Back again,
Well here we are on Black Friday, that soul sucking shopping day from the blackest pits of hell, and I am enjoying the four-day weekend even though it's pretty boring and cold here. So on the day that stores have been open since the wee hours, I will spend some time in my comfortable, yet exceedingly bare abode and give an update on the first week of work and Thanksgiving with the boss. At the end, I have a service announcement for all the Starcraft players out there.
Work on Monday started really slow, they never set up my computer equipment and never got the request even though it was processed on the previous Thursday after I had registered with Boeing. So for most of Monday, I was spending time going over procedures and reading power point presentations about the corporate structure. While there is something more fast paced and maybe exciting about doing research for a professor or private industry, the job security and myriad of career paths afforded by the largest corporation in the country is not only impressive but maybe a smidgen over compensating. The other thing I spent most of Monday doing was meeting the other members of the software requirements team. Well I wouldn't say I met them so much as they met me. By this of course I mean that there are about 20-25 of them and only one of me, and for those who know me you know that I am horrible with remembering names especially when they are clumped together so and the people are busy doing their own work. I did discover that there are many baseball fans in the group so I will have plenty of opportunities to mesh and talk sports. Sadly one of them is a Mets fan and well I feel sorry for him. On the other side, my boss is a such a big fan his goal is to visit every Major and Minor league baseball stadium in the country. He even has a map of this in his basement proving he has gone to about half of them.
Tuesday was spent doing much of the same, going to meetings to see procedures getting set up with the Boeing website, though it's very complicated and most of it was inactive until today for things like direct deposit and health benefits... so I dunno what's gonna happen there. The other thing I spent time doing was visiting the V-22 manufacturing plant and visiting the testing labs. The plant is pretty spiffy, but for those who went through the Aeronautical Engineering school at UC Davis, you will remember the trip you took to the Pratt-Whitney manufacturing plant down by the SF airport. The production lines and general layout of that production plant is almost identical to the V-22 plant. The big difference is that the V-22 airframe and most of the software is loaded here in Pennsylvania and then it is shipped to Amirrilo to add the rotors and nacelles. Unfortunately this means that there are rarely any V-22 sitings here where most of the software is maintained. Kinda sucks since I will probably never get to see the helicopter fully complete but I can with the other planes made here so that's kinda cool. The other thing I learned on Tuesday was that even though I have four degrees, realistically I will never use any of that knowledge except when error/sanity checking the code results I will eventually be writing. This kinda sucks, because I went to school to actually build/design aircraft and instead am writing the software code to support it, however being able to see the internal workings of the aircraft and test it is pretty cool. Since I am allowed to apply for a PhD program in a year, I may get a degree in Aeronautical or Controls or maybe software engineering and eventually teach or move back to the West Coast and be an aircraft designer. The other option of course is to get into Phantom Works and work on special projects. Note for any outside company readers, this isn't divulging anything, as everyone remembers Skunk Works, in fact Kelly Johnson is one of my heroes of aircraft design because the SR-71 is my favorite aircraft of all time. On a wrap up, still no computer or phone nor access to the time keeping system to log my hours and set up the company benefits.
When Wednesday came around, most of the employees either left early or were just on vacation since the next day was Thanksgiving. Basically today was a day spent doing online training of absolutely stupid and ridiculous tests. Since they gave us ethics, protection, and general knowledge talks in orientation AND because 90% of this information is based on common sense, these tests are beyond redundant. Although, I suppose due to the volume of computer losses and private information surrounding such a company, it makes sense to have people reminded of these things. After spending a few hours with these trainings and having lunch with some friends from orientation my day was spent in the lab again just going over basic procedures. I think the idea from my bosses was to spend time just learning HOW they do things before I'm given tasks to do alone. In fact, while in the lab I was told by those people who will probably be in charge of me directly that they took a month or more to finally be able to go to the lab and test things by themselves. It also took many of them an extremely long time to understand remote terminal connections, which I figured out in about 20 seconds (special thanks goes out to Zachary Graham on that one for drilling such things into me!). So I guess I am not a total noob in life. On an ending note, my computer was found across the room due to a maintenance error and was finally installed, though with the wrong software, about 5 minutes before I left for the day.
This brings me to Thanksgiving. On Monday my boss invited me to his house for Thanksgiving after realizing I have lived in this state for about 15 days now and don't know a soul outside of work. So when I woke up early on Thursday and looked outside it was snowing, lightly but it was. I was like: well shit this is gonna be a long day. Fortunately, by the time I left for the 50 minute drive the snow stopped and it was just raining. Rain I can deal with, especially since it wasn't too cold outside. At the house, which is really nice although quite far from work, there were tons of appetizers before dinner. All of the food was quite tasty, though I didn't go crazy with it, because well it's my boss's house with much of his family present. I did learn a lot about what Pennsylvania is like in terms of weather and I got to talk about what CA is like for those who have never been. I can tell that they are infinitely more jealous of me than I am of them in terms of living locations. So after copious amounts of food, I headed for home needed gas along the way. The drive kinda sucked because it was on dark, narrow roads and raining so I was kinda nervous, but survived. I don't know about this state, everything is so dark unlike CA when you have street lights every 200 feet or so by law. Anyway, after that I just came home, went to bed, and am just going to stay in and do housework all weekend. This included of course trying to set up the Boeing stuff that I finally have access to. Otherwise I have nothing else major to report. I will update next week once I get some real work in.
As an announcement for all those Starcraft players, while you could spend your time watching the matched from Dreamhack on Day[9]'s website, I am trying to set up a new version of my Starcraft 1 weekend tournament. For those who don't know, I used to have 6-10 people doing lan matches in a mini tournament that had live casting via an observer in another room. I would like to do that again with Starcraft II with as many people as I can. I already have a bracket system and rules in place, though they are modular, but I would like to actually cast the last best of 3 matchup and post it to youtube as well as the SLAMCLAN site assuming that can be set up.
PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT IF INTERESTED SO I CAN START THIS NEXT WEEK!
Friday, November 26, 2010
Saturday, November 20, 2010
The Saturday After
Hello again,
So Friday the 19th was the day I had a full fledged orientation at Boeing. When I say full fledged I mean from 7:30am-5:15pm or for those who are not mathematically adept, that's 8 hours and 45 minutes of orientation. Day started off rather quickly, for I had one of those nights of over excitement leading to the inability to sleep but without the feeling of being tired. There are only two other times in my life I have had this same feeling, the first was the night before I went to Alaska for the first time and our shuttle was coming at 4am for a 7am flight and the other was the day I bought my Nintendo 64 and DK64 with the expansion pack with my own money. While the former is a rather obvious moment, the later happened to be the first >50$ expenditure of my life and at 14 I likened it to the greatest thing ever. So having one of those nights meant I went to bed at like 1am and woke up at 5:30 with the inability to fall back to sleep, therefore by a strange turn of events, I was there an hour early.
