402accessdenied

Well, it was inevitable. Now that I’m on my own, I’m going to have to actually learn how to cook (well, not quite yet, Tim likes to cook, so at least I won’t starve for another half a week or so).

Anyway (which seems to be a favorite transition word of mine…), to chronicle my attempts at not starving (otherwise known as cooking), I’ve added a new side-bar to my blog, titled “Cooking (mis)adventures”. Hopefully they won’t be too horrible =)

Hmm… so my plan of posting every night on the trip out here didn’t so much happen. Actually, other than the one post, it didn’t happen at all…

Whoops.

I guess that was to be expected, after driving for like 10+ hours a day. It’s weird, the time difference along with being exhausted from the driving actually has me on a fairly normal sleep schedule (midnight – 8 instead of my usual 3am – noon). It’s weird. (And now I’m repeating myself…)

So let’s see here, the last time I posted I was in Denver. I’m pretty sure I said something about being afraid Utah was going to be boring.

Boring was an under-statement. Of enormous magnitude.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Before we got to Utah, we drove through the Colorado Rockies. They were, quite simply, amazing. Gorgeous. Breathtaking. I would love to retire up there, assuming I want to return to the cold (which, right now, is not the case). Driving in the mountains was certainly a lot of work, with the up and the down and the curving from side to side, all in a well loaded small car (with manual transmission no less). The engine was certainly straining at times, and I was shifting almost constantly.

It was actually kinda fun. Tiring, but fun.

The real drag began when we got out of the pretty part of the mountains. And entered the boring, desert like part. Also known as western Colorado and Utah.

Ugh.

I’ll spare you the boring details. They aren’t worth remembering anyway (other than the part where we were doing 80 at the top of one slope, and coasted down in neutral and eventually were doing 95 or so… THAT was fun lol) Anyway, if Iowa was “teh suk”, then Utah was even worse. We finally pulled into Vegas REALLY late (after getting stuck in traffic, of course), too late to head to one of the casinos or walk the Strip or anything. The next morning we did get a chance to walk around, see the place a little (it’s not as impressive during the day), and check out a couple of the casinos. I lost a whole $2 on a slot machine (I could have walked away with an extra $1.50, but with only a buck-fifty on the line I couldn’t just walk away lol)

At the last minute, we decided to make a side-trip to the Grand Canyon, even though it was going to add an extra day to the trip. We got there in the late afternoon, and were immediately glad that we had made the trip. It’s simply amazing. Somewhere here I have a couple digital shots, but I’m hoping that my 35mm ones come out better. We walked around until it was almost too dark to see (we were just glad we didn’t walk any further down the trail before turning around).

Finally, the next day, we made it to California (the drive across Arizona and eastern California wasn’t too exciting either). The California traffic quickly made up for the the previous boredom, but I enjoy a challenge (I enjoy driving in traffic where I actually have to pay attention).

The next couple days were spent driving around and apartment hunting. Which was again, exhausting, boring, and not a whole lot of fun. The good news is, I finally found one! It’s a 2nd floor, 2-bedroom apartment, with a nice sized living room, dining room, and kitchen. I’m pretty happy with it. I didn’t really need a 2-bedroom (since it’s just me, no roommates or anything), but it wasn’t much more expensive to go from the 1-bedroom to the 2-bedroom, and I figured the extra space would be nice. Plus this way, I have an extra room that can be a home office and a guest bedroom.

Anyway, since I moved in I’ve just been taking care of a few things around here (gas and electric, bank, insurance, cable and internet, etc etc etc). I still don’t have gas service, so the shower is kinda cold. But other than that, pretty much everything around here is good to go. I haven’t gotten the California registration for my car yet, or my California driver’s license. And I don’t have any furniture (bag chairs and an air mattress woot). But it’s all good.

Oh, and I finally have my internet setup, so drop me a note on aim sometime =)

And that’s day two of the amazing cross-country road trip (there was no day one post… deal with it, I was really tired). We’re in Denver, at what is quite possibly the smallest and least air-conditioned motel room I’ve ever stayed in.

Tim and I made good time today. We started in Des Moines, Iowa this morning, drove across half of Iowa, all of Nebraska, and half of Colorado today. (Day one we drove from Laingsburg to Des Moines, but you probably figured that out…) The drive went pretty fast, but that’s probably thanks to an awesome discovery I made today: highways with speed limits of 75! Ohh yeah baby, that’s what I’m talking about. We need speed limits like that in Michigan! (Of course, out here, a speed limit of 75 means everyone drives 80… in Michigan a speed limit of 75 would of course mean everyone would be driving 85 lol).

