402accessdenied

… that I’m not completely delinquent when it comes to updating my blog. Let’s also assume that I’m not fairly delinquent in keeping in touch with people, so you already know what’s going on with me, and so it doesn’t matter that I haven’t made a real post in almost a month. (Over a month if you don’t consider me rambling about random tech topics a real post. I would like to point out that the incredibly accurate subtitle of this blog is “Rambling. Lots of rambling.” It’s on the left side, just under the “accessdenied402″. See? So there.)

Let’s just pretend.

It’s actually been a pretty eventful month, so my excuse isn’t that I just haven’t had anything to write about. On the contrary, I’ve been fairly busy, and most nights I just haven’t felt like staying up late to blog (and I haven’t felt very inspired as far as any particular topics).

I’ve been getting more involved with my church (the fields), and I absolutely love it. Due to several random occurrences I’ve actually missed a couple of Sunday services in there, but I’ve been hitting the Monday night men’s bible study (awesome), hanging out with some people that are kinda in the same phase of life (college and young & employed mostly) on every other Tuesday, and hitting the beach for our Wednesday night outreach (basically we chill on the beach, grill up some hot dogs, play volleyball, and put up signs to welcome anyone that wants to join us). Most Wednesdays I’ve ended up going out with a few people from the Tuesday night group to chill afterwards. Great for hanging out, bad for my plan of getting to work early. Oh well.

Speaking of work, it’s actually been a lot better. I’m getting some more things on my plate, so that helps with the boredom and with the feeling of accomplishment. It’s also a daily reminder of how much I need to learn still in order to really do my job. I remember thinking (almost worrying) when was in school about the fact that none of what I was learning really seemed that applicable to a real job. The simple fact is, that’s the way it really is. Virtually all of my classes were (at least at this point) solely to learn the basic background theories and topics that I need to do my job. Do I need to remember exactly how to solve a Laplace transform of a circuit? Heck no. Do I need to remember some of the basic principles of circuits, computer architecture, and digital logic? Absolutely!

Which brings me to my second point about work. Those of you that went to engineering school (I figure, out of the people that actually read my blog, that’s about one person) remember how we were forced into technical communication classes. Classes we hated with a passion. Our technical classes were mostly about the technical problems, with only the slightest emphasis on communicating those ideas. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, as the technical skills are obviously very important, and we surely would have all gone to LS&plAy if the classes were 10% technical and 90% writing/presenting/etc. What I am saying is that this bears very little resemblance to the real world as I’ve experienced it. You don’t actually just sit down and solve a problem. No, first you look at it from a high level, get it reviewed, look at it at a low level, get it reviewed, implement it, test it, look at the results, get it reviewed, and so on.

At the end of the day, that means a lot of writing. I guess what they told us about the best engineers being the ones that could communicate their ideas (and not necessarily those that could solve the problem the fastest) was true.

Which brings me to the mini-rant of the day. You’ve been warned.

I HATE Microsoft’s software. Not because I’m a Mac user and an Apple fan. Not because I think I’m too l33t for Windows and worship at the feet of the Linux/Unix gods. Not because beating up on Microsoft is the fashionable thing right now. And not even because Windows is so bad. I own Windows, I use Windows, I like how Windows does some things.

No, the Microsoft software I’m talking about are those cornerstones of modern office “productivity” (and I use that term very loosely), Outlook and Word. Now I was under the impression that Windows was a modern operating system, that one program couldn’t bring the whole thing to a halt, etc. If you’ve ever used Outlook, you know this is not true at all. Every morning when I launch Outlook, it freezes everything else on my computer for at least a minute. Half the time, it complains that it can’t contact the server. Hate to break it to you, but the server hasn’t gone anywhere. I experienced the same thing when I worked for DCO, and I assumed that Outlook just didn’t deal with IMAP mail servers well, as Thunderbird had no problems. Oh no, it’s not just IMAP servers. We use it with an Exchange server (Microsoft’s mail/calendar/etc server). And still I get the freezes when it tries to update my Outlook. AGH!