Orientation at a major company is well exactly how you would expect, long and tedious. They go through welcoming and a general outline of the company with some history for those genuinely unfamiliar with Boeing, which is basically all the hot finance girls. Then new speakers come in and give talks about the web access systems, which I liken to a glorified sisweb meets online banking structure, and all of this is followed by talks on ethics, and safety before lunch. Now I should mention here, that there was this one annoying kid who kept asking the most infuriating things or coming up with statements that just make you want to shake your head and pull Captain Picard (see below).
Lunch was probably the best part for me as they invite your department managers to come have lunch with you and give you tours. Now I had already meet my department heads last Friday, so my section head, the one in charge of the entire division came down to meet me. That in itself was pretty awesome, but after showing me the cafeterias - yes there are two - she took me around the facilities where I will be working. This included poking my head in the V-22 manufacturing plant and showing me my desk and labs. Unfortunately I don't have security clearance so I can't actually get IN to the labs, but maybe some day I will. So that was a good lunch and hopefully I didn't say anything stupid and instead ingratiated myself to the head boss. Especially since I have a 30-day assessment with her and I don't want to go into it being screwed. Now on top of this, they may be having me skip some of the more basic training and just do the most important stuff while I don't have a computer so I can start being productive earlier, which is both awesome because I'm sick of being useless and scary because I don't want to be in charge of my own project already.
Back in the conference room, I had the chance to talk to the two cute finance girls next to me who I met at the last meeting on Wednesday. Both are pretty nice, but neither are working anywhere near me, so internal Boeing facebook stalking lol. Not really for anybody important reading this, it's just a saying call off the attack dogs. After lunch is when the more active presenters came and basically talked to us about how much we are needed especially with the increase in production and design coming in the future. The last presenter was in HR who basically pointed out that the Nov. 19th orientation class it's itself a new team of workers, and we really all have the same concerns and excitements about our new job so we are not alone. On the other hand, it is strange to hear someone who has been with the company for 26 years call themselves new compared to those who have been in the same desk since the Vietnam war or over 50 years! The one downside of this is that stupid kid kept opening his mouth and being a dick. Now I know that when I am in an English class with morons or a Chem class and I ask weird questions or berate people, people look at me and say "man I wish he would shut the hell up" but at least my stories were somewhat subject related and I had a purpose. This fuzz-bag, well even the former F-15 fighter pilot was shaking his head and pulling one of these:
The last thing of the day was a mini tour of the campus and we got to go to the 3D simulation lab. Now this place is totally awesome with fully 3D computer systems, motion tracking, and back-lit monitors that let you walk right up to them. Fortunately none of that is proprietary as I have seen it before, especially in movie theaters and commercial applications so I'm not divulging company secrets at all. I do wish they could load in Ender's Game into that thing though as a full 3D terrain, battle and squadron environment would be totally awesome. Unfortunately, solid works can't pipe that much information at one time, and when I asked why sized clusters they were using they looked at me and went wtf is a cluster we just use Linux in general.... I'm guessing there was a lost in translation, but then again, I could be trying to debase the onlookers, or they were actually using windows and I was mistaken, alas we shall never know.
Anyway, at the end of the day there was a raffle, unfortunately no such luck for me, then I had fun in rush hour traffic before coming home and sleeping. I think more food shopping tomorrow to bring the total money spent to just over 5k for this whole trip, yea a lot I know but I guess it's necessary all things considering. Anyway, as of Monday morning, I will finally be an adult in the workplace "living the dream" unfortunately in California that dream is to be in Hawaii wearing shirts, surfing, girls in bikini's, and generally awesome weather not the freaking code, ice wind's of the north east. Curse you north Atlantic winds curse you!
Well that's all for now, maybe I'll try some starcraft again soon and be of use to the clan.
So Friday the 19th was the day I had a full fledged orientation at Boeing. When I say full fledged I mean from 7:30am-5:15pm or for those who are not mathematically adept, that's 8 hours and 45 minutes of orientation. Day started off rather quickly, for I had one of those nights of over excitement leading to the inability to sleep but without the feeling of being tired. There are only two other times in my life I have had this same feeling, the first was the night before I went to Alaska for the first time and our shuttle was coming at 4am for a 7am flight and the other was the day I bought my Nintendo 64 and DK64 with the expansion pack with my own money. While the former is a rather obvious moment, the later happened to be the first >50$ expenditure of my life and at 14 I likened it to the greatest thing ever. So having one of those nights meant I went to bed at like 1am and woke up at 5:30 with the inability to fall back to sleep, therefore by a strange turn of events, I was there an hour early.
Orientation at a major company is well exactly how you would expect, long and tedious. They go through welcoming and a general outline of the company with some history for those genuinely unfamiliar with Boeing, which is basically all the hot finance girls. Then new speakers come in and give talks about the web access systems, which I liken to a glorified sisweb meets online banking structure, and all of this is followed by talks on ethics, and safety before lunch. Now I should mention here, that there was this one annoying kid who kept asking the most infuriating things or coming up with statements that just make you want to shake your head and pull Captain Picard (see below).
Lunch was probably the best part for me as they invite your department managers to come have lunch with you and give you tours. Now I had already meet my department heads last Friday, so my section head, the one in charge of the entire division came down to meet me. That in itself was pretty awesome, but after showing me the cafeterias - yes there are two - she took me around the facilities where I will be working. This included poking my head in the V-22 manufacturing plant and showing me my desk and labs. Unfortunately I don't have security clearance so I can't actually get IN to the labs, but maybe some day I will. So that was a good lunch and hopefully I didn't say anything stupid and instead ingratiated myself to the head boss. Especially since I have a 30-day assessment with her and I don't want to go into it being screwed. Now on top of this, they may be having me skip some of the more basic training and just do the most important stuff while I don't have a computer so I can start being productive earlier, which is both awesome because I'm sick of being useless and scary because I don't want to be in charge of my own project already.