Anyway, let’s see here. As far as the drive goes, Michigan was, well, Michigan, Illinois was flat farmland and boring, and we did manage to hit Chicago and the construction around there right at rush hour… bad move. Iowa wasn’t nearly as boring as I expected. Lots of farm land, but also lots of gentle rolling hills and green stuff to look at. Of course, we did get rather lost for a while around Des Moines (stupid city, and stupid construction), which led us to officially brand Iowa “teh suk”.

And then there was Nebraska. Lemme tell you, if it hadn’t been for Des Moines, Nebraska would have totally been “teh suk” instead of Iowa. Flat, flat, flat, with tons of open, bare fields, and COPS EVERYWHERE!! I swear, everyone in that state must grow up to either be farmers or cops. Not so awesome.

And then we got to Colorado. I like Colorado. As soon as we got off of I-80 (which heads straight west out of Nebraska into Wyoming, well… suddenly there was no traffic. It was weird. But the foothills of the mountains were beautiful, and the wide open highway made for a nice easy drive (and hardly any cops!) Of course, there was that sign about the highway being patrolled by aircraft… so mom, dad, if a letter comes home from the state of colorado… um, oops?

Anyway, after getting lost in Denver (and again finding the more ghetto area, like we did in Des Moines (we seem to have a special talent for getting lost and finding the ghetto…)), we finally found a Denny’s right next to a Motel 6.

So here we are. And it’s bedtime now. Tomorrow: Denver to Los Vegas. Should be good times (but I’m afraid Utah is going to be boooooring…)

Peace out kids.

I think the title pretty much sums it up. Unless you missed the sarcasm (me? sarcastic? nahhhh).

Ok, let’s face it. I’m pretty bad at planning ahead, or getting things started super early. People keep asking me when I’m leaving for Cali. The answer of course is, I don’t know yet. I start June 5, but other than that… well, it’s kind of up in the air. The semi-plan is to spend a couple/few weeks packing and cleaning all of the stuff I want to take with me (yay for ~18 years worth of stuff in my room to clean out… though in reality there’s probably very little that is still in there that I had when I was 4), and then pack up the car with as much stuff as it will hold and drive out there. Then I’ll look at finding a place (after doing some initial recon here at home, finding out who has vacancies, deciding what things I’m looking for and what’s the best deal, etc, which of course I haven’t started yet), and ship out the remaining things from home once I have a place to put them.

So basically, I have a back of the napkin idea of what the next month is going to look like. Anything more set in stone would just be, well, highly unusual for me.

Planning, of course, isn’t the only thing I procrastinate about. Oh no, I can usually procrastinate about just about anything. And lately has been no exception. I’m not even sure how many posts now that I’ve been procrastinating about an actual updates post, but I suppose I should just get to it and write it.

Hmm, let’s see. Well, I’m (obviously) done with classes. I had my last exam last Tuesday, and while I’m still waiting on my grade for that course (my senior design course), I think it went pretty well. As previously mentioned, we got our project working, so I’m expecting to do reasonably well. It wasn’t the most complicated or ambitious design, but like I said, it worked. Considering that at the beginning of the course we’re warned not to try anything too ambitious and to make sure it works before attacking anything too complicated, I feel like we did the right thing. Let me tell you, walking out of that exam was a pretty sweet feeling.

After that I worked a few more days, and did a little bit of packing. I had to drive back to the ‘burg for a family picture on Thursday night, so I finally got the haircut that I’d been needing (I decided I wanted to actually look decent, what with graduation coming up and all. Nevermind that I was wearing a cap the entire time.) The ironic thing about the haircut was that I told the stylist that she could do whatever she wanted, as long as it wasn’t too extreme or hard to care for. Well, I’m not sure which of those qualifications did me in, but I ended up with basically the same cut that I’ve had for an eternity. I guess if I actually want to find a new hairstyle one of these days I’ll just have to take a bigger chance.

