The Great Escape

gnat on 2002-08-23T01:44:27

I've seen other people do it, hole up in a refuge away from distractions to work. I'd never done it myself, though, until this week.

I'd been plodding along, trying to convince myself that I can work from home and do all that I have to do, but the myth finally collapsed this week. In the next three weeks I have two books to go into production and one to write. I can't afford to fuck around on irc, waste half an hour researching an answer to an unimportant email message, or work on anything but The Next Book.

So today I fled to Barnes and Noble at lunchtime and sat down in a comfy chair by a powerpoint, plugged in the TiBook, and edited like a madman. It was great. I read three chapters (admittedly, the writing was some of the best I've ever had--Randy Ray's a natural) and didn't play Spiderman or AIM with Rael once.

The next mission is to find a nearby 802.11 open access point so I don't have to come home to upload email and download the next batch. Starbucks is closer than home, so they'll be next. I'm hoping there's net available from Best Buy, which is directly across the street from Barnes and Noble. Then again, after the wireless cash register debacle there might not be any 802.11 in the house at all.

Unfortunately, my town hasn't been wardriven yet. If I had an exterior antenna, I'd do it. I'll just try likely places, but if the presence of 802.11 in my dentist's offices is anything to go by, "likely" places are in the most unlikely places.

--Nat


just put it in the passenger seat with macstumbler

ask on 2002-08-23T11:17:49


A while ago I put the powerbook on the passenger seat when I was driving my usual routes. MacStumbler - http://homepage.mac.com/macstumbler/ - would ping ping ping pong pong ping pong ping ping pong pong ping like crazy. Even at ~35-40mph.

  - ask

Refuge

cwest on 2002-08-23T16:07:25

I have also "escaped." I tried working from home for about nine months. I didn't do too badly, but there are always distractions. My office was in the attic, I could close the door and get away. For better or worse, the thought of playing with my baby girl was too overpowering.

I do some moonlighting for my local ISP and I asked them for free office space and free broadband. There is no other broadband in town so they were the only people to go to. I now have a purple office three floors up but I'm on a dedicated T1 and no one wants to travel up the stairs to bother me.

I've done better here. I have AC and that's a good thing. I could handle a little more light and a little less purple but I feel better about leaving "the office" to go home at the end of the day.