In Barack Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope, he uses the DMV (or whatever local variant he said) as an example of why people generally feel that the government isn’t really working for them. Today has left me inclined to agree with him.

Today Jessi and I headed over to the Massachusetts RMV to (finally) get around to changing our license over to Massachusetts ones. A process that I’m sure you know was loads of fun.

The first obstacle to converting our California and Illinois licenses to Massachusetts ones was one of location. There is no RMV office in Somerville. The closest one is in Cambridge, annoyingly enough at the Cambridgeside Galleria which is on the Green Line, not the Red Line. Of course, that doesn’t really matter, because that location doesn’t let you convert an out of state license. So we had to go into the Boston location, which is on the Orange Line at the Chinatown stop.

Once we got there, which took 30-45 minutes, we headed inside and found ourselves at the ‘Greeter Desk’. This isn’t something that I’ve encountered during my previous experiences with the California DMV, but I think it’s actually a pretty good idea. Rather than forcing us to figure out which part of the building we need to go to and which line we need to stand in and which form we need to fill out, we simply told the greeter what we were there for, she handed us the appropriate forms, gave us each a number for the appropriate line, and directed us to the third floor.

It was at this point that we realized we had forgotten to bring any of the documentation needed: a passport or social security card, proof of date of birth, proof of signature, and proof of Massachusetts registry. We didn’t have anywhere to be just then, so we got back on the T, came home, got the documents, went back to the RMV, got new numbers, and got back in line.

At this point it was about 2:30. Jessi had a 3:30 appointment, which fortunately was nearby. So we waited in line. And waited. And waited. And then Jessi had to go to her appointment before her number got called. So I stayed, and 15 minutes later my number was called.

I went up and gave the woman behind the desk my form. Had my picture taken. Then gave her my supporting documentation. Only to discover that I didn’t have all the supporting documentation needed. I had my passport, I had my old license, and I had a bank statement. By any reasonable standard, this should be enough. The passport proves that I am who I say I am. It proves my birth date. It proves my signature. My old license also proves my birth date and my signature. And my bank statement proves my Massachusetts residency. But no, that’s not good enough. Apparently each document can only be used for a single purpose. You need separate documents for each of: passport (why?), date of birth, signature, and residency. This is just completely ridiculous. Why is my passport, a federally issued document intended to prove my US citizenship, identity, date of birth, and signature, not count as proving my date of birth and signature to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts? And why can a single document not prove more than one thing, especially when it’s specifically designed by the federal government—and recognized by state governments in other capacities I might add—to prove those very things?

and I’m still continually finding things that make me like it here even more.

Moving to Boston from San Francisco, I was a little worried that I’d be giving up the amazing variety and quality of food that was available to me. I was particularly concerned about Mexican food. Fortunately, it didn’t take long for Jessi to introduce me to Anna’s Taqueria, a burrito joint that makes burritos almost identical to those at Gordo Taqueria, my favorite burrito place in San Francisco (and it’s been said that the owners are related, certainly their menus are). I won’t say that it was a condition of choosing this condo, but the fact that there’s an Anna’s right down the street from us certainly made this location a little more amenable to me. Then, after we moved here, we discovered Tacos Lupita, a Salvadorean restaurant that’s also within easy walking distance of our condo and which serves absolutely amazing food (though not quite Mexican).

I’ve since put together a rather extensive list of good-sounding restaurants around us to try. One of the places on that list was The Half-Shell which is actually right down the street from us. I’m a huge fan of gyros, and they have a sign advertising their gyros right out front, so I’d been meaning to give them a try for a while. This afternoon I went to get a haircut (Charlie’s Barber Shop is a really good barber shop that’s also right down the street from us) and decided to stop in at Half-Shell and finally give their gyro a try. It was really good, but that’s not the best part. The best part, is that they serve gyro pizza.