Word is a completely different matter. Now it may be that I’m working with a flakey document that completely abuses the styles system in Word. But this document has to be formatted a certain way, with headings and sub-headings and sub-sub-headings, and numerated tables and figures, and cross-references between text and tables, and a complete table-of-contents, etc. And for the life of me I can’t understand why simply selecting the number next to a sub-heading can completely change the format of all of the same level sub-headings (usually it indents them by an inch or so). Or why trying to add a new sub-heading causes Word to completely re-paginate the document (which slows it to a crawl and renders it unusable). It’s not that hard!! The last sub-heading was 10.1.1. This one should be 10.1.2. You don’t need to renumber the whole document to figure that out. AGH!

Well, there’s plenty more to say, but I have to wake up in the morning, and I suspect certain people (ahem) are already skimming at this point, so I’ll wrap it up. Laters y’all.

Hmm… So i can definitely blog from my phone, but its pretty slow. I guess i should learn to use T9 text input, but it’s hard after doing manual text entry for so long. At least it seems to be pretty good at guessing words, but punctuation is a pain. I’d been thinking of switching to wordpress or moveabletype, but this feature of blogger might make it worth keeping. Anyway, i suppose i should get back to work. Later y’all!

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/sigh. I should have known Verizon would have to get their name in this somehow. Bastards.

If I can actually blog from my phone that’ll be the coolest thing ever!

No, seriously.

First of all, I’m posting merely a week after my last post, even though I’m clearly in the middle of a self imposed blog drought. Hey, I’m not the only one. The whole blogging world has gone crazy with non-posting lately (at least, the little corner of it that I visit regularly).

Secondly, and I’m going to depart from my usual rambling to ramble about something other than me, AMD announced that they are merging/buying ATI. Now I realize this is pretty geeky, but you all know that’s who I am, so whatever. Now why is this a “the sky is falling” moment? Well, mostly because of what it means to the whole landscape, especially at the enthusiast level, of which I a member. Over the last few years, you’ve had a pretty steady competition between Intel and AMD in the processor market, and NVidia and ATI in the graphics market. The beauty of it was, things were fairy level. Sometimes Intel was on top, sometimes AMD was. Sometimes NVidia was, sometimes ATI was. NVidia makes (soon to be made? Too soon to tell) a great line of motherboard chipsets for AMD processors. But you could still use an ATI graphics card in such an arrangement. ATI makes (soon to be made, no question mark) a line of motherboard chipsets for Intel processors, though you could of course use and NVidia graphics card with such a setup.

Now I’m not saying that you won’t be able to use an NVidia graphics card on an AMD/ATI system in the future. That’s, at least for now, pure nonsense. The interface that the graphics card uses to communicate with the rest of the system is a well defined industry standard. But there are already actions in motion to chill some of this interoperability. Intel, for example, has just canceled ATI’s license to make chipsets for use with Intel processors. Personally, this isn’t a huge loss, as I never thought the ATI chipsets stacked up that well against the NVidia ones (and I wasn’t the only one). What I’m more concerned with is the possibility of AMD denying NVidia the right to continue their excellent NForce line of chipsets for the AMD processor (which, in the enthusiast space, is probably the most used chipset for AMD processors… at least, it’s my choice lol).

From a business perspective, I’m not sure what to think. AMD obviously thinks it makes sense, paying almost 25% over the closing stock price as of Friday 7/21 for the ATI shares it’s buying. I’ll let the analysts argue it; they’re good at it. But what I do know is, the AMD fanboys don’t seem to be united in praise of the move. And that’s possibly something to worry about.

Continuing on a geeky note, even though it’s not a falling-sky issue, was I stumbled across this today. Now it’s nothing new or even very impressive, but it’s kinda cool. He’s hosting that webpage on a webserver running on an olllllllllllld Mac LC475. That’s right, 33MHz of pure speed (any uber-geeks out there will immediately realize that it’s been upgraded from the factory 25MHz processor (no, I’m not that geeky, I didn’t remember it right away)) of 1993 computing goodness. Of course, since that’s about the time that Apple’s mid-late 1990’s slide was about to shift into high gear, maybe it wasn’t so much computing goodness.