Back in the conference room, I had the chance to talk to the two cute finance girls next to me who I met at the last meeting on Wednesday. Both are pretty nice, but neither are working anywhere near me, so internal Boeing facebook stalking lol. Not really for anybody important reading this, it's just a saying call off the attack dogs. After lunch is when the more active presenters came and basically talked to us about how much we are needed especially with the increase in production and design coming in the future. The last presenter was in HR who basically pointed out that the Nov. 19th orientation class it's itself a new team of workers, and we really all have the same concerns and excitements about our new job so we are not alone. On the other hand, it is strange to hear someone who has been with the company for 26 years call themselves new compared to those who have been in the same desk since the Vietnam war or over 50 years! The one downside of this is that stupid kid kept opening his mouth and being a dick. Now I know that when I am in an English class with morons or a Chem class and I ask weird questions or berate people, people look at me and say "man I wish he would shut the hell up" but at least my stories were somewhat subject related and I had a purpose. This fuzz-bag, well even the former F-15 fighter pilot was shaking his head and pulling one of these:
 |
| Well maybe this, and if it were me I would arm the Y,L,G, and A Lasers and hell man the damn Photo torpedoes too. |
 |
| More accurate is this.... yea this. |
The last thing of the day was a mini tour of the campus and we got to go to the 3D simulation lab. Now this place is totally awesome with fully 3D computer systems, motion tracking, and back-lit monitors that let you walk right up to them. Fortunately none of that is proprietary as I have seen it before, especially in movie theaters and commercial applications so I'm not divulging company secrets at all. I do wish they could load in Ender's Game into that thing though as a full 3D terrain, battle and squadron environment would be totally awesome. Unfortunately, solid works can't pipe that much information at one time, and when I asked why sized clusters they were using they looked at me and went wtf is a cluster we just use Linux in general.... I'm guessing there was a lost in translation, but then again, I could be trying to debase the onlookers, or they were actually using windows and I was mistaken, alas we shall never know.
Anyway, at the end of the day there was a raffle, unfortunately no such luck for me, then I had fun in rush hour traffic before coming home and sleeping. I think more food shopping tomorrow to bring the total money spent to just over 5k for this whole trip, yea a lot I know but I guess it's necessary all things considering. Anyway, as of Monday morning, I will finally be an adult in the workplace "living the dream" unfortunately in California that dream is to be in Hawaii wearing shirts, surfing, girls in bikini's, and generally awesome weather not the freaking code, ice wind's of the north east. Curse you north Atlantic winds curse you!
Well that's all for now, maybe I'll try some starcraft again soon and be of use to the clan.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Finding and Furnishing
Hello again,
So after a week or so of crying and searching for a place to live, I was able to get an apartment at the Media Station Apartment complex in Media PA. The apartment is on the bottom of 4 floors and is fairly spacious in size (note pics below). I was told I was pretty lucky to get in as the person applying for the same apartment before had their application fall through due to credit, so lucky me. Once having a place to live, I unloaded my car but didn't move in officially for a couple more days, instead staying at a hotel in Delaware for a couple more nights as I started furniture shopping and basically getting my barrings.
The first purchase was a queen bed, which I am starting to really enjoy having a larger bed, that was my first time buying a bed and owning one larger than a twin. After having a bed, I was starting to feel a bit easier about living here as at least I had a bed to sleep on and someplace warm to live. After that, I took a trip down to Costco in Delaware where I got a 42" TV, a desk chair, microwave, and eventually a very nice glass topped 3-section desk. So all in all, life was starting to get better as I knew the area pretty well and was starting to have a furnished house. After the Costco stop, it was time to go to Target for things like lighting, bedding, ironing boards, and other necessary items. Strangely enough, all the Targets in PA are super-targets so they all have dry and freezer foods at comparable prices to a "Safeway" called Genardi's out here. It's weird to say "I need a frozen pizza, I think I'll go to Target?!" Last stop of furniture was everybody's favorite place IKEA where I got tables, bookcases, dressers, and all other furniture items to basically finish the furnishing of my place. Last step was to take everything home, pull it out of my car, which I am starting to appreciate having a SUV even if they are harder for me to drive, and get to building. Once everything was finally built, I was felling like I was "sitting pretty" with a furnished house, internet, and everything unpacked and put away. Unfortunately my couch will take a couple more weeks to get here, so that's not in the photos, and I am missing about 3 boxes of books and stuff from home, but everything I NEED is here.
Consequently, the more I start to feel better here, the more depressed I started to feel knowing that my dad leaves tomorrow and I really will be on my own. On Friday however, I had lunch with my two immediate bosses and they seem like really nice guys who think I will be a good fit for their group. While talking with them, I learned that Boeing tries to make 2 V-22's and Chinook Helicopters from their plant every year, they really don't have a dress code, and really don't care when I work so long as I work for 8 hours a day, within reason. Since my dad was with me, he did a lot of talking since he has a lot of aircraft knowledge and history with his previous work. It turns out that Boeing occasionally goes down to Miramar in San Diego, and since I am from that area, next time flight testing is done there I will be tops on the list to go watch... kinda awesome as miramar air show was one of the reasons I became an Aero-engineer in the first place.
Now I would take a minute here and actually tell you, FINALLY, what I will actually be doing, but my department is literally a group of engineering mercenaries. When we have actual mission control issues to work on, we are our own team, but when the avionics or mission control items are not critical, services are loaned to the controls, flight, mission planning, design, or basically any group that needs Matlab/programming help. SO all I can tell you at this point is that I am an engineer whose primary tool is Matlab coding. Guess all that time with Hafez and coding in ENG180, EAE126, and well every other class that had programming was worth it for this job.
The other thing I suppose that's nice of living where I am is that I am close to the main activities of this area. On Saturday, my dad stopped one of the police officers driving around the complex, which I will not go in to as the police and more accurately the concept of "towns, counties, and cities" around here is totally weird, and asked about this complex and general area. According to the officer, my particular complex is perhaps the best in the entire area and has almost no crime, which is why they hit it so hard, to ensure the peace. Also the complex seems to come alive in the summer with people all over the pool area and kids my age having the occasional party and such. What this means is that I will HOPEFULLY be able to meet people my own age and not be totally depressed all the time. It also means that this was a pretty good place to get lucky with.
Now how does that relate to activities? Well I live about a quarter mile from the bar scene in downtown Media. I went to a really nice restaurant on Sunday that is also a brewery. They had a special on Sunday that was a 14oz. Rib Eye, baked potato, soup/salad, and a pint of house beer for 19.99$! It was the best meal here apart from the standard olive gardens and fast foods of CA. The food here is perhaps the thing that will keep me from going crazy as they give good sized portions for pretty reasonable prices.
Unfortunately especially for Zach and others who like beer, Pennsylvania has laws that prohibit the sale of alcohol except at designated stores or restaurants. This means they are obviously a bit more expensive, but there are quite a few brewery-restaurants around so I guess it evens out. I dunno too much about prices, but 18$ for 64 oz seems kinda high even for house brews.
