A few days ago (actually, a few weeks ago; holy crap!) I wrote about my wondering if I should move back to the city. Well, I still haven't made up my mind. I have, however (thanks to inspiration from this comment), come up with some alternate solutions.

One option I came up with was to use something like AirBNB to rent a cheap room for the two nights that I'm in Cambridge. I would drive (or take the train) to Cambridge on Wednesday morning, stay overnight somewhere local until Friday, and then drive back to NH Friday evening. This would save me about six hours of commuting and would be a good balance between the advantages and disadvantages I outlined in the earlier post.

However, renting a room twice a week would also mean an additional $320 a month spent on rooming (assuming a $40/night room, which seems to be the cheapest in the area). Even with the $115 I would be saving on gas from not commuting as much, that's still an extra $205 every month. For quite some time now, I've been doing everything I can to save money and cut down on expenses, so spending money on something that really just solves a big inconvenience doesn't seem to make sense.

So I continued thinking of other ways that might be cheaper and still offer the same result. That's when I remembered reading about couch surfing. What is couch surfing? It's exactly what it sounds like (well maybe not exactly): someone offers to let you sleep on their couch (or floor) at no cost! People do it out of the goodness of their hearts (and/or the desire to meet people and/or socialize). The CouchSurfing.org website is the primary resource for couch surfers around the world (including those hosting a couch) and there are over a million registered users, including me!

While I'm couch surfing, I can continue to make up my mind about whether or not to move back to the city and at the same time work on adapting more of a mobile lifestyle. There are no long term (monthly) commitments and I will be saving money (on gas) instead of spending it. Also, one of my 2009 New Years Resolutions was to "improve my social skills", so at the very least couch surfing will help with that!

I'm sure couch surfing will prove to be an interesting experience -- I'll be sure to take notes and write about it. 🙂

Several times a month, I find myself going out of my way to drive by the first house I bought (Cumberland RD), even though it was sold more than six months ago. It's weird. It almost feels as though it hasn't hit me that I no longer own it -- like I still have some sort of responsibility to make sure everything is OK.

I've added an RSS widget to the sidebar of this blog that displays the last five posts on my tech blog, Solid State Raam. If you're not already subscribed to the RSS feed or following @SolidStateRaam on Twitter, you can now see a list of the latest posts when you come here. 🙂

I've been thinking about moving back to the city; Cambridge to be specific. A little more than two years ago, in January of 2007, I moved to Cambridge to be closer to work (the office was a 10 minute walk from the apartment). A year later, in January 2008, I moved to Arlington due to the landlord increasing the rent and because I was getting tired of trying to find a parking spot for my truck and paying so much money for such a small space (~450 sqft).

Then at the end of October 2008, only ten months after moving to Arlington, I decided to move again. The Arlington apartment was very nice; a first floor, two bedroom apartment, with off-street parking, a back yard, and plenty of storage space. For the first time, I had a place that felt like home. But all the space led me to realize how wasteful I was being. I was accumulating so much stuff without realizing it because the huge apartment made it easy to hide stuff. So I began letting go and decided to move back to NH, close to my family where rent was cheaper and outside activities plentiful.

I've been enjoying the outdoor activities in NH, but the long three-hour round trip commute to work has really been getting to me. I'm trying to decide if I should move back to the city, or just tough it out and continue living in NH.

Disadvantages of moving back to the city:

1. No easy access to running trails and forests (there are two huge conservations within 10 minutes of where I'm living in NH!).
2. The air is not as clean (I wrote about this two years ago when I first moved to the city, here and here).
3. The distance from my family means activities with them will be limited to weekends (badminton with my dad, volleyball with my brother-in-law, swimming in the lake at my parents house), and that's only if I decide to even make the trek up there on the weekends.
4. Parking will be difficult.
5. Rent is a lot more expensive, which means I'll probably need to settle with having a roommate.

Advantages of moving back to the city:

1. I'll have more free time, because less time will be spent commuting (I spend about 3 hours commuting on the days I work in Cambridge!).
2. With everything so close, I'll do more walking and biking, which are both a lot healthier than driving.
3. It will be easier to build my IT services business (a greater number of small businesses within 10 - 15 minutes).
4. Public transportation makes moving around the entire city very easy (providing plenty of places to explore in Boston).
5. I tried, but I couldn't come up with a 5th advantageous reason to move back to the city.

There are more things to consider, such as my newly modified work schedule at Aerva (three days a week, instead of five), the higher price of gas making it cheaper to commute via the train (same three-hour round trip commute, but I get to sit down and work or read), and my desire to build my IT services business (building it in the NH area and still commuting to Cambridge makes it more difficult for me to be in two places at once, compared to building it in Cambridge).

I don't usually write posts like this, but I figured writing it would help with my making the decision. And I think I can already feel it helping. I love the outdoors so much and having access to trails and being able to play volleyball or badminton after work with family is really great. Is it worth the increased opportunity for my business and the three hours of commuting I would save by moving to the city? That's what I need to decide.

I've been struggling with trying to find my passion for as long as I can remember (each time I think I've found it I discover an insane disliking of the subject, even if only a temporary disliking). This tweet by EpicSelf really made a lot of sense to me and it got me thinking about ways I can increase my chances of finding it: "How to find your passion: Do lots of stuff. Keep doing the fun stuff."

Over Memorial Day weekend I spent lots of time being active, playing volleyball, badminton, and trail running. It was really great and it flew by too fast. With each passing day, time seems to be ticking away at a faster and faster pace; I can't believe a whole week has passed since my last post! I really meant to post more regularly, honest. It's just that Twitter seems to have replaced my blog as the medium to which I prefer to post short updates. It just doesn't make sense to repeat myself with a blog post.

I played volleyball at my brother-in-law's house today after work and it was a great workout. The muscles in my hands are extremely sore (even my typing coordination is off), but I love it. We're going to try playing as much as possible after work, weather and time permitting.

Imagine living with nothing but the contents of two backpacks. Imagine the freedom that would bring. The places you could go. The simplistic lifestyle you would live. Well Amber Zuckswert has done just that. Traveling the world and living a mobile lifestyle has been a dream of mine for as long as I can remember and Amber's story is amazingly inspirational. She went from working 15-18 hour days and living in San Francisco with a big apartment that was bursting with "stuff", to selling almost everything (including her iPhone!) and moving to Australia with only two backpacks to claim as her own.