Good News Abounds.

Ceiling: Really That Short
Originally uploaded by ispivey.

As you can see to the right, I really wasn't kidding about the height of my ceiling. I'm worried that when Jeff comes to visit, he won't be able to stand (or at least not without dodging the light fixtures).

But wait, wait, even more important: I've replaced my camera. My D70 may be gone, dearly beloved, but its heir apparent (the Nikon D50) is more than fit for its older sibling's shoes. I'm not sure what this says about me, but bringing a new camera home felt like filling a hole in my life that's been extant for a while. Photography is one of my few creative outlets I really feel like I'm any *good* at (though my minor-league photography rehab start has been rough, so far). Most importantly, the new camera is just in time to accompany me to China in ten days.

TEN DAYS. That's pretty soon, and I still don't actually own a guide-book. Thankfully, I have an in-house guide. Needless to say, I'm insanely excited. We leave Monday, spend a few days in Hong Kong, a week and a half in Guangzhou, another day or two in Hong Kong, and then return to New York. I plan on eating staggering amounts of delicious and intimidating food; Aaron VanDevender described Guangzhou as "the Louisiana of China -- everyone else in China thinks they eat ridiculous stuff." And strangely enough, I'm more worried about my camera than about my personal safety. I'm fairly confident I'm twice the size of any would-be muggers, but those Chinese do have such dextrous little fingers...

Sarah and I also attended Elder Weekend at Zeta Psi last weekend, which was quite a lot of fun. I'm glad to have moved on, but I could use more frequent doses of the house; it reminds me what a unique environment MIT is.

But who am I kidding, I get called a douchebag enough the way things are.

New pics on Flickr, expect them to keep rolling. Adios, kids and cadets.

P.S. Made the mistake of digging out my MP3 backup CDs from 1999 and 2000. As a result, my iTunes just randomly started playing 2gether's "The Hardest Part of Breaking Up."
P.P.S. PAPELBON.

Quick Update.

In the end, I did find an apartment (but one between Grammercy and the East Village, not in Harlem). This building is about a century older, and my ceiling isn't much more than seven and a half feet tall. Short as it may be, my apartment is warm, cozy, well-maintained, and only costs about twice as much as I ever imagined paying for a one-bedroom. I have a bed, a desk, a rug, a bookcase, a table, one pot, one pan, an amazing toaster, a matching (borrowed) set of table and chairs, and a fridge stocked with only wine bottles, baking soda, and a Brita pitcher. A very red sofa is on mail-order and due to arrive in a week or two. I'll write more about my efforts to turn house into home, but not now.

I spent three weeks in Australia, a couple weekends in Boston, and one Christmas weekend in Sarasota. Sydney was warm, friendly, and other-worldly (those details will have to wait as well). At the end of May, I'm going to China for two weeks: Honk Kong and Guangzhou. A trip to China has been so long on my "someday, wouldn't it be lovely" list that I'm not sure I'll believe I'm going until I'm there. I do, however, have the tickets. For the fourth of July, I'm hoping to visit family in Oregon.

In the past five months I've worked too much, missed my friends and family, had my camera stolen, and learned much more than I expected. Switching careers is humbling; I no longer know all the answers.

I've considered starting a coffeeshop, a teashop, a flowershop, several different kinds of software companies, an ad agency for podcasters, and a couple of real-estate ventures. I'm too young to know if my itchy feet are just something I need to learn to deal with, or an instinct I should follow.

I went to go see the Mets play the Marlins today, but the game got rained out.

It's good to write again, even if it's simply expository and rather perfunctory. I'll find the funny again soon, I promise. I expect it will arrive when I try to put together my "ready-to-assemble" couch, if not sooner.

A Short Bio.

I'm a computer scientist with entrepreneurial ambitions masquerading as an investment banker in New York. I graduated from MIT in 2005, after which I spent a couple months interning with Prodea, an "inventor capital" firm. I worked for IBM in the Extreme Blue rapid-prototyping program in 2004 and developed methods for helping electric utilities use smart meters and dynamic pricing to prevent power outages. I designed the first iteration of Creative Commons' ccMixter music-sharing service in 2003 with my friend Matt Drake. Before that, I was a software engineer for now-defunct indy music-vending startup Digizaar, a pilot program using micropayment technology. I also worked in MIT labs on telepresence and gene-sequencing projects.

I'm interested in the future of media, privacy in the era of online identity, and the evolving financial services industry. I'm also interested in delicious food, french bulldogs, and photography.

If you'd like to discuss any of the above, feel free to e-mail me at ispivey (at) alum (dot) mit (dot) edu. A detailed resumé is available on request (possibly).

Job? Check. Apartment?

So after all the plane flights and resume-dropping and general stress of job-hunting, I landed a big one. I'm moving to New York to be a "Business Analyst" for Macquarie Holdings, an Australian firm that buys the hell out of companies and stuff. For various reasons, I'm totally stoked: everyone at the company seems really laid-back and fun, I get four weeks of vacation, they're going to send me to Sydney for three weeks for training, and, most importantly, I get to learn how to buy companies. Awesome. I start work on November 14th.

I've been apartment-hunting in Manhattan since Monday, and it's been quite the memorable experience. The low point came yesterday afternoon at a building off Convent Ave in Harlem. In one building the super says (in his Jaime the Science Friend drawl), "Come here, check this out, this one isn't for rent yet, but you gotta see this. Only in the movies, man." And what do I see inside the first bedroom?

All the windows are covered with black paper, there are dim red lights everywhere, and there's some huge S&M rack complete with ropes and rods and scaffolding and shit. The super said when the last tenant moved out, she just left it in there. He has it on eBay (though I couldn't find it in a couple minutes of searching), and says he has offers for more than $3500 already. "You never know who lives next door, man," says the super. Thanks, buddy! Now how the hell do I get out of this building?

I did, however, find a nice apartment at 123rd St & Broadway, just north of Columbia, that I'm going to make an offer on this morning. It's kind of sort of in Harlem, which sounds scary to a white honky from Florida, but I explored the neighborhood last night at around 10PM and never once felt like I was going to get a shiv in the kidneys. There's a bar/restaurant that looks suspiciously like the Miracle of Science, a couple Chinese take-out restaurants, a yuppy-looking Thai restaurant named "Blue Angel", and a convenience store on the corner that sells fancy beers. I did, however, have to spend quite a while reassuring my poor mother that I wouldn't be killed or mugged were I to live there. I think I shouldn't have mentioned the housing projects up the street.