Well after dinner Sunday, I basically went shopping one last time at target for other little things and once to "Safeway" or their other food store here called ACME and that's pretty much it. So tomorrow at 7am my dad leaves for CA which means I have to drive home from the airport. It's about 8 miles total, but the roads are really small to me, and I just haven't driven on the freeway much to be comfortable with it. 1500 miles of freeway on I-80 when NOBODY is around and 10 miles in congested city are totally different. After that, 1pm I have papers to sign at work, Friday is my orientation day starting at 7:45AM, and next week is my first 3 days of work before Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, I think I'm gonna be home and alone for this year, which is also a first, but I don't want to drive for 3 hours in holiday traffic to go to Virginia for dinner and Harry Potter 7.1 at a friend's house.
MY HOUSE PHOTOS - minus the couch
So that's pretty much it for now, just getting my house together, my car registered/inspected and ready, and trying to not get too depressed over being all alone out here and having winter coming just around the bend. I'll be updating soon and hopefully some of my whit will be back and the read will be a bit better, but until then you know the drill.
P.S. For those waiting for more Starcraft, I will hopefully start playing that game again soon and writing more casts with some video casts, but I just don't know when I'll get back to that, be patient life is hectic here as you know.
So after a week or so of crying and searching for a place to live, I was able to get an apartment at the Media Station Apartment complex in Media PA. The apartment is on the bottom of 4 floors and is fairly spacious in size (note pics below). I was told I was pretty lucky to get in as the person applying for the same apartment before had their application fall through due to credit, so lucky me. Once having a place to live, I unloaded my car but didn't move in officially for a couple more days, instead staying at a hotel in Delaware for a couple more nights as I started furniture shopping and basically getting my barrings.
The first purchase was a queen bed, which I am starting to really enjoy having a larger bed, that was my first time buying a bed and owning one larger than a twin. After having a bed, I was starting to feel a bit easier about living here as at least I had a bed to sleep on and someplace warm to live. After that, I took a trip down to Costco in Delaware where I got a 42" TV, a desk chair, microwave, and eventually a very nice glass topped 3-section desk. So all in all, life was starting to get better as I knew the area pretty well and was starting to have a furnished house. After the Costco stop, it was time to go to Target for things like lighting, bedding, ironing boards, and other necessary items. Strangely enough, all the Targets in PA are super-targets so they all have dry and freezer foods at comparable prices to a "Safeway" called Genardi's out here. It's weird to say "I need a frozen pizza, I think I'll go to Target?!" Last stop of furniture was everybody's favorite place IKEA where I got tables, bookcases, dressers, and all other furniture items to basically finish the furnishing of my place. Last step was to take everything home, pull it out of my car, which I am starting to appreciate having a SUV even if they are harder for me to drive, and get to building. Once everything was finally built, I was felling like I was "sitting pretty" with a furnished house, internet, and everything unpacked and put away. Unfortunately my couch will take a couple more weeks to get here, so that's not in the photos, and I am missing about 3 boxes of books and stuff from home, but everything I NEED is here.
Consequently, the more I start to feel better here, the more depressed I started to feel knowing that my dad leaves tomorrow and I really will be on my own. On Friday however, I had lunch with my two immediate bosses and they seem like really nice guys who think I will be a good fit for their group. While talking with them, I learned that Boeing tries to make 2 V-22's and Chinook Helicopters from their plant every year, they really don't have a dress code, and really don't care when I work so long as I work for 8 hours a day, within reason. Since my dad was with me, he did a lot of talking since he has a lot of aircraft knowledge and history with his previous work. It turns out that Boeing occasionally goes down to Miramar in San Diego, and since I am from that area, next time flight testing is done there I will be tops on the list to go watch... kinda awesome as miramar air show was one of the reasons I became an Aero-engineer in the first place.
Now I would take a minute here and actually tell you, FINALLY, what I will actually be doing, but my department is literally a group of engineering mercenaries. When we have actual mission control issues to work on, we are our own team, but when the avionics or mission control items are not critical, services are loaned to the controls, flight, mission planning, design, or basically any group that needs Matlab/programming help. SO all I can tell you at this point is that I am an engineer whose primary tool is Matlab coding. Guess all that time with Hafez and coding in ENG180, EAE126, and well every other class that had programming was worth it for this job.
The other thing I suppose that's nice of living where I am is that I am close to the main activities of this area. On Saturday, my dad stopped one of the police officers driving around the complex, which I will not go in to as the police and more accurately the concept of "towns, counties, and cities" around here is totally weird, and asked about this complex and general area. According to the officer, my particular complex is perhaps the best in the entire area and has almost no crime, which is why they hit it so hard, to ensure the peace. Also the complex seems to come alive in the summer with people all over the pool area and kids my age having the occasional party and such. What this means is that I will HOPEFULLY be able to meet people my own age and not be totally depressed all the time. It also means that this was a pretty good place to get lucky with.
Now how does that relate to activities? Well I live about a quarter mile from the bar scene in downtown Media. I went to a really nice restaurant on Sunday that is also a brewery. They had a special on Sunday that was a 14oz. Rib Eye, baked potato, soup/salad, and a pint of house beer for 19.99$! It was the best meal here apart from the standard olive gardens and fast foods of CA. The food here is perhaps the thing that will keep me from going crazy as they give good sized portions for pretty reasonable prices.
Unfortunately especially for Zach and others who like beer, Pennsylvania has laws that prohibit the sale of alcohol except at designated stores or restaurants. This means they are obviously a bit more expensive, but there are quite a few brewery-restaurants around so I guess it evens out. I dunno too much about prices, but 18$ for 64 oz seems kinda high even for house brews.
Well after dinner Sunday, I basically went shopping one last time at target for other little things and once to "Safeway" or their other food store here called ACME and that's pretty much it. So tomorrow at 7am my dad leaves for CA which means I have to drive home from the airport. It's about 8 miles total, but the roads are really small to me, and I just haven't driven on the freeway much to be comfortable with it. 1500 miles of freeway on I-80 when NOBODY is around and 10 miles in congested city are totally different. After that, 1pm I have papers to sign at work, Friday is my orientation day starting at 7:45AM, and next week is my first 3 days of work before Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, I think I'm gonna be home and alone for this year, which is also a first, but I don't want to drive for 3 hours in holiday traffic to go to Virginia for dinner and Harry Potter 7.1 at a friend's house.
MY HOUSE PHOTOS - minus the couch
 |
| bathroom right side - notice built in washer/dryer |
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| bathroom left side - towel rack is in a stupid spot |
 |
| Dad slept on the floor, kinda lame also those cables were organized since then |
 |
| Yup those are diplomas on the wall |
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| Small ass kitchen 8'x5' but big enough since I don't really make lasagna often |
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| Dad enjoying the desk on a conference call |
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| This is my very deep walk in closet, it goes about 15' back there |
 |
| Amanda might recognize this, was the place mate at the restaurant-brewery Iron Hill we went to on Sunday. I tried to get a picture of the menu and the beers, but I couldn't get it to turn out. They had 5 main ones in growlers to go: Iron Hill Light Lager, Raspberry Wheat (I had this), Ironbound Ale, Vienna Red Lager, Pig Iron Porter, and seasonal Belgian ale. |
So that's pretty much it for now, just getting my house together, my car registered/inspected and ready, and trying to not get too depressed over being all alone out here and having winter coming just around the bend. I'll be updating soon and hopefully some of my whit will be back and the read will be a bit better, but until then you know the drill.
