I really didn't want to write this

Now more than ever I find it almost imperative that I begin my blogs in Wordpad and then do the copy and paste thing, for fear that Yahoo will find a way to lose my entry should I opt to just type into the blog window. It is a simple precaution that I have taken for quite some time now, but never has that been more of a preferred option, what with bugs running literally rampant throughout the 360 network.

As I think about 360 these days, I am in many ways reminded of my apartment. As I have stated previously, I live in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh. It is very much a college section of town, being the home of the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University and Carlow University. Many of the apartments in my neighborhood consist primarily of college students for residents. This usually means that at the end of each semester, students end up moving, due to leases ending on their current apartment and whether it be finding a cheaper place to live, a need to escape one's current roommates, graduation or what not, apartments there by and large are not homes. Even my apartment would not be classified as a home per se, a small three room place where the living room and bedroom are in fact the same room. That being said, it very much has become a home for me, I have lived there now for better than 5 years, even though I use home in the loosest possible terms. I tend to view Pittsburgh as my "home", with my apartment just being a place where I throw stuff down and where I sleep when i am not out exploring other parts of my "home". I am very much comfortaable here, and as a result I treat such things as a trip to Schenley Park much the same way others would treat a trip into their back yard. Sure, I ramble on about places like The Waterfront, but in many ways they are just additional rooms on my home.

360 was such a room, if a virtual room at that. It was a place that I had become quite comfortable in, as evidenced by the wide array of things I have blogged about here. Some of the things were important, others trivial, still others absolutely mindless in nature, but it was just me being me, whether that put people off or not, I have no idea.

Still, as I have learned from living here in Oakland, life can be very much transient in nature and picking up and moving is much a way of life. From my apartment, I can walk a few blocks and walk past at least 6 other apartments that I have lived in. There is the place that Jen and I shared on Ward Street, the building where I met Hope on McKee Place just a few doors away, the apartment on Oakland Avenue where Bill, John and I lived, complete with the two pirahna, Rip and Slash, the house on Juliet that as bad as the neighborhood was, had an amazing few of Pittsburgh skyline along the Monongahela River, and the place on Hardie Way where I picked myself up and dusted myself off after Jen and I were no longer an item. At each stop on the journey however, I find that I leave stuff behind whether that be the tangible stuff, things that you just don't want to pack up when you move, to the not so tangible stuff, the memories of the good and bad times and the knowledge that no matter how hard you try, things will not be the same from that day forward.

I expect that is going to be the same thing here as well. Like I have said previously, I will see what Yahoo has planned for this place and maybe in the long run this will be a good thing and I will stay, but I have serious doubts. I expect I will be moving which means once again it will become a matter of what to take with me and what to leave behind. I plan on extending invitations to the new place to all of you that have contributed to this page in one way or another, whether that be a passing comment, or forced me to think a little bit harder before I put cursor to keystroke and said something foolhardy, once I get the furniture all squared away and things situated in such a way that I am as comfortable as I can be in a new place. Some of you I am sure will come along, others will get lost in the shuffle, whether because you sought out a new home yourself for your musings, or if this whole process has soured you altogether on blogging. If you do get left behind for whatever reason, I just want to say goodbye and wish you well before Yahoo closes up shop here (if the bugs don't do it prematurely for them).