More geeky stuff, but back to the-sky-is-falling stuff, Blizzard has announced that in the upcoming WoW expansion, Alliance players will be able to play a Shaman, and Horde players will be able to play a Paladin, both classes that were previously exclusive to the opposing side. I feel sorry for any of you on a PvP server that happen to run across a Shaman and Palading duo-ing in contested territory.

Did I mention that it’s been rather hot out here in Cali? Kayte, I’m sure, is loving it. Personally, I wish it’d just got back to the 70s-80s. They’ve already had some power issues up in the Bay area due to increased air conditioner usage. Fun times.

And finally, the final the-sky-is-falling moment for the day, Kelsey finally got a cell phone. A real one! (aka not the rejection hotline number that she had up on her away message a few weeks ago as her new cell #) (I will admit it was pretty funny).

Ahhh yes, the familiar routine where I only post once every 2-3 weeks… gotta love it. In my defense, I’m posting now not because I was nagged into it (as I often am), but simply because I felt like it (and now you see what happens if you wait until I feel like it instead of nagging me). One could say that the inclusion of the following line in a friend’s blog was, in fact, an indirect nag:

I just wanted to give you a little update of where I really have been and what I’ve really been doing since I last posted… just in case you care and just in case I feel like pressuring someone else to post something on his/her own blog.

Given that this person knows that I frequently read their blog, and given that this person is usually one of the people that nags me to post, I think there’s an element of truth to the indirect nagging theory.

Or I’m over analyzing things again. As usual.

In other blog news, one of my other friends randomly decided (at least, I think it was just a random decision) to delete every single post on his blog, and switch from hosting his own blog to using Word Press. To make matters worse, he didn’t even bother to write a simple explanation post for over a week, instead leaving the default “Welcome to Word Press” post.

Yeesh. These blog things are too much of a hassle. (And yes, I like one sentance paragraphs).

So anyway, the simple explanation for my lack of posting is that not a whole lot has been going on (and I’m lazy). Now you might think that the second probably has more to do with it than the first. Not that you’ll believe me, but that’s really not the case. There just hasn’t been much going on. Now some of it’s my fault (like the fact that I still have hardly any furniture… because I’m too lazy to go shop for a bed and some living room furniture). But some of it is just that I’m kinda in a holding pattern at the moment. Work is going… but it’s still pretty slow for me (though as I tell friends and family that ask, there’s the promise that thing will pick up soon). It’s hard to say much about work, because I’m not sure how much I should say, at least on something as public as a blog. I mean, you hear about people getting fired for things like that. I’m still trying to figure out where the line is…

One good thing is that I finally got paid. Yep, the bank finally decided that I could have the money that I had deposited checks for, so I actually have some money to pay bills, or even go furniture shopping with (if I weren’t so lazy). So that was pretty sweet. Writing my first rent check, on the other hand, was not so sweet. Stupid California, so expensive (the fact that I’m in a two-bedroom by myself when a one-bedroom would have sufficed has crossed my mind).

Unfortunately, I don’t think a rent reduction is in my future, unless I decided I’m ready to have a roommate again. Especially since I’ve talked to a few people that have managed to get reasonable apartments within a few blocks of the beach. Now granted, they both have roommates, and cutting rent in half can make a big difference when it comes to beach accessible rent. But it sounds pretty sweet. I’m about 10 miles from the ocean, so going to the beach means driving, and even more painfully, finding a place to park. Preferably where the ground isn’t littered with automotive safety glass (you know, the kind that’s all over the ground when someone smashes in your window and steals your stuff).

More good news is that I’ve found a church out here that’s, to borrow a phrase, pretty sweet-izzle. I’m pretty excited about it, still meeting people (as is to be expected, I’m not a get-to-know-everyone-at-once kinda guy), but it seems pretty awesome, the worship band is a lot like the band at the church I went to in A2, the people are all friendly, and I get to wear shorts and flip-flops to Sunday morning service. Heck yeah! I’ve also been to the men’s summer bible study a few times, and I’m really enjoying the chance to hang out with some other Christian guys and get to know a few of them that I’m in a small group with. All in all, I’m pretty excited to see where this takes me.

