There's no place like home
29 Apr 2007 |
Permalink
It's always strange to wake up in a new bed, even
more so when you're alone and not used to it. I'm
sure Shayla was feeling the same way this morning.
Although it's easier to get a solid night's sleep
when there's not a 1-year old in the next room, I
really do miss the action. My daughter is a little
firecracker, and she sure makes me laugh. No doubt
this will be a long summer, but things could be
worse. After all, I'm about to begin an internship
with a great company and gain some valuable
experience. Gotta keep moving forward and looking on
the positive side of things.
Spencer took myself and Jim (another roommate, more on him in a minute) with him to church at the Stanford 1st Ward, which is composed of singles in the area surrounding Stanford University. Everyone was nice, but it was fairly awkward just being there—it's just a strange environment after all these years. After all, I've been married for 3 years and I have a daughter. I did run into Scott Robertson, a friend from BYU who will be working at HP down here. Imagine his chagrin when he was informed that at 24 he was too young to be in that ward, and needed to attend the younger ward. I must say, whomever came up with making one ward 26 and up probably had their head on straight; at least that minimizes the age gap and avoid scaring away younger girls…
So, aside from being totally excited for work tomorrow, I really want to set a routine of working regularly on a thesis proposal for my Master's degree. If I want to be done in April of 2008 or thereabouts, I pretty much have to have a proposal ready to defend when I come back in the fall. That's going to take a lot of work, but I do have the advantage of being without both a car and a TV, two major detractors from being effective. Putting in the work now when I have a relative abundance of free time makes lots of sense, even though it's hard to get things rolling. I guess I didn't leave academia behind completely as I would have hoped!
My plan is to see how things play out during my first week of work, then plan accordingly. With any luck, I'll have the self-control to kick myself out of bed early, limit hours at work, and spend time on things that matter, rather than frittering away time on computer games—I purposefully didn't bring games with me, and I don't plan on caving in to buy any. At any rate, it should prove to be easier now than when I was younger and less mature. (Those that have associated with me recently may be scared to think of a time when I was less mature. Trust me, you probably don't want to know.) Here's hoping the experiment turns out to be a success.
Spencer took myself and Jim (another roommate, more on him in a minute) with him to church at the Stanford 1st Ward, which is composed of singles in the area surrounding Stanford University. Everyone was nice, but it was fairly awkward just being there—it's just a strange environment after all these years. After all, I've been married for 3 years and I have a daughter. I did run into Scott Robertson, a friend from BYU who will be working at HP down here. Imagine his chagrin when he was informed that at 24 he was too young to be in that ward, and needed to attend the younger ward. I must say, whomever came up with making one ward 26 and up probably had their head on straight; at least that minimizes the age gap and avoid scaring away younger girls…
So, aside from being totally excited for work tomorrow, I really want to set a routine of working regularly on a thesis proposal for my Master's degree. If I want to be done in April of 2008 or thereabouts, I pretty much have to have a proposal ready to defend when I come back in the fall. That's going to take a lot of work, but I do have the advantage of being without both a car and a TV, two major detractors from being effective. Putting in the work now when I have a relative abundance of free time makes lots of sense, even though it's hard to get things rolling. I guess I didn't leave academia behind completely as I would have hoped!
My plan is to see how things play out during my first week of work, then plan accordingly. With any luck, I'll have the self-control to kick myself out of bed early, limit hours at work, and spend time on things that matter, rather than frittering away time on computer games—I purposefully didn't bring games with me, and I don't plan on caving in to buy any. At any rate, it should prove to be easier now than when I was younger and less mature. (Those that have associated with me recently may be scared to think of a time when I was less mature. Trust me, you probably don't want to know.) Here's hoping the experiment turns out to be a success.
Landing in California
28 Apr 2007 |
Permalink
Today was the big day, leaving Utah for sunny
California—alone. Bittersweet, but such is life. I
planned my travel to maximize convenience and
flexibility once I got to San Jose, leaving me enough
time to buy some food and get situated in my new
place. Unfortunately, leaving plenty of time in the
afternoon becomes a "rob Peter to pay Paul"
situation—I had to wake up at 4:30 to catch a 5:30
shuttle, all for an 8:45 flight.
It was a good thing I left so far in advance, though, since my hair gel bottle holds a lot more than 4 ounces, which caused me to circle around right after security to check my other bag. And don't imagine they let me back through without another thorough screening, either. After all, I'm just the type that is liable to pick up a bomb during that 5 minutes. Anyway, by 7:30, I'd already put my shoes, belt, and watch on 3 times. Ah, the love I have for the TSA…
Happily, the flight went without a hitch, and I soon found myself in the tiny San Jose airport, grabbed my luggage, located a shuttle, and 30 minutes and $40 later I was at my new home in Menlo Park. I was actually pleasantly surprised at what $575 a month can get you in Silicon Valley, at least if you look closely and get lucky. The apartment has 3 bedrooms, and there are 3 of us, so it works out nicely, and the neighborhood is nice and somewhat quaint. I think I'll like it here.