I first had gyro pizza while I was a student at Carleton College in Minnesota. I was immediately a fan. Sadly, I’d never, until now, found a place that serves it outside of Minnesota. One of the reasons I was looking for a place around here that has good gyro is so I could try and get them to make me a gyro pizza for me. But now, my search is over. If you’ve never had a gyro pizza before, I highly recommend you head over to Half-Shell and give it a shot. Now that I know there’s one, there’s probably other places around that serve it too, I’ll have to try and put together a list, because I’m definitely going to be insisting that all my friends in the Boston area give it a try.

I started this blog largely with the intention of it being a marketing tool for my business(es). Well, that’s what I said anyway. In reality, I didn’t have much of an idea of what that meant. I’d spent enough time in the worlds of technology and public relations to know that blogs were a big deal and could make a huge difference when it comes to marketing yourself. But as I’d always been solely on the technology side of things I discovered that, while I had learned a lot about what to do to market myself, build my brand, &c, I didn’t really know anything about how to do it. Fortunately that’s never really stopped me from doing anything before, and I’ve found that I learn the best by doing anyway. So I just created this blog and started writing my story in my own way like the stubborn individualist that I am.

And I’ve certainly learned a few things in the process. For one, when I started out I didn’t really have any idea of what sort of things I should be writing in order to make my blog as effective a marketing tool as possible. I also didn’t know in what ways my blog would drive or be driven by my efforts to grow my business. I started out writing pretty much only about things that were directly relevant to this blog: the process of essentially starting over from scratch in a new city with nothing but my wits, my skills, and Jessi to keep me alive. This was actually surprisingly successful. Within weeks of starting this blog I had already started to build a reader base rather than just having a few people randomly stumble onto this site through technorati. I like to attribute this to the fact that the basic story-line of my life since then has been fairly archetypical, and, I’d like to think, one of the private fantasies of just about everyone who’s grown up in America. Regardless of why, my blog has been pretty successful; my daily hits are measured in the thousands and I currently have around 30 subscribers. But a successful blog does not a marketing strategy make.

I suppose that my original, and somewhat far-fetched, strategy was that I’d start writing my blog about what I was doing, people who were interested in my services would find it, and I would suddenly have business coming out my ears. Clearly I was being a bit idealistic, as that strategy has an underwear-gnome-sized gap: how do people who are interested in my services find it and why do they bother reading it? Fortunately, I had actually already solved that problem before I had even realized that it was a problem. Whenever I post an ad on Craigslist, or respond to a Craigslist ad, or send an email to anyone about anything, or post on a message board, or do just about anything online, I also make sure that there’s a link to my blog in my signature or profile, or whatever. My blog address in the contact info on my resume, and a permanent fixture of my business cards, and I always make sure to fill out the ‘website’ field when commenting on other blogs. So without even thinking about it I can ensure that anyone I contact, no matter how large or small their interest in my business, can easily find my blog and read it. And that, I’ve discovered has really been the key.

I’ve never had anyone call me or email me because they found me through my blog and wanted me to do a job, but nevertheless this blog has most definitely been a useful tool in my business for the simple fact that it’s a distinguisher. There have been several situations where a new client has told me that they had gotten several bids they were considering, but after reading my blog they knew that I was the one they wanted to hire. That, to me, seems to be the best indication that I could get that my blog is fulfilling the purpose I laid out for it. It also, I think, carries with it an important lesson. It tells me that it’s not actually all that important that this blog be about my business or that I restrict my posts to the things I’m doing business-wise. What’s important is that I express myself clearly and accessibly so that when a potential client is comparing me one of my competitors and clicks the link to my blog, they’ll feel that they’ve gotten to know me a little bit and learn a little about who I am beyond the dry facts and numbers in my proposal or the list of experience and awards in my resume. And that, I suppose, is the whole point of public relations to begin with.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you may remember that shortly after I moved into the apartment in Central Square that we were living in previously there was a shooting right across the street. One of the reasons Jessi and I were so eager to move out of that apartment and into our new place in Porter Square was because the apartment was in a fairly high crime area. While Porter Square is certainly safer and has less crime than Central Square, we’re not completely free of crime here, sadly.