P.S. For those waiting for more Starcraft, I will hopefully start playing that game again soon and writing more casts with some video casts, but I just don't know when I'll get back to that, be patient life is hectic here as you know.
The Road to Pennsylvania
DAY 5
Well I have been really busy and haven't really checked back here in almost a week, so it didn't occur to me that I didn't do the DAY 5 post of the last day of driving. I will do that now and then do a new post on the week of living here and getting settled and then I will do another post this weekend after Orientation tomorrow and Friday.
The last day of driving was altogether pretty boring, mostly I saw lots of trees and some small farms. Driving through I-76 you have to get on two toll roads, one to get through Illinois and the last to get through the first part of Pennsylvania. The last leg of the drive is the road from the home of the Steelers to that of the Eagles, but you have to pass right by Penn State. I don't know if anybody knows about Penn State, but it is basically a giant football stadium and absolutely nothing else. People come from 3 hours away to watch football games there. At the end of the drive, we arrived in Chester PA at a holiday in that was, by far, the worst hotel I have even been in, in the scariest of parts of town. I suppose this was to be expected since it's right next to an industrial zone and a junior college, but being there was just bad.
There isn't really much else to say about the last leg of driving except after just over 3000 miles of driving of which I did about half, it was finally over.
Well I have been really busy and haven't really checked back here in almost a week, so it didn't occur to me that I didn't do the DAY 5 post of the last day of driving. I will do that now and then do a new post on the week of living here and getting settled and then I will do another post this weekend after Orientation tomorrow and Friday.
The last day of driving was altogether pretty boring, mostly I saw lots of trees and some small farms. Driving through I-76 you have to get on two toll roads, one to get through Illinois and the last to get through the first part of Pennsylvania. The last leg of the drive is the road from the home of the Steelers to that of the Eagles, but you have to pass right by Penn State. I don't know if anybody knows about Penn State, but it is basically a giant football stadium and absolutely nothing else. People come from 3 hours away to watch football games there. At the end of the drive, we arrived in Chester PA at a holiday in that was, by far, the worst hotel I have even been in, in the scariest of parts of town. I suppose this was to be expected since it's right next to an industrial zone and a junior college, but being there was just bad.
There isn't really much else to say about the last leg of driving except after just over 3000 miles of driving of which I did about half, it was finally over.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Another day in PA
Hello again,
Well after 4 long, annoying nights in Pennsylvania in a hotel of horrendous noise consisting of fire engines, police sirens, and a plethora of other emergency vehicles I am currently in Delaware in a much better hotel. On better news, I signed the lease for my new Apt in Media, PA and saw some pretty cute girls who live in my building. Maybe someday soon I will be brave and knock on some doors and say hello. Yea it's kinda shallow and maybe a bit pedantic, but how else am I gonna meet people or girls in this city? After getting the lease signed and paying almost 1500$ in rent/deposit I could finally start the process of getting a Pennsylvania drivers license and then getting my car registered.
Now the process of getting all of this stuff for new residents is really quite stupid in this state, but the speed at which it takes to get them is actually pretty awesome. As a general recap, in order to get a drivers license you need to have an original birth certificate, a social security card, your old drivers license that is less than 6 months expired, and you need 2 forms demonstrating residency in PA at your permanent address. Fortunately I had purchased a queen bed and car insurance prior to making this trip so I had enough options in conjunction with my lease to fulfill these needs. Now this may not seem like the biggest of issues in terms of all these forms, but in order to get an apartment you need home owners insurance and in order to get that you need an address, and in order to get a car registered you need all this stuff... so yea just go with it's annoying in general and don't bother trying to understand the above paragraph. However, unlike California which can take hours to get to the front of the line so you might as well bring some coffee, I was in and out of the DMV or what they call "Photo and Test Center" in under an hour. So I suppose I should just look at is like checking another thing off the list, as the only thing left is to finally get the car registered.
But on to better things as with all of this stuff behind me, tomorrow is the day of shopping. Already got a bed, but now I need to get furniture and a couch and start to really make my place look like a home, especially since comcast is already scheduled and as those who know me know, I love me my internet. Not really that much else to talk about today, but I bet after shopping tomorrow and lunch with my bosses on Friday I will have much to report.
Thanks for reading the short update, I'll probably post again Saturday night after my internet/tv and general apartment is set up. I WILL ALSO HAVE PICTURES!!
Well after 4 long, annoying nights in Pennsylvania in a hotel of horrendous noise consisting of fire engines, police sirens, and a plethora of other emergency vehicles I am currently in Delaware in a much better hotel. On better news, I signed the lease for my new Apt in Media, PA and saw some pretty cute girls who live in my building. Maybe someday soon I will be brave and knock on some doors and say hello. Yea it's kinda shallow and maybe a bit pedantic, but how else am I gonna meet people or girls in this city? After getting the lease signed and paying almost 1500$ in rent/deposit I could finally start the process of getting a Pennsylvania drivers license and then getting my car registered.
Now the process of getting all of this stuff for new residents is really quite stupid in this state, but the speed at which it takes to get them is actually pretty awesome. As a general recap, in order to get a drivers license you need to have an original birth certificate, a social security card, your old drivers license that is less than 6 months expired, and you need 2 forms demonstrating residency in PA at your permanent address. Fortunately I had purchased a queen bed and car insurance prior to making this trip so I had enough options in conjunction with my lease to fulfill these needs. Now this may not seem like the biggest of issues in terms of all these forms, but in order to get an apartment you need home owners insurance and in order to get that you need an address, and in order to get a car registered you need all this stuff... so yea just go with it's annoying in general and don't bother trying to understand the above paragraph. However, unlike California which can take hours to get to the front of the line so you might as well bring some coffee, I was in and out of the DMV or what they call "Photo and Test Center" in under an hour. So I suppose I should just look at is like checking another thing off the list, as the only thing left is to finally get the car registered.
But on to better things as with all of this stuff behind me, tomorrow is the day of shopping. Already got a bed, but now I need to get furniture and a couch and start to really make my place look like a home, especially since comcast is already scheduled and as those who know me know, I love me my internet. Not really that much else to talk about today, but I bet after shopping tomorrow and lunch with my bosses on Friday I will have much to report.
