Rands in Repose had a brilliant post on his blog about the “Nerd handbook” which I have mentioned before. He refers to the “cave” as the place where geeks and nerds escape meat space (real life) and immerse themselves in whatever online world they choose to participate in.

I’m a strong believer that no matter what type of geeking you’re into you need a cave of sorts. Illustrators, engineers, writers and of course geeks need a space to escape to in order to tinker, create and explore whatever it is that they are passionate about. Everything about the cave is in constant development just like the ideas and projects being worked on in said cave.

Building a better blogger…

Before i get into what my cave is for and why, let me fully explain the transition from the old address etc.—
I started a transition this past week in order to make more of my online presence (which I plan on posting about in a later entry). In a sense, when you’re a computer geek of sorts, you have an online cave. This is the center of your world and essentially your home away from meat space. My blog up until now has admittedly been a collection of ramblings and whining sessions about my job and the ridiculous questions and problems I run into as a computer tech. That’s not at all what I’m about and, in fact, it always felt forced in a few ways. Thus, “rip your face off and wear it (dot) com” is no more and “for beta or worse (dot) com” is up and running. Why “forbetaorworse”? Well, as I just mentioned, I did a little too much complaining about my work and the issues that come with it. The truth is that working with computers and troubleshooting things on a daily basis can weigh on you. It seems we have a rash of beta services and applications whether they outwardly admit they are beta or not. I love this stuff. I love puzzles that fit into knowable systems and I love “a-ha!” moments. I’m in this profession “for beta or worse” because the finished products and solved problems are rewarding enough to make the gross parts totally worth it. This project of switching attitudes on my blog is still ongoing just like everything else. Features will be added and improved upon piece by piece. Remind you of real life? It’s supposed to. Anyways, now that I’ve explained my decision to transition…

My cave, let me tell you about it…

Today, I demolished the arrangement of my furniture and computers in my crappy studio apartment here in cold, lame Boston and built it up from scratch. The reasoning for this was solely to move my desk to a more central place and expand my cave to the rest of my apartment. To be honest I really just wanted to be able to watch movies at a better place while I’m in my cave, which has become the center of my existence of this overpriced hellhole of a Boston apartment.

The key to my existence while I’m at home is to relax and immerse myself in the online world while still being able to catch up on my constant stream of netflix movies and still have a spot to sit and enjoy my other hobby: songwriting. This means that while my cave has essentially expanded and partially repurposed, I have a little corner in which to sit and stare off, sing to myself or suck at guitar. Whatever it is I need to do to (gulp) escape my normal “computery” nature.

I’m still working on rearranging, but you can see my “rearrangements” photostream here.
I’ll be posting the final product very soon.

What does your cave look like? Link it up in the comments!