I’m sitting at a desk in a hotel room high above a city which used to be mine (and vice-versa) but no longer is. I’m far enough removed now that the things which haven’t changed are more jarring than those that have. This is a new experience for me and I find it surprisingly pleasant. Most of the change is for the better, even if means I probably would have been priced out of my old neighborhoods had I stayed here.
It’s another rainy morning in the middle of an unusually rainy Spring. It’s a good day for staying inside, which is exactly what we intend to do We have one event to attend this weekend and the rest of the time is probably going to be spent in or around this lovely old hotel overlooking downtown. I’ve set time aside for some rather unambitious but nonetheless satisfying tasks:
1) Re-organize the phone: I use an Android phone with the Aviate launcher*. The launcher does a really nice job of organizing and cleaning up the Android interface, but it’s a little too aggressive in its attempts to guess which apps I’ll find useful They’ve finally added the ability to make custom folders (“collections”), so I can go in and separate my work-related apps from the ones I use everywhere else. I’ve been meaning to do this for a long time and I feel better than I probably deserve for getting it sorted.
2) Spend a little undistracted time with my blogs and reading other ones. I’m not in a place right which affords me the luxury of dedicated home workspace, so I’m enjoying the opportunity to hole up in hotel room and not have all of my day to day chores staring at me when I’m trying to get a little reading done. I could easily get used to this. In fairness, I suspect anyone could get used to this.
3) Re-organize my workspace at home to make it as much like this as possible Method to madness! I want to spend a couple of days away, figure out what I like about this environment, and then bring as much of it home with me as I can. I’m not quite sure how yet. It’s going to involve some serious cleaning, which isn’t exactly my strong suit, but beyond that? Creating an isolation chamber within a small, one bedroom apartment shared by the two of us is going to be a challenge
Number one has been crossed off the list, we’re working on number two as we speak. Number three will have to wait until we get home.
I don’t travel very often, so I forget how much of a difference a few hundred miles can make. It’s like changing the angle on a photograph by a few degrees and getting a completely different perspective Remind me to do this more often.
RK
* I would have linked PC Mag’s review of the app but their site has become such an unspeakable horror of “how not to do web design” that I would have felt guilty had anyone actually clicked on the link.