26 August 1999: A Palpable Lead

Thursday, 26 August 1999:

A Palpable Lead

Yep, it's been another busy week of gaming. Last night was gaming at Subrata's - I brought over a game I'd only played once before, and we played it and Settlers, and Subrata won both of 'em. Then tonight we played Bridge, starting in the main atrium at Apple, going to Pizzeria Uno's for dinner, then back to Apple until we broke up sometime after 11. Fun. I haven't been to Uno's in quite a while. (Uno's is Chicago-style deep dish pizza, some of the better such pizza I've had. Admittedly, I find deep dish pizza to be markedly inferior to just about any flat pizza to be found in the Boston area.)

My friend Tracy back in Madison says my journal sometimes might as well be titled, "Games I've Played Lately". Which I guess maybe is true. :-)

My boss pointed me to a bulletin board on Apple's internal Web site where someone was advertising a 2-bedroom/1-bath apartment a few blocks from a main street on the peninsula I'd like to live near, and at a cheaper rent than I'm paying now. I contacted the fellow, who is apparently the tenant and moving out in a month or two, and he checked with the landlord and she will allow cats. This sounds too good to be true, and perhaps it is. Given those parameters, the place may be really small, or a dump. Who knows? The fellow is apparently busy most of this weekend, but hopefully I can go see it early next week.

If it works out, it would be a real find. Better luck than I deserve, probably.

A couple of night ago I decided to measure the dimensions of my apartment. When I looked for apartments back in March, many landlords strangely did not know the square footage of the places I looked at. Weird. My current place is a 2 BR/2 Bath. I measured the floor/counter space in all the rooms and closets, and came up with 760 feet. I then measured the dimensions of the apartment if it were approximately a box (which is nearly is) and ot 850 or so feet, which obviously includes walls and such. I guess the former number is more 'official'.

In either case, the number turned out to be smaller than I'd expected. I'd always understood my place in Madison (a 1 BR/1 Bath) to be 750 square feet, and it was just about utterly full. My current place stores all my stuff comfortably with room to grow, so I guess the Madison place must have been more like 600 square feet.

At any rate, knowing that I don't need to find some 1000 or 1200 square foot place makes me feel more confident that I can find a place the right size for me at a not-too-ridiculous price, if I just look.

Michael Rawdon (Contact)