Our condo is the top floor of a triple-decker. The other night, someone broke into the first floor unit in our building. Apparently they broke a lock on one of the windows to get in, took whatever they took, and then just waltzed out the back door (actually, I imagine they probably snuck more than they waltzed, but waltzing is just so much more poetic). I’m not sure, but it may have been the same incident reported on The Bachelor in Porter Square: Crime in Porter Square. Sadly our first floor neighbor had taken his dog to work with him that day, or this probably wouldn’t have happened. What makes it a little scary, however, is that at the time of the break-in the woman who lives on the second floor was in the shower (she heard the thieves talking in the back stairwell when she got out). I was also home, on the third floor, but was busy working and didn’t hear a thing sadly.

There are, of course, a lot of easy things we can do to prevent this from happening again. First, we can replace the locks on the first floor windows and doors with better ones. Second (and this is something we want to do anyway) we can put better lights at the front and back doors, and put them on motion sensors. Despite this one incident, I don’t really think an alarm is necessary, but it’s also always an option. We could also get some NRA stickers to put on the windows (and I, for one, wouldn’t mind backing those stickers up with fact).

As you may remember if you’ve been reading my blog for a while, I’m currently using Bank of America for my banking, but, as they’ve really pissed me off, I want to switch. I’ve basically narrowed the choices of alternative banks to Wainwright Bank and Leader Bank, both of which have a lot going for them. However there are still some issues that leave me questioning whether or not I really want to go with either of these banks:

• Neither Leader nor Wainwright have a branch in Porter Sq. They both have branches in Central, and Wainwright also has a branch in Davis, so it’s not a huge hassle, but it’s still an inconvenience if I need to go in for something.
• Another issue is the lack of ATMs. Obviously neither Wainwright nor Leader are huge banks that can afford to have an ATM on every corner like Bank of America, Sovereign, and Citizen’s are (around here anyway). They are, however, both on the SUM ATM network, which means I’d be able to use any SUM ATM without worrying about fees. There is, fortunately, a SUM ATM in Porter Sq. (Cambridge Savings Bank has a branch here and they’re also on the SUM network), and I know of a few others, but I’m concerned about whether or not there are enough of them to actually make it worthwhile. I don’t want to be having to pay fees all the time because I can’t find any SUM ATMs.
• The last issue is with online banking. Bank of America really does have fantastic online banking, and I’ve grown very used to having the features that they offer. I’m sure most other banks will have most of the same features (Wells Fargo did), but there’s one feature in particular that I really like and am not too fond of the idea of giving up. That feature is e-Bills. The e-Bills program, if you don’t know, let’s you arrange to have your bills come directly to your Bank of America online banking page. You get an email alert letting you know a bill has arrived, and when you log in it shows you the bills that have come in, your balance, the minimum payment, and the due date. You can then schedule you’re payment directly from the page. It’s an incredibly convenient system, and I quite like having it. Losing it wouldn’t be a deal breaker, of course, but losing it on top of less convenient ATMs and locations makes things a little more questionable.

Now that the whole mortgage thing is taken care of I’ll be doing more research into the matter. Hopefully it will turn out that my fears are unfounded and there are plenty of SUM ATMs around Boston to keep me happy. And, if I’m really lucky, one or both of Wainwright and Leader will have the e-Bill system or something similar to it.

I’m sure I’m not the only one to have noticed that jobs/projects never seem to come one at a time. They’re like the velociraptors in Jurassic Park: when you stumble upon one out in the jungle somewhere, you can be sure there’s more of them flanking you in the bushes just waiting to jump out and disembowel you. Only less bloody. Unless you’re a hit man or mercenary or something I suppose… Anyway, my point is that it seems to be a Law of Business that you can never be only doing one thing at a time.

This law even seems to apply to freelancing. Having finished off some projects and being left with a little free time, the leads on new work were coming in slowly recently. Then, all of a sudden, a nice juicy lead pops up out of nowhere in the wilds of Craigslist. Had I thought of my dinosaur simile earlier, I wouldn’t have been so surprised when, within a day, two more had surfaced. And this at a time when some of my side projects are starting to ramp up as well. Fortunately, unlike a velociraptor attack, this is good news. I was lucky enough to have a nice quiet period in terms of work while Jessi and I were moving into our new condo, and now that we’re mostly finished with that I’ve got what’s starting to look as though it may be a glut of work to help us start saving for the remodeled kitchen in our future. It’s a good thing it didn’t work out the other way around or I’d probably be pretty miserable right now.