As it turns out, the outgoing roomie (Spencer Nielsen, getting married on Saturday the 5th) was celebrating his birthday. Like any quick thinker, he had lined up a trip to a buffet that's free on your birthday. Our victim was Todai, a decent restaurant with one catch for an Arizonan/Texan/Utahn like me: it's a Japanese Sushi & Seafood buffet. Right. I am proud to admit that I ventured out a little and tried some sushi, albeit no raw fish. I even tried eel and calamari, but I ended up eating mostly teriyaki chicken and tempura shrimp. The verdict is… Hey, have I mentioned how much I love Mexican food?
To avoid further intrusion on Spencer's birthday, I headed off to buy groceries with our roommate Joey, an extremely nice guy whose family is from Taiwan. He also has a Porsche Boxster, which was a slight change of pace from a Honda Civic. All I have to say is that it was a good thing there were only 2 of us, because anyone else would have been out of luck, even if they wanted to ride in the trunk. Hence, my reaffirmation that I will never own a sports car—I already knew that monetarily, and now I know that physically—as they are not built for anyone over 6 feet in mind. I suppose I'm on my own if I should choose to have a mid-life crisis!
After I had a chance to ponder this epiphany, we hit up a Chinese supermarket that is inexplicably named "99 Market Ranch", one of the few English phrases to be found on the premises. It was full of new and interesting smells, and had very narrow aisles full of people jabbering in Chinese, making as much sense to me as the packages on the shelves. I felt strangely out of place, perhaps partly because I'm about 6'3" tall. Just as Joey commented that it must be strange to be the tallest guy there, a tall Asian teenager walked by, which somewhat starled me although he didn't quite break 6 feet. I had to laugh and remember many similar experiences I had in Brazil about 4 years ago. We also hit up a Mexican market closer to home, which felt a lot more normal, at least to me. With enough food to survive for the week, I headed home to get some rest and get settled in. Busy day, but somehow I get the feeling that things will get even busier come Monday…
It was a good thing I left so far in advance, though, since my hair gel bottle holds a lot more than 4 ounces, which caused me to circle around right after security to check my other bag. And don't imagine they let me back through without another thorough screening, either. After all, I'm just the type that is liable to pick up a bomb during that 5 minutes. Anyway, by 7:30, I'd already put my shoes, belt, and watch on 3 times. Ah, the love I have for the TSA…
Happily, the flight went without a hitch, and I soon found myself in the tiny San Jose airport, grabbed my luggage, located a shuttle, and 30 minutes and $40 later I was at my new home in Menlo Park. I was actually pleasantly surprised at what $575 a month can get you in Silicon Valley, at least if you look closely and get lucky. The apartment has 3 bedrooms, and there are 3 of us, so it works out nicely, and the neighborhood is nice and somewhat quaint. I think I'll like it here.
As it turns out, the outgoing roomie (Spencer Nielsen, getting married on Saturday the 5th) was celebrating his birthday. Like any quick thinker, he had lined up a trip to a buffet that's free on your birthday. Our victim was Todai, a decent restaurant with one catch for an Arizonan/Texan/Utahn like me: it's a Japanese Sushi & Seafood buffet. Right. I am proud to admit that I ventured out a little and tried some sushi, albeit no raw fish. I even tried eel and calamari, but I ended up eating mostly teriyaki chicken and tempura shrimp. The verdict is… Hey, have I mentioned how much I love Mexican food?
To avoid further intrusion on Spencer's birthday, I headed off to buy groceries with our roommate Joey, an extremely nice guy whose family is from Taiwan. He also has a Porsche Boxster, which was a slight change of pace from a Honda Civic. All I have to say is that it was a good thing there were only 2 of us, because anyone else would have been out of luck, even if they wanted to ride in the trunk. Hence, my reaffirmation that I will never own a sports car—I already knew that monetarily, and now I know that physically—as they are not built for anyone over 6 feet in mind. I suppose I'm on my own if I should choose to have a mid-life crisis!
After I had a chance to ponder this epiphany, we hit up a Chinese supermarket that is inexplicably named "99 Market Ranch", one of the few English phrases to be found on the premises. It was full of new and interesting smells, and had very narrow aisles full of people jabbering in Chinese, making as much sense to me as the packages on the shelves. I felt strangely out of place, perhaps partly because I'm about 6'3" tall. Just as Joey commented that it must be strange to be the tallest guy there, a tall Asian teenager walked by, which somewhat starled me although he didn't quite break 6 feet. I had to laugh and remember many similar experiences I had in Brazil about 4 years ago. We also hit up a Mexican market closer to home, which felt a lot more normal, at least to me. With enough food to survive for the week, I headed home to get some rest and get settled in. Busy day, but somehow I get the feeling that things will get even busier come Monday…