Diary of a Network Geek

Or, Why Uncle Jim Is Smart Enough To Self-Edit.
Okay, I’m not sure why this seems to be such a hard concept for people to grasp, but I don’t put everything I’m thinking or worried about or living through on this blog. I know, I know, that’s terribly shocking to most of you, but it is sadly true. And, that’s not just because my wacko ex-wife pours over every word looking for hidden meaning or messages, either. I’ve been fairly careful about what goes into this blog for quite some time. Heck, even back in the Before Time, when I thought my marriage was going well, I made sure not to get too deeply personal here. For one thing, I just don’t want total strangers knowing certain things about me. For another, I don’t care to have potential employers know other certain things about my personal life.
I mean, potential girlfriends/”life-partners”/whatever don’t really need to know all my quirky habits up front. It’s far more fun and interesting, not to mention amusing, to discover them gradually as we go along. They don’t need to know that, on occasion, I will work for 20+ hours at a stretch doing a conversion or implementation. Or, that I might get a call at 1:00am that I have to respond to or the company will loose more than I make in a year. And, future employers don’t need to know how far in debt I really am. Or, the details of my more intimate personal life. (For that matter, neither to potential girlfriends!)
So, I’m careful and thoughtful about what I present here, not just because of famous blog-related firings, but because I want this blog to be safe for a certain teenage girl, who used to think quite a bit of me, to read. (Yeah, okay, I’ve said some not-nice things about her mother, but, well, she’s got to see that sooner or later.) So, while I’m not quite willing to go to the lengths that some bloggers go, and move my blog to another, anonymous name, I’m also not willing to be as brutally honest as other people, either. Nor, am I willing to be anonymous. At least, not yet. And, if I do, I certainly won’t announce it here, where my personal stalker will see.
So, your Advice from your Uncle Jim? “Think about what you write before you let others see it. If you’re not willing to be responsible for it for the rest of your life, don’t write.”

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years of trying to get other people interested in you."
   --Dale Carnegie

Sort of like a “lease light”.
So, I’m all freaked out about having a roommate, right? I mean, at one point after college, I said that I’d never have another roommate unless she was sleeping with me. I’d gotten tired of the whole sharesy-waresy thing. Of course, that was from living in a ten-foot by fifteen-foot cell in a college dorm with some of the strangest people on Earth. And, yes, I’m sure they said the same thing about me. So, anyway, I fell back to the comfort zone of any good Republican-turned-Libertarian and started Googling for roommate agreements. Mostly I got things from college campuses, which did little to ease my tension. These, for the most part, were nice, little “contracts” that said everyone would play nice and work things out without killing each other. Sure, in college, probably a very helpfull thing, but for me, not so much. But, finally, I found a legal site that had the whole deal.
An interactive form to customize an agreement tailored to meet specific needs. It had standard clauses loaded with lovely, conservative legalese. There were places to customize clauses and even add in custom “house rules”. Things about pets, quiet hours, parties and even over-night guests. Well, I filled out my little form in all its anal retentive glory, carefully considering each and every question. I finally get to the end and it displays on a new page, but, wait, only the first few sections. Then, it demands $12.50 for the entire document, with changes for up to a week. What!?! So, after doing some more searching, my need for boundries won out and I paid the $12.50. I got my document, which I edited with some helpful suggestions from friends, and we reached our agreement.
But, then I got thinking. Now, regular readers of this blog know what happens when I start thinking: TROUBLE. So, I got more and more irritated with having had to shell out $12.50 for this, basically, boiler-plate document. Finally, what I decided to do was run it again, but with all the possible options, and save it to my harddrive as a template. Now, if I ever do this again, I can just pick and choose my clauses and be all set. But, that wasn’t good enough, so I’ve made it even more generic, but removing my actual address and both our actual names, and saved it in three formats: Word, Rich Text and Open Office. And, now, I bring it to you, faithful readers, for your use. Enjoy!
Roommate Agreement Template