Monday, January 25, 2010

Southbay state of the union

Howdy y'all.  I think my blog is the only place that I have a twang and a southern drawl, but I'm reachin' for country when I'm living in the city!  I promised a few weeks ago to post some pictures of the new place, and I would like to say that I've made progress toward that, but alas I have not.  My phone (which doesn't take particularly good pictures anyway) is not working quite right, so I am without device here in silicon valley.  The ironies never end, do they.

I suppose on the bright side, if I were to post pictures, you would just be looking at bare walls, sparse living room, and a generally spartan, bachelor existence anyhow.  But all that is about to change (queue the mysterious music for dramatic foreshadowing).  I am in the processing of reinventing Gavin.  This old dog is gonna learn some new tricks, and break some old habits in the process.

For example, those of you that know me pretty well, know that I was a huge proponent of mac'n'cheese in my former bachelor ways...  but not anymore.  I BOUGHT LETTUCE.  Why is lettuce so important you ask?  Because lettuce symbolizes the type of food that you buy at the store that really only works with moderately healthy to very healthy meals.  Lettuce is something that is very perishable, which means I'm not just planning to eat it, I'm planning to eat it soon (no, I haven't eaten it yet, but I would have had it with my sandwich on Sunday had it been in my posession).  So, in summary there, I've have taken the lettuce step.  I big step for Gavin-kind.

I am seriously considering buying a slick little point-and-shoot camera to capture some of the fun things goin on around here.  I wish I would have had it earlier tonight: Scott and i took a little drive down Washington st. to a basketball court there.  We shot around and played horse, it was fun.  (I won, muwahahahahah).  But it was cool of him to let me play coach a little bit and help him with his shooting form.  Once a coach, always a coach I guess.  I was actually very impressed with the court: it has really good lighting, not bad backboards and rims for a playgound-style court, and the court is nicely surfaced/leveled for playing.  It's not half-bad!  :P

In my workplace, I've been trying to finish a security/background check set of paperwork.  What a pain that is.  I think i finally finished everything today.  Those things scare me, when the have plastered reminders all over the forms how they can sue you for $10k or send you to prison for 5 years if you get something wrong.  I did my best, hopefully I don't have to go to prison...  In some ways it's kinda fun: I had to call up a lot of the people I used to work with/for.  It's kinda cool to hear how they're doing, I was glad to hear that one place in particular was happy with a database i setup for them 8 years ago or so.  Cool peeps.

On the workout front, I got myself in gear and got a membership to Gold's Gym.  It's very inexpensive here (like $15/mo) and the facilities are pretty good.  I'm trying to go early in the morning, so that helps me go to bed earlier too.  Wow, it's already 10:50pm... I gotta get there at 6am...  I'm gonna "do the math" in my head here and say that I should probably stop writing and get some sleep.

I hope that all of my loyal readership are doing well (wow -> that sounds so impersonal, eh?)  I mean the people that care about me enough to read my text-only blog about my adventures here.  I love you guys.  But all good things must come to an end (I don't really know why there), so I'll keep my date with mr sandman.  He keeps wanting to go steady, I keep telling him that I have to get up...  our relationship is a work-in-progress.  Oh yeah!  really quick!  I don't know if I've mentioned this here or not (i think not).  I was talking to Scott and he asked me if I was a night owl (since it does seem to be my tendency to go to bed late and it does not seem to be my tendency to wake up early when I don't have to)...  I told him that it's not that I'm a night owl, I like the morning and the evening, it's just that I am transition challenged!  Think about it!!  I think that may be the difference between "night owls" and "early birds", the early people have less inertia to transition to the new state while the late people always lag behind and it takes time for them to transition into the new state.  (yeah, I'm gonna publish this theory in my thesis for sure).

Well, without further ado, I bid you all good night!  Gavin is leaving this waking world, in favor of it's nocturnal reflection...

Monday, January 4, 2010

Back at NASA! --> Round two. Fight!

Howdy there!  Well, I'm back in Mountain View, CA at NASA/Ames center working on finishing my thesis.  Hopefully it will be a quality piece of work.  I am signed up through May, but the lease on my apartment goes through the middle of July... after that, I don't know quite where I'll be.

So, what do you say?  Am I now the city slicker?  I don't think of myself that way, but in the last few days I've been pondering what that means...  there is something to be said for having all kinds of consumer items at your fingertips!  Then again, at the moment it seems like people are stacked in here so tight they may not be able to enjoy the "perks". 

I had really hoped to post some pictures of my first few days in Mountain View, so without further ado...

here is a great shot of the Best Western that housed me for the first two nights.  very exciting. (!)


And next we have the super comfy, Comfort Inn.  This is where I'll be staying for the next 2 days.  (!?)




Now, you might be thinking to yourself, "Gavin, why are you such a complainer?!"  "But wait," I interject, "there's more!"  As it turns out, I cannot charge my phone because of a mixup with the adapters I brought.  I have been trying to buy a new one for the last two days, and as yet have been unsuccessful.  But today was close, I came only 5 minutes after VZW closed.  (!)

Firstly, you might think I'm whining right now.  But no, I am relating the simple frustrations of a few days in the city.  My first day at work went really well (actually, one might not have known I was gone, my desk was just like I left it) and it felt like routine before I even got to my office.  I don't know if that is a good thing or not, but that is what it is.  Dad, you will be happy to know that I wore that ENE hoody today, and got several comments on it...  (they were positive)  ;)

My apartment will be ready to go in a few days, so I really can't complain too much, and I am blessed to have found a great place.  The rent is higher than Chico, but it's not bad for Mountain View.  I'll post some pics of the new place when I get over there on Wednesday.  In the meantime, know that I am well, tired, pondering and inconsolable.  (Smiling most of the time, but I miss my family)... Hey Garrett, is this what Hawaii felt like?

Missing all you guys...  =)  Any ideas for what I ought to do this weekend?  Maybe sleep would be good, but how can you sleep on the weekends?!?!?!?!  No, we must party!  (okay, at least go have some fun).

-City Slicker out