Now that Dave and Julie are thinking of moving out (although they've said ths before so who knows if it'll really happen) I'm just thinking about what I will do. The big reason for me not moving is that it's a significant ordeal. Not just moving, which will take me a couple of weeks -- good thing I try not to buy things I can't move by myself -- but also resetting up my Internet setup.

I have no idea how we'll handle splitting up the network, although chances are it'll become two networks. Maybe a VPN to keep it together. Then again, it's not like I use his server or he uses my server. The only common piece of network equipment is the printer, maybe the firewall but I don't need it.

My plan would be to rent the new place while keeping the old place. Then I can get Pacbell to setup a DSL connection in the new place, with 5 ip addresses and it's own Internet account. This works since we don't use the mailboxes or other Pacbell Internet services. Move the equipment over, leave an old machine at the old site to serve DNS, pointing to machines at the new site. Get Network Solutions to change the domain name servers. Finish moving out. That should do it without interrupting services more than a few hours.

So the subject now is where do I move. I don't know. My sister and I should pool to get a house near Berkeley (my kid brother finally got sort of ok SAT scores so maybe he can make it into the school). I guess it'll have to be a big house if we're all going to live in it. My sister pays about $500 and I pay $725 for rent; a house may cost more but I think we can handle another $500 easy.

Anyway, I've said before that I'm too thrilled with the more populated parts of the Bat Area. A lot of neighborhoods are too old and rundown looking. I grew up in the suburbs so that's the kind of neighborhood I'd like to live in. But I'm less picky than my sister -- my standards of safety and living conditions are rather minimal, I think. A place with good wiring would be nice, both electrical and telephony. I have way too many power- consuming devices.

A house all to ourselves would be good too. Too many places in the East Bay are shared houses. Two stories, hardwood floors, big, don't care about a big yard as much. Oh well, I'm dreaming. Anything we'll get will be an old house, unless we're willing to live far enough out, but Steph doesn't want that.

Going out to browse new houses is so cool. True, they're very new and designed to look good, but that's part of the charm. I've gone to see some houses with Dave and they're all rather breathtaking. There's something about a new house, all clean and bright, the rooms are uncluttered. Picture perfect. Now that I'm starting to save some money it would be rather dangerous for me to go house hunting, as I'm way too much of an impulse buyer.

In any case, I won't have to make any decisions for a couple of months at least, I think. Certainly I'll wait to see what Dave and Julie do, and see what college my brother opts to attend.