★ New Beginnings Part 2 – A New House

This month will be pretty crazy. Many of you know that I took a break from Twitter where I didn’t tweet for over two weeks and I’ve come back slightly more tame about my tweets only doing 2-4 a day. This new style enabled a lot for me but closed many other opportunities. Now that we’re entering the month of March, I have been doing this new way of sharing for over 2 months and the benefits have been pretty grand. Yesterday, I shared news about my new job at Brightkite that I’ll be starting on Monday. There are many many more good things happening this month. Many are public and others will remain private under my new sharing model.

Before I talk about my move, I first wanted to address something that has bothered me since I decided to move to a new place about 3 weeks ago. This guilt I’ve put on myself is pretty severe and one that kept me from moving a while ago and that’s the feeling that I’m giving up a piece of myself simply by changing my geographical location. See, when AdamsBlock was happening, I made it clear that I wasn’t broadcasting because I hated where I lived (San Francisco’s Tenderloin District), and instead wanted to share with friends and family what was keeping me awake at night. I never knew it would blossom into a real company or that my idea would be used to place me as an ignorant racist who though the homeless were scum and had to be eradicated (not my words). In fact, I loved living in the Tenderloin and write this from my apartment in the heart of San Francisco’s historical district.

Many times, I’ve written about the ‘loin but this entry is one I’m most proud of because it explains exactly why I live here. In that post, I wrote:

I don’t live in the Tenderloin for cheap rent anymore. Trust me, my $1600 a month studio apartment isn’t cheap. The reason I live in the Tenderloin is because I want to constantly be reminded of the human struggle which we all are going through. Living somewhere that’s “quiet and safe” is completely the same except they have fancier drugs and more elaborate crimes. By living where I do, I pass a homeless shelter, free food lines and many more “outreach services”. The constant reminder that I, at any time, can lose my job and be on the streets or an unfortunate sickness or illness could land me in the same food lines and the constant reminder that I have absolutely nothing to feel “down” about because I have a roof over my head keeps me living life to the fullest.

Without a constant reminder that we are so damn lucky to have what we have, we will cease to live and seize the moment at every moment of our day. This is why I live in The Tenderloin. It’s not to gentrify the neighborhood or laugh at the homeless or experience cheap rent. It’s to feel alive when I walk to work every day and know that everything can change so fast and that I’m so lucky to be alive.

Yes, my work with AdamsBlock earned me an award from the city of SF, but I don’t think I deserve any award as there are hundreds of public servants who are unpaid that go out every day to make the community a better place and I’m just a guy who put up a webcam to highlight exactly what was going on without the filter that our media presents.

I feel like moving out of the ‘loin is my way of giving up, retreating to the suburbs and abandoning the people who I’ve grown to love and respect over the past 2 years. The reminder of what my fellow human beings are going through is going to not be a daily punch to the face but instead a blur as I ride the bus by the neighborhood I used to live in.

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Why am I moving? Well, I’m not moving out of the city because I love San Francisco. It’s an incredible experience to live in such a diverse city. My reasons for moving are the following:

• Space. I simply can’t find a large apartment in the Tenderloin without paying a ton of money. I want more space where I can be in my apartment for more than 4 hours without feeling like I have to get out of this place due to its size.
• Convenience. I don’t work in San Francisco anymore so living downtown (a 10 minute walk from my job at Yoono) isn’t necessary. I can’t walk to Burlingame and since I have to get on a train anyway, might as well move to the ‘burbs.
• Nature. There aren’t any trees downtown unless you count the Christmas Tree that is erected in Union Square each year. I miss trees, parks and the sound of kids playing. It’s comforting. I wanted to live somewhere with trees.
• Cost. Saving money is huge as well. If I could save money and have more space, that would rock!
• The personal touch. I wanted to rent from a landlord who was available, involved and friendly. Living in an apartment building doesn’t feel very personal.

With that said, I once again, got extremely lucky as I did with the job at Brightkite (applied to 3 places and found a job in 36 hours). On a Friday afternoon from 4-5PM I browsed Craigslist for apartments in my price range (below $1500) and chose 10 neighborhoods I’d love to live in

• Potrero Hill
• Castro
• Hayes Valley
• Cole Valley
• North Beach
• SOMA
• Eureka Valley
• Twin Peaks
• West Portal
• etc.

I’m sure you can get the idea now that I’ve listed a few. I emailed 6 places that interested me and on Sunday, I visited the top 3 places. It was after the first apartment that I stopped in on that I was immediately in love with. My friend Justin liked the place too but I think he was a bit surprised that I immediately left saying, “I want that place.” so, after viewing two other apartments (one on 19th ave. and another in West Portal), I emailed the couple of the first place and faxed in my renter’s application.

