Remember when I said I was moving to Hoboken? Well, scratch that. The place that I was going to rent was rented out from under the realtor I made the agreement with. As you can guess, this ruined my Wednesday night. In fact, I was so pissed that I up and skipped the RANA show I was on my way to see when I found out and instead went home to plan out another list of targets to hunt.

My Thursday search has left me with three potential options in Weehawken, Union City and the Fort Lee area. The variations in quality, neighborhood and cost for each has sent me into a endless looping question: which to choose. I don’t want to rush into this and wind up being locked into the wrong place for a year, but the flip-side to that is that these places could be gone by the time I come to terms.

Well, I’ll mull it over for a while longer and come to some kind of decision — take one of the three or extend the search another week or two to find that just right apartment that might not exist. For now I’ll just worry about having a Happy Birthday and psych myself up to see Sound Tribe Sector Nine tonight.

Well, it’s been nearly three years since I began working in the city (save those few months of working from home). It’s been nearly as long since I began threatening a move closer to New York city. I said the commute would soon be a thing of the past more times than I can count. Well, that’s all changing.

The threat is no longer empty. I’m moving to Hoboken.

Thanks to Brownstone Reality I am soon to be the proud renter of a cozy studio apartment in the northernmost reaches of the city. It’s not much bigger than the room I’m living out of now, but there’s actual parking to be found in the area, the place in in good shape, the neighborhood seemed quiet enough and the capper is that I can see across the Hudson to the New York skyline.

All this and I can afford it too!

The actual apartment aside for a moment, this is going to be a major boon to my quality of life as well. The city I’m moving to has a vibrant night life and my commute to work will now be in the range of 30 to 45 minutes at worst, instead of the two hours plus that I’ve been dragging around my neck for low these many years.

The coming days will be full of calls to utility companies, changing current billing info to my sister’s name (she’s and her fiance are buying out my stake in the condo I’m leaving behind) and getting what few new accounts I need for my new place set up. Having utilities covered in the rent is going to help out quite a bit, and the fact that I’m ditching my land line phone altogether will be another bit of added savings.

And what to do with all that extra me time I’ll be getting back? Yoga? Karate? Drum lessons (again)? The possibilities are infinitesimal, and I’m drooling at the very though. By this time next month those questions will begin to be answered.

These are very exciting times. Exciting times indeed.

(Aside: For those in the know, have a happy “holiday” today. One way or another, I know I sure will. ^_^)

And so it begins. With a few addresses and a fire under my ass I headed out through the unfamiliar landscape of north Jersey in search of affordable living accommodations. The hunt has officially begun. Tally-ho!

I crashed at my cousin Erin’s in Weehawken the night before, which gave me a great leg up on my hunt, though all that extra time I thought I was gaining really didn’t scale up that well — the first appointment I had was at 2pm, and there I was waking up at 9:30. What to do with all that extra time?

Well, Erin had let me play on her new G5 setup (with full cinema screen too — drool!) and I did a lot of playing with Soundtrack. With all that horsepower at my command I was able to quickly craft together a composition that I’m not embarrassed to publish. You can check it out in the newly minted music section.

Back to the main thread. I did a lot of driving around today, taking as many back roads as possible to get a feel for the area I want to move to. For so long the only parts of Hoboken, Jersey City and the surrounding area I even saw was what could viewed from the Turnpike or the window of a Train. There were good stretches, there were bad stretches and there was unbelievably spectacular spots that are probably out of my price range. I got lost more than once, but that was also part of the plan — you find some of the best vistas when you just don’t give a damn where you’re driving to.

I saw a total of three apartments today, all centered around Jersey City. Nothing worth my interest yet. My next scheduled appointment in Monday after work in Hoboken. I’m slightly more optimistic about that one, but these are just the first steps in a long journey. Still, by the time Summer gets here I should be up and up out of Brick and chilling somewhere in my own place.

Nice.

My drive back to the old home was also full of interest. I made a close up inspection of the new Victory Bridge going up over the Raratin River and it’s much larger than the one I see from the train bridge every morning. Larger still was my disbelief that some asshole driving aggressively on the Parkway didn’t obliterate his car of take out a dozen or so other drivers when he lost control and spun his car across 4 lanes of traffic, going from the furthest left lane all the way over to the shoulder — a direct result of the two lane pass he was attempting as he cut and weaved through traffic. It didn’t slow him down too much though, as he jumped right back on the gas and put some distance between the people he almost hit. I think these are the kinds of people that the cops want reported when they put up that “Aggressive Driver” cell phone hotline.

I was just thankful I was far enough back that if anything did happen I was only going to be a witness and not a participant. Two accidents in a month would have been just too much to deal with.