Friday I spent a (nearly) full day at work (there was that ~2 hour lunch at Mongolian BBQ with Kyle, Ben, Brandon, Kelsey, Shawsy, Bizzle, Dan, and Melissa… but whatever), and then went back to the dorm and began the (undesirable) task of packing. And packed. And packed. And packed. All told, it took me nearly 6 hours to pack my stuff, clean up my trash, pack the car, and help Jeremy get the carpet out of the room (which means that it was almost 11pm by the time I got out of there… far later than I had intended). Then I got to pick Lynn up at the airport at around 1am, as her flight got delayed about half a billion times, and her original ride couldn’t make it. Since I didn’t have anything pressing to attend to that night, and I wanted to see her while she was in town anyway, I was more than happy to volunteer. What I didn’t take into account was that, with a 45min drive to the airport, and a flight arriving at 12:50am, that I wouldn’t be getting back to A2 until almost 2am. And then getting up well before 8, as we had to be at the Big House for graduation by 8:30. Ahh well, not getting sleep is kind of my trademark.

Saturday was graduation, and as expected, it wasn’t terribly exciting, but it wasn’t bad either (though I will admit, sitting through two commencement ceremonies was, ahem, a blast). Due to the renovations currently underway, the Big House looked worse than I had ever seen it (lots of missing concrete and extra dirt). The actual ceremony wasn’t bad, though the presentation of the honorary degrees was thoroughly tedious, and I could have lived without the political commentary, but alas, such is the University. The Engineering commencement was also rather boring, since they actually read everyone’s name at that ceremony (well, everyone that’s there). It was kind of nice having my name read and walking across the stage, shaking hands with the head of the department and the program chairs, though I doubt any of them recognized me. Ahh well, the EECS department is like the second or third largest department in the college. I only drifted up once, and was promptly awoken by a sharp elbow to the side (thanks Kelsey).

I had originally planned on returning home Saturday night following graduation, but I have to admit, I didn’t really want to. Lynn was only in town for the weekend (stupid job, getting in the way), and I wasn’t exactly ready to just run out on my other friends either. So I stuck around A2 for Saturday night and Sunday, just hanging out and having a good time. I got to spend Saturday night hanging out with Ranjan and Lynn, and Sunday hanging out with Brandon, Kelsey, and some of Kelsey’s roommates for part of the day (my feet are still dirty from barefoot walking and frisbee in the Arb, the dirt is pretty well ground in).

And then I drove home. Granted, I waited about as long as I possibly could to leave and still make it home safely (and making it home safely did entail drinking two cans of Red Bull to stay awake…)

The biggest thing I’ve been procrastinating on lately has been saying goodbye. I’ve just been putting it off. Part of that is that I’m going to be in Michigan for at least a few more weeks, so I’m hoping that I’ll get to see a lot of people at least once more before I take off. Part of it is, of course, that I just don’t want to say goodbye. Now granted, in this connected world it’s easier than ever to stay in touch. But even as nice as it is to be able to call anyone in the country at any time, from and to nearly anywhere, or to IM or email or whatever, it’s just not the same as actually seeing each other. (I promise, my posts aren’t going to be this depressing forever.)

The other thing I’ve been procrastinating about has been posting about my new CAR. Mostly because I’m lazy (I mean, you can’t have a new car post without pictures, and I’ve never done pictures with Blogger before, so figuring that out requires effort… you get the idea).

So I’m coming home for Easter weekend (Saturday afternoon pickup at school, return to school Sunday evening… stupid school, always getting in the way). We get home, and as we’re driving up the drive way, I see the car parked in the front lawn. I believe my exact words were, “There’s a car in the yard.” (Brilliant, I know). We drove a little farther up, and Dad stopped the car, turned around, handed me the keys, and we all got out to look at it. As it turns out, basically my entire family knew about it ahead of time (Mom had actually been trying to get me to come home for a couple of weeks so I could see it, and I was proving to be rather difficult).

So anyway, I’m the proud owner of a new 2006 Chevy HHR. For any car people that might be lurking (which I doubt, but whatever), it has a 2.4L 4-cylinder GM Ecotech engine (22mpg City, 30Hwy, and don’t be fooled by the “Eco” part, GM’s performance division has tuned and turbocharged the 2.2L version of the engine to ~1000HP) putting out 172HP and 5-speed manual transmission (yay!). I’ve been driving it for a little over a week now, and I love it. Apparently, I’m not the only one. I guess they’ve been flying off of the car lots (supposedly the average time between arriving on the lot and being sold out in California is like 45min – 1hour).

Ok, I think I’m fairly caught up now. Let round two of blog procrastination begin. (And if you believe that this is only round two… lol)