I have gained new insight into something I went through years ago. During my first year of University, I visited my parents' home almost every weekend, only rarely spending weekends in the dorms. At the time, I thought that it was just homesickness, but I now know that that was only part of it. Instead, it was that Columbus didn't really feel like home to me yet -- my residence was transitory, and my friends were still new. I now realize that I'm going through many of the same things again in Pittsburgh -- new place, doesn't feel like home yet, and I don't have strong personal ties anymore, for now. I could almost imagine visiting my parents every weekend again for awhile, almost... Except I do have things to do in Pittsburgh, and it's probably better to just work harder at making it feel like home again.

As implied above, I'm at my parents home right now, back in Brecksville. Yesterday I visited with my grandparents for some time, and also with my immediate family, which I'll do a bit more of today before I head back home. It's been a good trip -- I haven't really had the time to visit everyone for awhile, and I miss them. In a way, I think we carry small subsets of everyone we're close to in our mind. It helps a lot for me to be able to dig back and interact with the family a bit, as it helps me remember part of who I am, in a sense.

Soon after I got here, my dad and I went to a computer store, and apart from a lot of browsing, we got portable USB storage devices. $30 for 128M. Good deal. I'm probably going to wear mine on the provided neckstrap almost all the time. I'm not sure about everything that's going to be on it -- some things like ssh for windows will be perm residents, and maybe a bit of comedy. I do want to leave enough free for easy transport of stuff though. Hmm.. I can also maybe find some unused furniture in my parents basement ... Mmmm...

Apparently, O'Reilly's been busy pumping out Perl books since I last checked.. Some of the new ones might be things I'll want to get once I'm financially happy, with laptop and maybe with Prius :)