Day 11, the future, mine specifically

[sparr]

kdsorceress thinks I should write about my future. Not being gifted with any discernable sixth sense or prescience, this will all be speculation, or at best goals and hopes.

In my near future, before next summer...
I am going to become comfortable in my new job. I am eventually going to convince my coworkers that I am not full of hot air when I talk about improving the way our in-house tools function to make us more efficient.
I am going to get a lot more social at Dragon*Con, including trying to be more forward with members of the opposite sex. I have girlfriends, I don't need validation, and I can handle rejection a lot better today than I could a few years ago.
I am going to move into C7. This is a living/working collaborative space in the same warehouse complex as Freeside. I already know everyone who lives there (between 3 and 7 people at any given time), and consider at least half of them friends.
I am going to start saving for retirement. My new job matches up to a 4% 401(k) contribution, and not taking advantage of that is just silly[1]. I know that I should be doing more, and I'll try to force myself to, but 10% seems like a stretch. Maybe as I get older I'll regret the error of my younger ways more.
I am going to get some more reliable transportation. I enjoy my e-bike, and have grandiose plans for my folding e-scooter, but I need something that will get me from downtown to the perimeter in less than an hour. Another scooter seems likely. I enjoyed having a scooter, it was very close to the transportation sweet spot for me.

In the mid-term, 1-3 years from now...
I'm still going to be living in Atlanta. Despite being at home in the woods, on a river, or on a rock face, I am a city boy. At this point in my life I just can't give up the convenience of being able to name any of my widely varied interests and find tens to thousands of people in a ten mile radius who share it.
I want to be renting or paying the mortgage on my own place. Maybe a house, maybe a decent sized apartment, maybe a loft or warehouse space. I have peculiar rational unselfish rules when it comes to buying property, some of which will be the subject of a future post.
I want to be running my own business. It probably won't be a full time job, but I need to be doing something productive with my spare time. I have so many ideas, designs and concepts for niches that need filling or bettering. LED and EL-wire hula hoops and poi, POV poi and nunchucks, TENS and Violet Wand attachments, real estate aerial photography, software development and support, etc...
I will have lost my virginity. I've reached a point where I see it coming, with any of a handful of girls, it's just a matter of timing and coincidence. This is not something I am rushing towards, just another milestone on a very long mis-ordered list.
I will have a deeper relationship with at least one of the girls in my life, and probably others. I'm starting to grasp some of the emotional bits of this whole relationship thing, and that isn't going to slow down any time soon.
I will probably have a car. I've come to the conclusion that Atlanta just isn't the right city to be carless in, over the long term. Boston would be, or SF, or maybe NYC, but not here. Things are too spread out, and public transit is too sparse and unreliable. My old rule still stands, every car I own must be more efficient than the last, and my 94 Geo Metro, getting 50MPG on plain old gasoline, set a pretty high bar. As of today my choice would be a 2001 Honda Insight, or maybe one of the VWs with a TDI engine.

In the long-term, 3-10 years[2] from now...
I will be working for myself. Not full time, none of my business ideas require more than a part time commitment unless they are tremendously successful. Nobody wants wo "work for the man", and I think I've got the skills and knowledge to make it on my own, and the job I am starting now will actually let me put some money away towards getting started.
I will own my own place. It will probably be a reclaimed warehouse, or part of one, or a large house on a tiny plot of land. I'll almost certainly have housemates, since I hate living alone for so many reasons, practical and principle.
I will have convinced a certain someone to relocate from Boston, preferably by finding her a job down here, but possibly by just being successful enough to offer her the ability to pursue her dreams independent of the bureaucracy around her chosen profession.

Beyond that, who knows. I think the world will have ended by then. If not, it will be unrecognizable to us today. Grey goo, neural computer interfaces, nuclear war, biological war, space colonisation, or one of a dozen other timeline-derailing scenarios will have come to pass, and I can only hope to be around to see the other side of whatever happens.

[1] Even if you are absolutely opposed to retirement savings, you can put in your $50/wk, plus their $50/wk, withdraw it all immediately, take the ~36% tax penalty, and come out with $64, $14 ahead of the guy who just ignores the opportunity and keeps his $50.

[2] Yes, 3-10 years is long term. I know as little about myself at age 35 today as I knew about myself today at age 20. Also, the singularity is approaching.

Comments

[horrormoviegeek.livejournal.com]

There's a book I think you should read called The Virginity Myth.

I've enjoyed reading your 750 word entries thus far, I'm learning a lot about you.