The new apartment is amazing. Upstairs, a married couple with a child lives as they own the home. The baby’s room is on the other side of the home and the couple works quite a bit and they’re rarely home. Downstairs is the in-law suite which is what I occupy. It’s roughly 500 square feet, quiet and spacious.

The neighborhood is Twin Peaks and as you can see from these photos I took atop twin peaks last year, I’m super stoked to be living there. (Click the photos for a better view)

Actually, I’m living on the west side of Twin Peaks so I get a nice view of West Portal, The Avenues and Ocean Beach. Sure, there’s the occasional fog but I’m just stoked to be close to nature and a 5 minute walk from the underground SFMTA Metro Rail which will take me to Caltrain so I can get to my new job.

Back to my “list”: I now have space, the place is $1200 a month so I have $400 more in my pocket each month, the location is among and surrounded by trees and down the hill from me is an elementary school with public park so I get to hear and see families spending the day at the park and kids playing but it’s far enough that with the door closed I won’t hear a thing.

The huge selling point of my new apartment is a very large deck. The deck is 20×20 feet (yes it’s huge) and the owners don’t use it at all. I walk out of a sliding glass door onto this gorgeous deck. Now, it’s been neglected so there are leaves and dirt but I’ve talked to the homeowner and he’s agreed to pay the expenses of paint, a pressure washer and cleaning supplies and I’m going to spend next weekend getting the deck up to my standards. The place where my desk will be going is right by a large sliding glass door looking out on to the deck and surrounded by trees. I’m in heaven.

Back to the owners, they’re a super friendly and very educated couple in their 30s. I’ve never had a more pleasant experience securing an apartment. Last time I came over, the husband and I discussed his home networking and he pointed out that there were Cat5e terminations already in the in-law suite so I could just plug in. Yes, he said “Cat5e” so I know we’ll get along just fine. When I suggested he up the Comcast connection from 15mbps to 30/50, he agreed and was just going to pass the cost on to me. I’ll be putting my Airport Extreme + Time Capsule into his garage where he has everything wired up to a patch panel & switch.

So a technie, friendly couple is renting to me and they support my “handyman” approach to renting and they have been a real pleasure to work with on every front.

I move into my new apartment on Sunday night and start my job at Brightkite on Monday. For the past few weeks, I’ve been hinting to Twitter that March is going to be amazingly insane as far as scheduling goes and I wasn’t lying.

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I was lucky that one of my best friends and first San Franciscan that I ever became friends with back in 2005/2006 is moving across country next week. That’s not why I’m lucky cause I’ll miss hanging out with him from time to time. The lucky part is that he sold me pretty much all of his furniture (couch, end-tables, coffee table, appliances, computer desk, chairs, lazy-boy, 40″ tV, blu-ray player, bose speakers, coffee maker and more) for just under $1400. I’ve been living in furnished apartments for the past 2 years and it’s nice to have my own furniture finally.

The only thing left to move is stuff in my apartment over the weekend like computers, clothes, a bicycle and food. I live a very minimal lifestyle so everything fits in 6 boxes. My life philosophy is to only own things that you use at least once a week so I never go overboard and only buy what I need.

I did splurge and bough an in-home bar for my new place. My rejuvenated love for cooking and diet means i cook every meal at home and that kind of morphed into another passion of mine which is alcohol. No I’m not a big drinker but I’ve always had a liquor cabinet in my apartment and now it’s no different. I’ve ventured into making cocktails and have over 30 bottles of liquor in my apartment w/ all of the tools required to make a great cocktail. The new bar in my apartment will finally display my collection and give me space to make drinks for friends that come visit.

With the extra space, friends can sip martinis or wine while I cook for them as I have been doing for months now but now they can sit at my dining room table and we can eat dinner while watching a real television on a couch (things that I haven’t had since moving to SF two years ago). I feel like for the first time ever, I’m finally in a place I can call home and my friends have made it an even richer experience.

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I’m going to miss being able to call The Tenderloin my stomping grounds. The people, restaurants, public transit and weather. I’ll never ever get over the fact that I didn’t eat my own dog food and retreated to the suburbs but if the Tenderloin could provide more space and a few more parks, I’d happily still be living there.

Thanks to my new landlords and their ridiculously cute kid for being so hospitable. Thanks to my friends for helping me find a place and moving boxes over and thanks to everyone who has lent me a hand over the past couple of years. I remember fondly the tips I got from SF locals, the job opportunities I was given from companies and the support of my family who have always been there for me. I can finally have friends & family visit me and stay at my place and I can finally host dinner parties and finally come home and relax knowing that this is mine and my place of relaxation and when things get bad, I’ll step out onto my deck, drink some tea and watch the fog cover this beautiful city. I’m so stoked about the new place and my new location.

Thanks for reading.

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Here’s a slide show of my new neighborhood