Now you know that I’m bored at work when I start thinking about college favorably.

Favorably as in wishing I had taken more of those EE classes that I was able to dodge as a CE (230, 306, 320, etc). Now in my defense, I didn’t know at the time that I’d be working in a position where I’d be surrounded by EEs, and would feel a little out of the loop at times because of a lack of background knowledge. Not that I’ll need any of the EE stuff for what I’ll be doing, but still… it’d be nice to know.

Favorably as in starting to seriously think about what I need to do to apply to grad school. The closest grad school for a master’s in CSE or ECE (computer science and engineering, or electrical and computer engineering) is UC – San Diego, and they’re also fairly highly ranked (top 20), so that is certainly an attractive option. The bad news is, they receive about 1500 applications annualy, and they accept less than 10%. Of course, applying to grad school also means taking the GRE, and since admissions are so strict, doing very, very, well on it, which probably means actually studying for it and taking in multiple times. It also means writing a statement of purpose (i.e. why I’m in the field, why I want a masters, what I plan on doing / getting out of it, etc), and getting letters of recommendation.

Basically all the things I hate about applying for schools, jobs, scholarships, or anything else. Also, they only take new students in the fall, so I’d be applying for fall 2007, and the application deadline is Dec. 1, 2006. Now I could take some classes this year with instructor’s consent as part of their “Extended Learning” program that I could transfer to my degree if I were accepted into the grad program, which would probably be a pretty smart thing to do.

And of course, the other thing about all of this is that since I’m working, I’d have to take late afternoon/evening classes after work, which I have to believe would involve a major restructuring of my days and weeks, and would combine the worst part of working (being at work for 8-9 straight hours a day) with the worst part of school (getting home and having homework to do).

But, with all of that said, getting my master’s is something that I want to do, both personally and professionally. I’m just not sure if I really want to sweat all the details right now. On the other hand, as my career progresses, and as I possibly have a family, it’s going to be harder and harder to get it done.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled blog posting blackout, already in progress.

or Why I can’t get anything done.

You see, tonight was supposed to be the night that I finally took care of some things that need to be done. Paperwork filed, paperwork filled out, bills paid, apartment cleaned, and doing it all in a reasonable amount of time so I could actually get to bed before midnight (haha).

(As a side note, I really wish I could go back to the days of going to bed at 3, 4, or even 5 am. And to think, many of those late nights were simply due to Nick-at-Night reruns).

So what did I get done? Hah. Well, I got a haircut (good), fixed some dinner and ate (good), cleaned up from dinner (not too hard, especially when using paper plates), and surfed the web a little (I’m a total junky when it comes to tech news/editorials/etc.). Then, I actually did get some of my paperwork filed.

And that’s about it.

You see, after dinner, I sat down in front of the TV with my laptop, still doing a little surfing, and one of my friends IMed me. So I continued surfing and talking (and watching Law and Order on USA). This went on FAR longer than I intended (and even after I had told my friend I was actually going to go and get some things done).

Next I called my mom. You see, Kelsey had mentioned that I should check out Skype for calling home (after I had been griping about using all of my daytime minutes on my cell phone… free nights/weekends don’t do you a whole lot of good if you have to call home before 7pst/10est). So, I downloaded it, paired my Bluetooth headset with my laptop (originally purchased for my cell phone, but I figured that this was as good of a use as any).

We proceded to talk for over an hour. Of course, I was filing paperwork at the same time, so that time wasn’t totally unproductive. None the less, my rate of productivity slowed considerably. That said, it was good to talk to her. And Skype worked pretty well. There were a few times that she couldn’t hear me, but to be honest I’m not sure if that was because of Skype or the Bluetooth headset (it’s a great little thing, but I’ve had some issues with it… the signal between it and my phone or computer seems a little weak. Granted, Bluetooth is a short range system, but still… I should be able to be next to my computer or have my phone in my pocket without having problems).

