It's shaping up to be a pretty big Autumn. My favorite season to begin with, a time of change, of ripening and harvest, of back-to-school, of warm days and cool nights, outdoor fires and strung up lights. It's the natural time for me to hit the reset button.

And that I have. Over the past two days I've helped clear and clean the Cornell Club and have taken up roost in the easterly-facing upstairs side of Houseku, which is a really nice house (verging on compound) down in the Mission with five other people who all Talk Nerdy living in it. The rent is unspeakable for someone with my class pretensions, but if I can live up to my ideal of utilizing the (awesome) kitchen instead of living off food I pay other people to cook for me, it's almost a wash since I don't have to drop $8 a day on BART.

Anyway, the point is contra my basic theorem of life experience one of the things you can actually do to shake up your life experience is shift your surroundings. That I have done. And hope to follow it up with a shift in routines as well.

The first is the switch away from take-out as a prime source of sustenance. I'm happy to stimulate the economy, but this is textbook BDE (Bad Domestic Economy; contra the progenetor of the Girth: "six dollars for a burrito?! that's just beans, rice and cheese... (shakes head in disgust)") and I get good vibes from cooking, so that's something I should do more.

The second is the acceleration of the ol' metabolism via regular stimulation. Switching to an exclusively bike-based commute is one step, but another feature of Houseku is there's a little outpost gym from the 24-hour-fitness network just up the hill. I think it will suit my needs perfectly: it's small and no-nonsense, and they have some kind of biometric access that will let me get in there with a thumb-print as late as 2am. This means no matter how late I code I can still get sweaty after. This should be good for both psychological and physical health.

The third is the switch in primary work-tracks. Building the Drupal infrastructure of tomorrow tickles my fancy in a way that cranking out websites just honestly doesn't anymore. Plus, looking back at the summer, I've been averaging 66 hours a week on average since June 1st. I actually beat Cheney in total hours logged for the summer. While I fully expect to work hard in the future, dialing back to a more sustainable baseline pace will be a good thing.

So these are all good things. I also plan a little urban renewal on This Old Website: Drupal 7 upgrade and playing with the layout and format a little. I should be making a run North in a couple weeks, Humboldt and Oregon, and — fingers crossed — also back to London later in October.

Should be good times!