So anyway, it looks like I’ve got some choice new projects coming up. There are, as usual, a few web things to do, but the biggest thing of note is that I may be taking steps towards pushing my consulting business in a new and exciting direction: IT strategy consulting. At my previous job in San Francisco I was used to filling pretty much every rung in the IT ladder. I did everything from helping people format their Word docs to designing the IT infrastructure for a new office and spending tens of thousands of dollars to contract for its implementation. So though I’ve been focusing more on the support and implementation roles in the work I’ve done so far, I definitely have some experience in doing more. I’ve now got a chance to do just that and hopefully establish myself a little further up that ladder. This has always been part of my plan, though I expected it to take a little longer to actually find an opportunity to try and move into that space.

Hopefully this will also provide the opportunity (and income) to take another step that’s been part of my plan—and of which inklings of impending reality have lately been appearing—hiring employees. I’ve actually been approached in the past about hiring someone on, but never at a time when I could realistically think about doing it. If things go well in the next few weeks/months, I may be able to (need to, even) start thinking about actually doing that. This, of course, would be a huge step in many ways.

And, as I always knew to be the case, the most useful tool in getting to this point has been networking. Advertising will always bring in some work, but if you want to be proactive about it, there’s no better way to go about it than to just get out there and meet people. Of course to do that you need to know where to go to meet the the sort of people that are actually likely to buy what you’re selling. Fortunately, I just the other day met Mark Doerschlag who runs MarksGuide.com, a site dedicated to networking and networking events in Boston. He’s pointed me towards a couple different events that I’ll be checking out in the near future, including the web innovators group of Boston (which is, in name at least, quite reminiscent of the SFWIN events I often attended while I was in San Francisco (doesn’t look like they’re actually related though). So with luck this will help accelerate things even further.

In other news, this weekend marks my favorite event in the sporting year: the opening matches of the RBS 6 Nations rugby tournament. Making it an even better thing, now that I’m in Boston instead of San Francisco the first match of the day starts at 8:30 am instead of 5:30 am, so there’s a change I might even wake up and drag myself down to the Phoenix Landing to watch it live (something I haven’t been able to do since 2004 when I spent a week and a half in London)! So five of the next eight weekends should find me at the Phoenix, hopefully not surrounded by rabid Ireland fans who won’t much appreciate my (much needed, but sadly not very effective) cheering of Scotland. At least Scotland are playing England on Saturday, so the Ireland fans will be on my side for that match…

All in all, it appears that good things are ahead (as behind).

Yesterday I got a package from Verizon with our new DSL modem. Today our DSL gets turned on. Actually, it’s already turned on, we just can’t use it. Why? Because we don’t know our phone number.

Since the line wasn’t active when we moved in and we didn’t bother getting phone service (What’s the point when we both have cell phones?), we have no idea what the phone number—or dedicated data line number as the case may be—actually is. According to the Verizon DSL activation page, the only web page we can get to with our DSL right now, we should have gotten the number when we ordered our service. But we didn’t. Nor was the number anywhere to be found on any of the documents that came in the package with the modem.

This seems like a bit of an oversight on Verizon’s part. I guess I’ll just have to call Verizon and see if I can get it from them that way. So I guess it’s off to touch-tone menu land for me…

Having just moved into our new condo, Jessi and I didn’t really know what we were supposed to do with our trash, and we haven’t really had a chance yet to meet our neighbors and ask them about it either.

Fortunately, I was lucky enough to have the misfortune of losing my internet access yesterday morning (still stealing from a neighbor until Friday) and so I was leaving the house early enough to notice that everyone had their trash cans out with trash in them. So I ran back upstairs and brought down our garbage just in time to see the garbage truck come around the corner to pick it up. That, I figured, was that. Trash day is on Tuesday.

