I’ve been changing my habits as of late. Yes, working full time impacted my sleep schedule even back in 2005 when I started working for NDA, but with this new job have come better additions to my daily routine. Perhaps it’s because this position is far more stimulating than the last, or perhaps I’m just reacting to other forces in my life. Either way, something has changed in the last couple months and I now find myself far more motivated to take care of myself and attempt to live the sort of life I value. I floss now, almost daily. Never in my life has this been the case. I’ve taken to running two miles each morning before work, too, and once we move to Northpark the run will be replaced by a 3.4 mile (each way) bike ride to and from downtown. In fact, all this structure has me feeling like I’m back in junior high school—I sometimes even catch myself thinking about my 7th grade PE teacher as I jog in the morning.

Wake up. Run. Shower. Commute. Work. Lunch. Work. Commute. It’s not so bad, and it makes me value my evenings more. During this time I work on personal projects, cook, go to bars or otherwise do my best to keep busy until bedtime. I feel a lot healthier than I did back in school, and as Duolab’s redesign might indicate, I find myself ticking things off my To Do list more frequently. Not too shabby.

Speaking of 7th grade, that was the year I started wearing boxers. I spent much of the previous grade worrying about changing in front of the other boys, and some nebulous quorum decided that boxers were far more acceptable than briefs. I even remember some of the other kids talking about tighty-whiteys causing low sperm counts when we began dressing down for PE, perhaps to justify the new standard in underwear. Seventh-graders talking about fertility? Kids can be so ridiculous.

After seven whole months, Friday was my last day working at Nissan Design America, and on Monday I start a new job in downtown San Diego. The new position should be a lot more challenging and engaging, but since the company is a lot smaller and less hulkingly corporate it looks like I’ll have to do with fewer perks like free soda/juice/bottled water, luxury office furniture, screamingly fast computers and the like. On the plus side, I’ll be working with web technology less than ten years old and will be part of an agile, competent team instead of having to single-handedly fight clueless bureaucrats day in and day out. I’ll also be a salaried employee (as opposed to contract), and the money is a bit better too. As with Nissan, I’ll refrain from saying anything specific about my work unless I happen to leave the company at some point in the future.

Now that I’m no longer working at NDA I can finally share this little tidbit: only a couple months into the job, my uncle spotted me in the LA Times next to our 2006 concept car, the Urge. The story is here (you’ll need to use BugMeNot), and I’m on the very right in the first photo. Hopefully my pitiful little appearances in the NY Times and LA Times thus far won’t count against the fifteen minutes of fame Warhol says we all get.

Busy busy busy.

Working full time in a really cool environment which I’ll not say much about lest I get dooced. I’ll say this though—waking up at dawn every day to make it in by 8:00 am is pretty tough. I’ve let caffeine back into my diet and I’m not too happy about it.

This past weekend our power was shut down for twelve hours (due to routine maintenance) starting at 11:00 pm on Saturday, so after walking around the abnormally-dark streets with a backpack full of beer, we retired to our unlit house and had a two-on-two nerf war with Abe and Troy. I have a small bruise under my right eye from wrestling Troy down a flight of stairs over a styrofoam dart.

I’m 22 going on 8. Rock on.