer that I spent back at home, I’ve done a bit of planning to make the move-in process go smoothly as well as the first few weeks of living there.

Most of the items for apartment have been ordered from Amazon.com (thank God for Prime) since it’s tax-free in California and there was a vast selection of items. The furniture is coming from people I find on Craigslist (thus far, I’ve secured a kitchen table with charis, a couch and a coffee table); I don’t expect to find all the items I need on day one – I’m fine with sleeping on a couch until I find a nice bed for sale. One of the biggest benefits for me, however, is that I’ll no longer be using the awful ResNet service offered in the residence halls at UCSB. I’ve signed up for a 15Mb down, 1Mb up connection from the local cable company and I hope that works out.

My biggest concern is how I’ll make it ‘home’ since I expect to live there for at least a year, most likely two. I asked about the whole move-in process and personalizing an apartment on MetaFilter and received a variety of great responses. The general consensus seems to dictate that lighting, scents, wall decorations, plants, and colors make the biggest impact. I’m limited in how much I can really change about it; I’m prohibited from painting it which is a bit of a let-down. I’m sure that making this place something that resmebles home will be the most difficult and the most time consuming. Living in the residence halls didn’t afford much room for personalization and as such, my room looked sterile and bland – something I’d like to change this time around.

In a rare trend, I believe this is one of the few things personal endeavors I will publish on the site. I’ll be updating this and posting further with pictures and updates.