Imagine my surprise when this morning I not only see a garbage truck coming down the street again, but, soon after, another one follows! Three garbage trucks in two days? What is the city of Somerville spending my tax money on? I suppose it may have had something to do with the fact that we’re literally right on the line between Cambridge and Somerville (the other side of the street is in Cambridge), but I still don’t see how that necessitates three garbage trucks.

Oh well. To paraphrase Lord Alfred Tennyson, ours is not to reason why.

As I mentioned in my last post I’ve just discovered Foodler.com. Foodler is basically a website that lets your order directly from local restaurants for pickup or delivery. This is hardly a new idea, I used to do it all the time with Food.com back before it became the Food Network’s website, but, despite the lack of novelty, I was still very impressed by Foodler.

It not only does what you’d expect it to do, but it does it very well. It’s all AJAXy, so the pages are dynamic and very smooth to use. But I think my favorite thing about it is that once you register an account and give it your address, it greets you with a list of places that will deliver to your address and are open. The main page shows you three categories: Open and delivering, Open for takeout, and Closed restaurants. This was an incredibly useful feature the other night when Jessi and I were trying to find a place that would deliver to our new condo at midnight. Once we put our address in it narrowed down the selections only to places that would deliver to our specific address (fewer than to our zip code) as well as to the places that were still open (there were about three total).

It also provides ratings, so we were able to easily choose between the two Chinese places that were available. The ratings appear to be pretty accurate, because the one we went with, Happy Garden was fantastic. Their service was quick, their prices were good, and their food was definitely the best I’ve had on the East Coast, and possibly the best I’ve had outside of China. For anyone in the Somerville area, I highly recommend you try it out. And if you’re too lazy/busy to go there, just order your dinner online with Foodler. You won’t be disappointed.

Even though we officially started owning our new condo (and had the keys) last Friday, since I was away that weekend the plan has been to move in this coming weekend. Instead, I decided to surprise Jessi by moving the essentials (read: bed and Pigpen) yesterday so she could come home from work to our new condo. So, last night was our first night in our new home (where I’m also writing this post, stealing wi-fi from a neighbor). We also had our first dinner in our new dining room. Though, as the dining room table is still at the apartment, we had a ‘picnic’ dinner on a blanket on the floor, and, since all the pots and pans and food are also still at the apartment, we ordered Chinese through Foodler (which I’ll definitely be writing about).

I have to say, it’s a nice feeling to wake up in a place that’s your own. There’s still a lot to be done (Currently the only furniture we have here is the bed, a lawn chair that was on the deck when we moved in, and a tv dinner tray that Jessi brought over when she was doing some painting last weekend. The chair and tray are currently serving as my ‘desk’.), but it feels good to finally be in our own place. If I have time, I’ll probably bring some more stuff over today (last night we packed up suitcases full of clothes, so I’ll probably empty them, go back, and refill them), but the bulk of the work will be tomorrow when we’ll be bringing the remaining furniture over in a U-Haul and starting to actually make this place feel homey.

One other thing that we need to get done is internet. The essential utilities are already taken care of, but I don’t really want to keep stealing my internet access from an unknown neighbor. The choices, basically, are Verizon DSL or Comcast cable. Eventually I want to be using Verizon FiOS, but it’s not available here yet. In the meantime, I think we’ll probably go with Verizon DSL. It’s not as fast as cable—assuming we go with the cheaper option—and it’s significantly cheaper at around $25/mo for a 768 Kb connection or $35 for a 3 Mb connection (w/ ‘dry-loop’ activation which means we don’t also need to pay to activate a phone line we don’t really need or want) as opposed to $60 w/o cable tv or $45 w/ cable tv that we don’t really want (odd pricing structure, that). Jessi has left the Internet in my hands, so I just need to decide if it’s worth $10/mo for an extra 2.25 Mb/sec. It probably is.

I’ll probably be taking a ton of pictures, and have all sorts of more specific things I want to write about over the next couple of weeks, so look forward to that. (I insist!) For now, I think I’ll say that’s it for blogging this morning.