Thanks for reading the short update, I'll probably post again Saturday night after my internet/tv and general apartment is set up. I WILL ALSO HAVE PICTURES!!
Monday, November 8, 2010
Pennsylvania
Hello again,
Well for those who don't know, I've been spending the last couple days looking around the area of Ridley Park where Boeing is located for housing.... when I'm not fighting extreme amount of depression and involuntary crying. So I started looking in the Chester, Ridley Park, Prospect Park areas which are the closest to Boeing at about 3 miles. While I was here however, I swear I drove through 2-3 drug deals and saw a half dozen hookers in the DARKEST streets and houses I have ever seen. So lets just say that I was about ready to call it off and drive back to California at this point.
Yes it really was that bad for those who are understanding the visualization right now. I would say it was blacker than the blackest night of black or more petrifying than a Greece song, but I have been trying to think of a good analogy. In terms of lighting, the best I can come up with is the first scene of the very first Harry Potter movie, where Dumbledore uses his magic cigarette lighter to dim the entire street by taking out like 3 lights. Well most of the houses are located on side alleys that have maybe 3 lights per quarter mile so taking out one would be the same thing. So as you can imagine, by now I was basically crying and ready to just say fuck it.
Noting a common temple that I always passed by, I finally stopped and introduced myself to some of the employee's just to have a tour and talk to someone with a common interest. I ended up meeting a guy named Joshua who was the executive director and took me on a little tour of the place. He started telling me where I SHOULD be looking and it was really about 2 miles up the road from where I was. We also ran into another guy there who talked for a while and affirmed that yea I was basically looking in the ghetto's of the greater Boeing area. Now by this point I was involuntarily crying in front of the guy, why I have no idea but there it is, but it was nice to finally talk to someone a bit better and more mentally sound. So after this event, I drove out to the "new" area and drove around Media, Swathmore, and Springfield where he recommended I look. In about 10 minutes I started to feel much better as I saw more traditional residential homes, mostly lighted streets, and 4 lane roads with a large number of White people. While life out here is MUCH different than in CA, what with small little shops lining the streets, long distances between houses with no fences, and relatively bad lighting by comparison, this was definitely the place to be. All those people in CA be grateful, you are rather spoiled in construction and centralized shopping. On one street there are 2 "malls" which have maybe 4 stores each, and lots of little shops along the way, which reminds me a bit of Douglas but it's just different so be HAPPY in CA, I am almost positive that in 5 years after I have a PhD and some work experience I'm coming back to CA as a teacher and probably to UC Davis if they will have me.
After another day of just driving around, I finally had the chance to look at apartments today for real. After a couple places that just didn't seem to be that great due to size, cost, location, or just too scuzzy looking, I found a place in Media Station, almost by accident, where I got to apply for a place. Hopefully I do get it as it is reasonable in size and location and apparently some other Boeing employees live there too. If I do get it, pictures will be coming for sure. The have a pretty nice tennis court and pool, though they are pretty drab at the moment due to the weather. So now it's time to relax a bit and look for a TV, bed, furniture, and the number of other niceties that make home home.
Unfortunately for me though, the more I get closer to having "roots" here, the more I get depressed and start crying that I will be all alone and on my own in a very short time frame. It seems the commute is pretty simple, whether I take the freeway or surface streets, but lets just say I'm not looking forward to being all alone.
So until I have more news, or the pictures of day 5 or the apartment, that's about it for now, so wish me luck on this adventure called life!
Well for those who don't know, I've been spending the last couple days looking around the area of Ridley Park where Boeing is located for housing.... when I'm not fighting extreme amount of depression and involuntary crying. So I started looking in the Chester, Ridley Park, Prospect Park areas which are the closest to Boeing at about 3 miles. While I was here however, I swear I drove through 2-3 drug deals and saw a half dozen hookers in the DARKEST streets and houses I have ever seen. So lets just say that I was about ready to call it off and drive back to California at this point.
Yes it really was that bad for those who are understanding the visualization right now. I would say it was blacker than the blackest night of black or more petrifying than a Greece song, but I have been trying to think of a good analogy. In terms of lighting, the best I can come up with is the first scene of the very first Harry Potter movie, where Dumbledore uses his magic cigarette lighter to dim the entire street by taking out like 3 lights. Well most of the houses are located on side alleys that have maybe 3 lights per quarter mile so taking out one would be the same thing. So as you can imagine, by now I was basically crying and ready to just say fuck it.
Noting a common temple that I always passed by, I finally stopped and introduced myself to some of the employee's just to have a tour and talk to someone with a common interest. I ended up meeting a guy named Joshua who was the executive director and took me on a little tour of the place. He started telling me where I SHOULD be looking and it was really about 2 miles up the road from where I was. We also ran into another guy there who talked for a while and affirmed that yea I was basically looking in the ghetto's of the greater Boeing area. Now by this point I was involuntarily crying in front of the guy, why I have no idea but there it is, but it was nice to finally talk to someone a bit better and more mentally sound. So after this event, I drove out to the "new" area and drove around Media, Swathmore, and Springfield where he recommended I look. In about 10 minutes I started to feel much better as I saw more traditional residential homes, mostly lighted streets, and 4 lane roads with a large number of White people. While life out here is MUCH different than in CA, what with small little shops lining the streets, long distances between houses with no fences, and relatively bad lighting by comparison, this was definitely the place to be. All those people in CA be grateful, you are rather spoiled in construction and centralized shopping. On one street there are 2 "malls" which have maybe 4 stores each, and lots of little shops along the way, which reminds me a bit of Douglas but it's just different so be HAPPY in CA, I am almost positive that in 5 years after I have a PhD and some work experience I'm coming back to CA as a teacher and probably to UC Davis if they will have me.
After another day of just driving around, I finally had the chance to look at apartments today for real. After a couple places that just didn't seem to be that great due to size, cost, location, or just too scuzzy looking, I found a place in Media Station, almost by accident, where I got to apply for a place. Hopefully I do get it as it is reasonable in size and location and apparently some other Boeing employees live there too. If I do get it, pictures will be coming for sure. The have a pretty nice tennis court and pool, though they are pretty drab at the moment due to the weather. So now it's time to relax a bit and look for a TV, bed, furniture, and the number of other niceties that make home home.
Unfortunately for me though, the more I get closer to having "roots" here, the more I get depressed and start crying that I will be all alone and on my own in a very short time frame. It seems the commute is pretty simple, whether I take the freeway or surface streets, but lets just say I'm not looking forward to being all alone.
So until I have more news, or the pictures of day 5 or the apartment, that's about it for now, so wish me luck on this adventure called life!
