MATTHEW LARSEN

My Aunt Pat retired a number of years ago, and her and my uncle built this place in Negril, Jamaica. I think it was always their dream to live there, and I’ll be damned if they didn’t actually make it happen. They sold their house on Long Island and now live at Valentine Villas, a four unit private villa on a sandy beach. It sounds quite lovely. My mom went there for a mini-vacation. I think my cousin is going down there too this week.

Meanwhile, we’re supposed to get snow up here in not-Jamaica. Luckily I finally got the tire off the snowblower and it should fixed, inflated and ready in the nick of time. I’m sure the barbershop will be open, no matter what the storm brings. It’s like the USPS that way.

Being a landlord is really something. I’m learning that it’s not necessarily a ‘big’ responsibility… it’s more like a ton of tiny responsibilities. Team Larseam is up to the challenge though. Our place IS pretty awesome, after all. We continue to hang up pictures and things like that and it feels like home more every day. Our friend Brittnie and her husband Kurt got us this wonderful framed scene that we hung above the piano. It’s actually made out of papyrus and was brought back from Brittnie’s recent trip to Egypt. It really blew my mind that she did this for us, not to mention the unbelievable party she coordinated (and cooked for) in our honor.

Both Kristen and I are really lucky to have wonderful people in our lives. It really amazes me every time I stop and think about it.

This week I headed down to the Advance Internet offices, which are in Journal Square in Jersey City, NJ. It was quite nice to meet people who I generally only talk to over IM or on the phone, since I’m sort of a satellite employee working from the MassLive office in Springfield. Jersey City is interesting, because it’s just across the river from NYC. It has its nice areas and its not so nice areas. Journal Square seems like it’s right in the middle of the two. My hotel wasn’t in an awesome area, but I eventually found it on Tuesday after driving around forever.

There were limited food options, but I wound up going to GoldenKrust, which is a very small chain of “Caribbean Bakery and Grill”s. Most of them are in NYC, Queens, Long Island, etc. It’s like a take-out joint. I had the jerk chicken. It was surprisingly delicious.

We wound up going Wednesday night into the city. It’s a pretty quick ride on the PATH train from Journal Square. Times Square is always nuts, and as a NYC tourist I’ve been there plenty of times, but it always seems to have its charm like anything else. We wound up going to Heartland Brewery. It was nice to share a meal with co-workers and get to know them more.

I was homesick of course, missing Kristen like nuts.

Every time I travel it’s bittersweet. I love exploring and seeing a whole different set of people and how they live. I love eating at different places and getting lost and stuff like that. But after about the second day from home I really yearn to be back in familiar surroundings. I never used to feel this way, but maybe it’s a reflection of realizing that I’m getting older. I may not be a spring chicken anymore, but I always strive to live in the moment and seize opportunities as they arise. I also realize that I can’t do everything, and it’s okay to just chill out once in awhile.

That said, I plan to relax a bit this weekend, and go see The Low Anthem and Steve Biegner at PACE on Saturday night probably.

I was looking at my site one day and began to realize how seemingly quickly things become out of date and never get updated. It happens to everyone, and I suppose I could tell you that it won’t happen here since I have a fancy new blog setup so it makes it easier for me to post things. I suppose I could pledge to keep this updated as frequently as possible, not acknowledging the inevitable slackage that will creep up from time to time.

Instead I’ll just post about how I’m kind of excited about the whole blog setup. Ever since I started working at MassLive, and since meeting my lovely fiancee Kristen, I’ve been keen to the idea of starting one, but just didn’t have the time to explore it. Finally, I did.

So here we are. As I get into the swing of things, I hope some of these posts aren’t total snoozers.