With all that said, as usual, most of the unproductivity is completely, utterly, and totally my fault. As previously mentioned, I’m a total tech junky, so I had to figure out some things. Could I use my phone (Motorola RAZR v3c – Verizon) as a modem with my laptop, using Bluetooth to connect them (I already knew that I could use a USB cable, but that’s so ineligent). The answer was, after a little tweaking, yes, I could. It’s a little flaky (sometimes it logs in successfully, other times it doesn’t. I may have fixed it, I’m not sure). Could I enable the OBEX profile so I could download pictures from its camera to my computer over Bluetooth? (Not easily… it seems that Verizon has intentionally disabled OBEX on the RAZR and most of their other phones). Could I at least get it so I could sync my phone and computer calendar? (Yes… but, word is that Verizon’s firmware for the RAZR is, well, buggy in the Calendar application. Apparently transferring a large number of contacts between the phone and computer can hose the phone. I, of course, threw caution to the wind and enabled it. Hopefully it works out).

Having addressed the critical issue of phone/computer integration, I had to see if I could set up my spare inkjet printer to be shared over my wireless network using my Airport Express (which I originally purchased so that I could easily stream audio from iTunes on my Mac to my stereo in the living room. It works great). Yes, that means I put a printer in my living room. Why not? I had a spare printer, I had an Airport Express. Makes sense to me.

Of course, it didn’t just work when I plugged it in. It seems that HP’s driver doesn’t support using that printer with the Airport Express. And it seems that there isn’t an open source driver for the printer, though the gimp-print HP Deskjet 900c driver works… but not well. Photos look pretty bad.

After solving those two critical issues, it was, of course, time to get ready for bed. Since even that would have been productive (kind of), I decided to blog.

And now that I’ve completely demolished my list of things I wanted to get done, I’m going to bed.

Ok… I admit it. I’m a slacker. And it’s clearly not your fault that I haven’t posted lately (though my last post did get the peer pressure going again, which is partly why I’m posting again, so I suppose it worked). And my gripes about the weather might have been a little pre-mature, so I guess that’s not your fault either. See, since that post, the weather has been perfect pretty much every day (minus some haziness in the morning, but that’s no surprise).

I guess what I’m saying is, it’s not your fault. Sorry.

So, let’s see here… what’s new? Sadly, not a whole lot. Last Sunday I checked out a new church out here. It was alright, but not exactly what I’m looking for. I’m hoping I can find a church like my one back in Ann Arbor, something with a contemperary worship service, preferably that primarily ministers to people my age. So we’ll see. Hopefully I can find something.

A couple of weekends ago, I met up with a couple of friends from high school that are out here in southern california, Kayte and Meredith. Kayte moved out here about 6th months ago, and Meredith is out here for a summer internship. Anyway, since they’re up in the LA area and I’m down in north San Diego county, we decided to meet up in Laguna Beach, which is about half way between here and there (about an hour drive for all of us). After driving around forever to find a place to park (the only public parking is metered, and all the meters have 3 hour limits…), we finally found a couple of spots in a residential neighborhood and walked down into town. We walked around a little bit, found the beach, and walked up and down it for quite a while, talking and catching up. After sitting on the beach for a while, watching the kids playing in the surf (especially the boogie-boarders, they take it pretty seriously), we decided to get some dinner, which was delicious. We had all heard of fish tacos (something that at least I hadn’t heard of back in Michigan), but none of us had ever had them before. On a whim I decided to try them, and they were amazing. Now you have to understand, while I’m a fan of mexican food, I’m not a fan of fish in general. Still, they were delicious, and I’ll have to have them again sometime (though probably not at the same restaurant lol). After dinner, Meredith and Kayte wanted to do some shopping, but it was about 7:30 or 8, and pretty much everything was closed, so we found a patio overlooking the ocean and talked and watched the sun go down. All in all, it was a pretty sweet day, and really good to see old friends. We all agreed that it was pretty random that we would all end up out here, and that we should do it again, so sometime in July I expect that we’ll be getting together again.