Friday, November 5, 2010
The Road to Pennsylvania Day 4
Hello all,
Well today was day FOUR on the road and it was much shorter indeed. Still getting up to a chilly 23˚ day in Illinois, it was a bit of a rough start. Also I think the smoke in the air of the hotel from the previous night made it hard to breath and my dad and I a bit sick. Don't ever stay at an econolodge if you can avoid it people. This was perhaps the most interesting day of the trip with the inclusion of SNOW and some occasional WTF from other drivers. Pictures are included below, first ones are some while in Indiana with the snow itself then there is one from the start of Ohio when I reached there. The land of Illinois is actually pretty populated as is Ohio, which is rather against my original thoughts. Unfortunately, here again the corn and other crops had already been harvested so I was mostly looking at flattened fields with some wildlife.
However unlike the day before where there were about 75 deer carcasses a strewn on the freeway, this was a rather road-kill free day. I bring this up because I was asked about the food of the days. While in Wyoming I had some Bison, while in Nebraska I had some lamb/corn, and while in Ohio I had a really Philly Cheese steak and fish and chips. Unfortunately, while passing through Illinois, Chicago was much to the north of the freeway and I while I could see sears tower, there was no way to stop and have "Chicago style pizza or hotdogs" oh well. Got to the hotel tonight around 6:30, which is 3:30 for all you west coast folk, and am just trying to keep warm and plan the next days drive into Philly. If I get there early enough I guess I will start the house hunting search or just crash and pick it up the next day.
Well today was day FOUR on the road and it was much shorter indeed. Still getting up to a chilly 23˚ day in Illinois, it was a bit of a rough start. Also I think the smoke in the air of the hotel from the previous night made it hard to breath and my dad and I a bit sick. Don't ever stay at an econolodge if you can avoid it people. This was perhaps the most interesting day of the trip with the inclusion of SNOW and some occasional WTF from other drivers. Pictures are included below, first ones are some while in Indiana with the snow itself then there is one from the start of Ohio when I reached there. The land of Illinois is actually pretty populated as is Ohio, which is rather against my original thoughts. Unfortunately, here again the corn and other crops had already been harvested so I was mostly looking at flattened fields with some wildlife.
 |
| If you look really hard you can see snow on the windshield! I drove though snow, but 10 miles later it was sunny? |
However unlike the day before where there were about 75 deer carcasses a strewn on the freeway, this was a rather road-kill free day. I bring this up because I was asked about the food of the days. While in Wyoming I had some Bison, while in Nebraska I had some lamb/corn, and while in Ohio I had a really Philly Cheese steak and fish and chips. Unfortunately, while passing through Illinois, Chicago was much to the north of the freeway and I while I could see sears tower, there was no way to stop and have "Chicago style pizza or hotdogs" oh well. Got to the hotel tonight around 6:30, which is 3:30 for all you west coast folk, and am just trying to keep warm and plan the next days drive into Philly. If I get there early enough I guess I will start the house hunting search or just crash and pick it up the next day.
The Road to Pennsylvania Day's 2/3
Hello all,
I'm sorry these two day's never got talked about but on day 2 I drove 640 miles and on day 3 it was a little over 660 miles, so as you can imagine I was rather tired and incapable of writing complete sentences. I also want to apologize for a) saying I was going through Montana and not Wyoming and b) for loosing whatever whit/sarcasm I usually write with, alas I just don't have the mental capacity to do so.
Now for a recap of the days and some pictures of their happenings. On day 2, I picked up the drive at 7:30am with a 20˚ weather with 15mph wind gusts outside. This picture below is the scene of Utah just as we were leaving town. Unfortunately, the day didn't start that well, as I went to Carmax upon wake up and found that my car's thermostat was dead. While this tends to be a common issue from cars traveling East from California due to the weather shift, it was still a FIVE hour delay in getting the day underway. Finally back on the road just after noon, you find this picture.
I should take a bit to talk about Utah itself and particularly Salt Lake City. The city itself is basically in a fish bowl so the smog of the town just never escapes the mountains and leaves a permanent haze and breathing issues. However, once you get above the smog line and up into the mountains, the landscape and the houses are really quite pretty. There are also a half-dozen good mountains of snow runs that are open and busy. Leaving Utah about 3 hours later, one enters the land of Wyoming.
Now I have to say, Wyoming is the most desolate, boring, dare-I-say USELESS state in the union. The photo below is the only one I bothered to take in Wyoming. Partially because it was dark around 5:45pm (note the time change too), but more importantly there just isn't anything to look at. There are almost no houses, maybe 4 towns, and an entire state population about equal to the greater Sacramento area.
Eventually, I passed through Wyoming and into Nebraska around 6:30pm, or in the dead of night. The temperature had dropped from 54˚ down to 30˚ and there was some pretty mighty wind, but not that bad as day 2 ended. This ended day 2 after 9:30 hours of driving and finally getting to the hotel around 10:30 pm and getting to bed around 12.
Day THREE started about the same as 2, with a relatively early wake up and a quick breakfast. Then back to the driving through the land of Nebraska. It kinda sucks that I went now instead of 2 months ago as the myriad of corn fields had already been harvested and leveled for the impending winter. Driving through Nebraska during the day actually leads to some rather pretty scenery and a bit denser population, but you can definitely tell the "corn-bread-Nebraskan" is a true statement. The day continued passing through Nebraska, Iowa, and into Illinois mostly unhindered except for the extreme about of wind and therefore the extreme about of wind turbines. A couple of these photos are below.
You know, I worked on wind turbines for Professor Case van Dam at UC Davis for about 8 months on wind turbines, but I had never seen one that close before. I didn't realize just how huge the blades and the sections are, but when you see these things on semi trucks, you realize 80ft blades are really quite enormous. Iowa, I believe, should be renamed to the land of epic wind. For almost the entire state I was battling some pretty massive wind gusts up to 30mph and a steady wind around 20mph. It's really kinda hard to drive with such massive wind constantly berating you. Into Illinois, the land is still really windy, but not too bad. Finally getting to the hotel around 11. another day of driving was done.
I'm sorry these two day's never got talked about but on day 2 I drove 640 miles and on day 3 it was a little over 660 miles, so as you can imagine I was rather tired and incapable of writing complete sentences. I also want to apologize for a) saying I was going through Montana and not Wyoming and b) for loosing whatever whit/sarcasm I usually write with, alas I just don't have the mental capacity to do so.
Now for a recap of the days and some pictures of their happenings. On day 2, I picked up the drive at 7:30am with a 20˚ weather with 15mph wind gusts outside. This picture below is the scene of Utah just as we were leaving town. Unfortunately, the day didn't start that well, as I went to Carmax upon wake up and found that my car's thermostat was dead. While this tends to be a common issue from cars traveling East from California due to the weather shift, it was still a FIVE hour delay in getting the day underway. Finally back on the road just after noon, you find this picture.
