I don’t write much about my personal life here anymore, so I haven’t said much about the fact that my wife and I bought a house earlier this year. It was, by far, the most stressful and demeaning process I’ve ever experienced—lenders are really all about making anyone who pulls down less than $250K/year feel like useless garbage these days, and we fall well short of that mark. Thankfully, once we made it past the actual closing, it’s been great… if admittedly somewhat stressful from the fact that the add-on costs make it a lot more expensive than renting was.

The bank account pain has been worth the tradeoff, though. It’s a great place in a great neighborhood. I’m sure I’ve bored 18,000 people to tears with my Twitter photos of the view from our tiny balcony, but it’s so darned serene that I just can’t help it. Also, I usually post the pictures in the evening, when I’m unwinding after work with a glass of wine or a cocktail, so my judgment is slightly impaired. I’m still a lightweight when it comes to liquor.

Anyway! We moved in to our home at the end of February, and I promptly went about traveling for work every other week for the next six months. It’s been tough to really feel at home when my life status all year has been either Traveling, Preparing to Travel, or Catching Up With Work After Traveling.  Only now, for the first time since we took possession of the place, am I in the midst of an unprecedented seven-week period of not having to leave town, so I’m finally settling.

Much of this process involves unpacking dozens of boxes full of things I sealed up when we left San Francisco more than two years ago and haven’t seen since. I had forgotten how many interesting things I had stored away! I’m getting rid of a lot of them, because even though we have three times the space as we did in our San Francisco apartment, I’m tired of clutter. I’ve accumulated a lot of media (books, CDs, movies, games) over the past 25 years, and it’s got to go. Well, some of it. But, not before I write about the highlights here.