shifting gears

Tuesday, September 26, 2000, at 10:16PM

By Eric Richardson

Yesterday it sort of sunk in that I'll be back in Michigan next week. Believe it or not, I'm actually glad for this. Australia's great, but I'm ready to go back to a normal life for a couple months.

Of course, going back means having to think about real life again. I've got a couple of things that'll be demanding my attention right when I return.

Setting up a work area

When I get home I'll be unemployed and looking for some kind of a telecommuting position. Of course this requires that I actually have somewhere at home to telecommute from. I moved into the basement a couple weeks before I left, so I'll be buying a desk and setting up shop down there. Mmm... A nice desk and a good chair...

Connectivity

We got a cable modem at our house this summer, but right now it's just hooked straight into the home computer. I'm going to set up an old 486 as a NAT box and then we're going to set up a wireless LAN. I almost did this before I left, but the 486 didn't boot off a CD, and I didn't have a floppy drive.

Phone

I'm sort of souring on VoiceStream and my whole idea for setting up some kind of call gateway. I could easily just get a pager and have people page that and then get a call back (I sort of like that idea, too... Selective callback), but I've never really gotten everything working with VoiceStream. I'll give them another call when I get back to take a last shot at getting it fixed, and if they don't shine things up I'm getting out of there.

Job

Last, but in absolutely no way least, I still need to find a job. I'm really not looking forward to the whole stopped money flow that comes with being unemployed.

One more week here... Then the real world comes back.