I should take a bit to talk about Utah itself and particularly Salt Lake City. The city itself is basically in a fish bowl so the smog of the town just never escapes the mountains and leaves a permanent haze and breathing issues. However, once you get above the smog line and up into the mountains, the landscape and the houses are really quite pretty. There are also a half-dozen good mountains of snow runs that are open and busy. Leaving Utah about 3 hours later, one enters the land of Wyoming.
Now I have to say, Wyoming is the most desolate, boring, dare-I-say USELESS state in the union. The photo below is the only one I bothered to take in Wyoming. Partially because it was dark around 5:45pm (note the time change too), but more importantly there just isn't anything to look at. There are almost no houses, maybe 4 towns, and an entire state population about equal to the greater Sacramento area.
Eventually, I passed through Wyoming and into Nebraska around 6:30pm, or in the dead of night. The temperature had dropped from 54˚ down to 30˚ and there was some pretty mighty wind, but not that bad as day 2 ended. This ended day 2 after 9:30 hours of driving and finally getting to the hotel around 10:30 pm and getting to bed around 12.
Day THREE started about the same as 2, with a relatively early wake up and a quick breakfast. Then back to the driving through the land of Nebraska. It kinda sucks that I went now instead of 2 months ago as the myriad of corn fields had already been harvested and leveled for the impending winter. Driving through Nebraska during the day actually leads to some rather pretty scenery and a bit denser population, but you can definitely tell the "corn-bread-Nebraskan" is a true statement. The day continued passing through Nebraska, Iowa, and into Illinois mostly unhindered except for the extreme about of wind and therefore the extreme about of wind turbines. A couple of these photos are below.
You know, I worked on wind turbines for Professor Case van Dam at UC Davis for about 8 months on wind turbines, but I had never seen one that close before. I didn't realize just how huge the blades and the sections are, but when you see these things on semi trucks, you realize 80ft blades are really quite enormous. Iowa, I believe, should be renamed to the land of epic wind. For almost the entire state I was battling some pretty massive wind gusts up to 30mph and a steady wind around 20mph. It's really kinda hard to drive with such massive wind constantly berating you. Into Illinois, the land is still really windy, but not too bad. Finally getting to the hotel around 11. another day of driving was done.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
The Road to Pennsylvania Part 1
Hello All,
Over the next 5 days as I travel from Sacramento CA to Ridley Park PA, I will try and take a few pictures along the way and give some updates on what it's like to drive across the country in modern times as I know some of you haven't even been East of southern California.
Day started at 6:15am and got underway driving around 7:15 after loading the last of the luggage into my car. The first few hours were traversing CA I-80 through Tahoe, Truckee, and on to Reno. I wish I found the camera earlier as there as some awesome fog coming off Donner lake and an unusual amount of lingering fog along the freeway that seems to rarely happen. This was kinda nice for scenery, but was annoying as Caltrans shut down one of the lanes, so being stuck behind Semis sucks. On a note for snow-bound folks, no snow yet, but it's supposed to be coming by the end of the week or so.
After passing through Reno, the last major city for basically the entire first leg, I have to say Nevada is basically a high desert of nothing but rolling hills. As my dad likes to say, it was "miles and miles of miles and miles", which I think pretty accurately describes the entire state of Nevada. The first couple pictures are from this stretch (I have a couple more, but they all look exactly the same since Nevada looks exactly the same).
Passing into Utah, you hit the salt fields and a time change, so it's actually 9:42 when I write this for those on the West Coast. The salt flats for those who don't know is where they used to do speed tests of cars/motorcycles/and some planes. The terrain change I think was the biggest thing, where NV is rolling hills of low brush with the occasional stream/river, UT is like a dry lake bed with standing water and muddy flats. The best part of Utah is going through a tunnel under a blasted mountain with trains coming the other way simultaneously. Unfortunately, this really didn't make a good picture, so no luck there. About 100 miles later, I finally got to Salt Lake City and to the hotel, where the last picture comes from. Apparently there was a recent snow storm here, hence the snow capped mountains, but I am missing the next wave by a couple days in favor of "warm" weather.
Thus pretty uneventful first leg of 644 miles, tomorrow I go through Montana and end up in Nebraska, after getting my car looked at first cause the oil pressure is spiking for some reason and the gas efficiency light is on for some reason too.
Sorry no BLC for those looking for the three part episode, I promise I will get it soon. PLUS since I am SLAMcast after all, I am going to have some casts from DoctorClock, QXC, and a 2200+ Terran player who is also offering some advice for new players.
Over the next 5 days as I travel from Sacramento CA to Ridley Park PA, I will try and take a few pictures along the way and give some updates on what it's like to drive across the country in modern times as I know some of you haven't even been East of southern California.
Day started at 6:15am and got underway driving around 7:15 after loading the last of the luggage into my car. The first few hours were traversing CA I-80 through Tahoe, Truckee, and on to Reno. I wish I found the camera earlier as there as some awesome fog coming off Donner lake and an unusual amount of lingering fog along the freeway that seems to rarely happen. This was kinda nice for scenery, but was annoying as Caltrans shut down one of the lanes, so being stuck behind Semis sucks. On a note for snow-bound folks, no snow yet, but it's supposed to be coming by the end of the week or so.
After passing through Reno, the last major city for basically the entire first leg, I have to say Nevada is basically a high desert of nothing but rolling hills. As my dad likes to say, it was "miles and miles of miles and miles", which I think pretty accurately describes the entire state of Nevada. The first couple pictures are from this stretch (I have a couple more, but they all look exactly the same since Nevada looks exactly the same).
Passing into Utah, you hit the salt fields and a time change, so it's actually 9:42 when I write this for those on the West Coast. The salt flats for those who don't know is where they used to do speed tests of cars/motorcycles/and some planes. The terrain change I think was the biggest thing, where NV is rolling hills of low brush with the occasional stream/river, UT is like a dry lake bed with standing water and muddy flats. The best part of Utah is going through a tunnel under a blasted mountain with trains coming the other way simultaneously. Unfortunately, this really didn't make a good picture, so no luck there. About 100 miles later, I finally got to Salt Lake City and to the hotel, where the last picture comes from. Apparently there was a recent snow storm here, hence the snow capped mountains, but I am missing the next wave by a couple days in favor of "warm" weather.
Thus pretty uneventful first leg of 644 miles, tomorrow I go through Montana and end up in Nebraska, after getting my car looked at first cause the oil pressure is spiking for some reason and the gas efficiency light is on for some reason too.
Sorry no BLC for those looking for the three part episode, I promise I will get it soon. PLUS since I am SLAMcast after all, I am going to have some casts from DoctorClock, QXC, and a 2200+ Terran player who is also offering some advice for new players.
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