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

bathroom right side - notice built in washer/dryer

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

Small ass kitchen 8'x5' but big enough since I don't really make lasagna often

Dad enjoying the desk on a conference call

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.