Other than that, not a whole lot’s been going on. Work is work, and I’ve discovered that there’s not a whole lot of day left once you take sleep, getting ready for work, work, getting home from work, and having dinner. It’s weird, because I never really felt that way when I worked for DCO, even when I was working full day shifts during vacation or whatever.

Oh, and you know how I mentioned in my last post that I wasn’t going to get paid for 3 weeks, even though I’m on a bi-weekly pay schedule? Well, I got my first pay check on Friday (yay!), including my sign on and relocation bonuses, so I was pretty happy. Not to mention, it meant that I would be able to pay off the credit card bill from my move out here. So imagine my frustration (ARGHHHHHHHHH) when, to my surprise and dismay, I got to the bank, and they told me that, since I have a new account (imagine that, I just moved here!), that they were going to put a hold on the ENTIRE amount until the check cleared.

/sigh

No, really. Let’s face it, we all know I need peer pressure to update my blog. See, the way it works is, you post on your blog, I don’t, then you guilt trip me and harass me until I do.

See? It’s all your fault.

But alas, I’m posting anyway, because I’m a good guy. Or because I stopped being lazy. Take your pick. (… moving on…)

I’m pretty well settled in now (minus the lack of furniture… though I have added a computer desk, office chair, and dining room table and chairs). The bad news is, the bills are starting to roll in. The worse news is, though I started work on Monday, I don’t get paid for (/sigh) 3 weeks. But, assuming I actually get paid on time (everything else is taking forever… still don’t have my security badge, just today got my benefits fixed in the computer system, don’t have a key to my office (which I found LOCKED this morning…)) I’ll be fine. That is to say, I’m not too worried.

Work… well, work is boring. Today was better, because they finally gave me something, you know, to DO. Monday – Thursday were filled with the occasional meeting/briefing/orientation, and with me attempting to read the company policy manuals without falling asleep (amazingly I succeeded… just imagine if I had managed to stay awake in my classes!) My manager seems pretty cool (definitely not one to stand over anyone’s shoulder and micro-manage), and he’s a computer engineer too, so that’s cool (there are a ton of electrical engineers around… strange people that actually enjoy Electricity/Magnetism stuff). I still don’t really know many people in my group (I’d recognize them if I saw them, and might even remember their name… maybe), but that’s mostly because I spent all week in my office staring at my computer screen, and not actually interacting with anyone.

Like I said, I was actually given something to work on today, which was good (there was no way I was going to be able to stay occupied today if today had been a repeat of the rest of the week) and bad. Bad because now I have something that I actually have to accomplish. I’d elaborate more, but I’m not sure how much I can say, soooo… yeah. At least it’ll keep me busy for a while, even though it’s not what my first choice would have been as far as type of work.

Oh, and one more thing. I have been completely and utterly deceived. Again, I blame you.

And the media. And the universe.

You see, I’d been led to believe that SoCal was, well, paradise in the weather department. Weather.com’s average temperatures deceived me. Pop culture’s depiction of the area deceived me. All of you that professed to be so jealous deceived me. And yes, the universe deceived me.

You see, we drove across the entire US in the middle of a heat wave. 90s almost every day once we left Iowa. When we got to this area (hence forth referred to as San Diego, even though that’s not strictly where I live, I’m up the coast about 30min), it was gorgeous. High 70s to the mid 80s. Sunny. Cool ocean breeze. For at least 2 weeks.

Needless to say, I believed that this was the way May and June were. Beautiful weather, a full 2 months before summer actually hit in Michigan? Heck yeah!

Except, it seems, that I was misled. Apparently, the pattern is something along the lines of “May grey, June gloom.” NOT exactly what I had in mind. Since Monday, it’s been cool (upper 60s), overcast (think MI in the winter), and misting off and on, sometimes constantly (not even a real rain, to say nothing of a storm). And, as I’ve been informed, this is the way May and June are.

Now a couple people that have lived out here longer actually had nice things to say about this weather. A nice change, nice to not have to worry about sunscreen as much, fewer tourists.

As someone from Michigan, where grey is a season, I’m less than amused.

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 =)