My first day at work (or how I got paid to watch Star Wars)

Ok, that's not really true but it makes me sound cool. I had to be at the site for NEO or new employee orientation at 7:45am. The room had tables for the 60 or so new employees and we each got some notebooks and papers to fill out. Then we had a motivational speaker type guy show us videos on sexual harassment and show us what the culture is like at intel. Did you know that intel is actually an acronym for INTegrated ELectronics? Ha, neither did I lollll!!!!11 When I got out around 1pm I got my badge on which I look like a douche. I guess what they say about driver's license photos goes for corporate badges too. For the afternoon I reported to my new building where I'll be working. It is across town from the orientation site, about 4 miles from my apartment. Once inside my building, I was shown my cubicle which was just an empty desk. Turns out the computer dept. is pretty busy and they didn't have my computer ready. Having no computer at a computer company means there's very little, to no, work you can do. I got the rest of the afternoon off so I decided to see Star Wars. My car was about 1000 degrees when I got back to it, so I def need to get some of those sun shades. I think I'll go out when I'm done writing this piece.

Star Wars was good, I liked how it tied up the story from the last two. The action/fight scenes weren't as cool as some of the previous movies but overall I enjoyed it better. Probably because there weren't any stupid animated characters like jar jar in it. Well actually Jar Jar was in it, but not long enough to ruin the movie. I noticed a few other things about the movie. First, Samuel L. is a terrible actor for this role. He seems so out of place when he's speaking as if he's just reading the lines. He seems so unnatural especially alongside the actor who plays obi wan. Second, why does that evil machine dude, I think his name is General Grievous, speak just like triumph the comic insult dog. I have to look that up now to see if the voice is actually the same person. Nah, turns out it's just some other douchebag.

So what else is new? I found this cheesy restaurant that I think is pretty cool. Samurai Sam's is Subway meets Chinese Takeout. It's quick and low-fat(healthy) like subway, but they serve Chinese-style food. Basically its either chicken or beef teriyaki served on rice in either a wrap or bowl. Since they really don't have Chinese takeout here this has been substituting just fine.

Also, due to the increasing popularity of this blog an issue is beginning to arise. Do I keep this blog PG or maybe PG-13 so when my family inevitably reads it I/They are not too embarrassed, or do I just go full hog and deal with the repercussions. Or, alternatively, do I start another blog to cover the stuff that the guys reading this will want to read. For now I'm going to control myself, atleast for the near future.

Blogger Blog of the Day

http://johnabby.blogspot.com/ Oh yes does it rock, and make sure your speakers are on.

Chlorinated Water Sucks

The water in this town sucks. Not only is it "Hard" water, but it also has a chlorine smell and taste. I bought a pur filter pitcher which gets rid of the chlorine flavor but it still tastes a little weird. On the positive side, when I'm taking a shower it always smells like a freshly cleaned health club shower. Or an indoor swimming pool. Which made me think, when I was younger I was told you should shower after you go swimming in a pool to wash off the chlorine. So do I need a shower after I shower here? Also if I had a swimming pool I could probably save money on chlorine by just filling my pool with my tap water.

Thoughts on Driving in Arizona after 5 days

First, it's damn hot here. The sun heats up the ground so tremendously during the day that at 5-6pm the ground temp is significantly hotter than the air temp (and the air is about 95~100F). When I walk in a parking lot I feel the heat radiating from the ground on my legs while simultaneously being beaten down by the sun's rays. I'm getting used to it, and every day seems more tolerable. Actually I'm starting to like it. There's just certain things that take getting used to. Some things I've noticed while driving around:

• Its hot enough outside that when I turn my car on for the first time, it's up to temp in about 30 seconds or less.
• Having the radio up real loud so I can hear it over the A/C which is always on high.
• Finding a parking spot is a different process than in NY. Instead of simply looking for the closest spot, any spot that has atleast partial shade is quickly swiped. It doesn't matter if the shade is provided by trees, bushes, or signs. It also doesn't matter if the spot is half a mile from the store.
• The roads here for the most part are completely straight and the main roads are 3-4 lanes wide. Reminds me of South Florida. It's kinda cool that when Chandler was urbanly planned (is that a word?) the main roads were laid out in a grid 1 mile apart.

Inside the new Apt

For those who are anxious to know what my new apt looks like on the inside:

The new bed/nightstand/mattress with the blanket swiped from home

IKEA dresser and desk

Pretty much empty closet

...

Target shower curtain made the cross-country journey and is lookin sharp. What isn't sharp is the super low-pressure toilets. It doesn't, um, perform the function it was designed for until about the 3rd flush. Either that, or my shit has all of a sudden become very buoyant

Kitchen, still need a table and chairs

Bad shot of the porch. Got some folding chairs to sit on while surfing the web and enjoying the nice weather.

I'll be posting more pics of the other rooms as I get more furniture. I just don't see the use in posting a picture of an empty room.

The AZ Apt from the street

The upstairs window and entrance is my apartment.

View from the AZ Apt

This is what I see when I look down from my balcony. Definitely better than looking at a parking lot.

NY to AZ, Day Three (The Final Chapter)

I started today at a more reasonable hour, about 9am. I was out of Texas and into New Mexico in about an hour. The speed limits for today's trip were 70 and 75 so I was able to keep my speed up and make the drive quicker. Just before I left TX and entered NM the terrain suddenly changed from flat and grassy to hilly with small shrubs and lots of rocky plateaus. It amazed me that it seemed to change instantaneously; I expected the change in landscape to be gradual. I'm glad that NM has a sense of humor about their overpasses and chose to paint them the color of a clay pot. This is the same red/beige color of the soil and seemingly all of the houses and buildings in the southwest. Driving through NM took half the day but I really liked the shrub-covered rock formations and small mountains. I stopped for lunch and gas on "Historic Route 66" which I believe I-40 has now replaced. There are lots of nice small towns all along Route 66.

I came across some more construction today, actually another area where there were construction signs up but no construction going on. This particular section of highway was in desperate need of some repair, as I hit the world's largest pothole at about 60~65mph (sorry no pic). No joke, it was about 2 feet across and probably 8-10 inches deep. I've never heard such a bad noise from my car. My first thought was I had to have done something very bad to the wheel, tire, or suspension. But I checked it out and there was no visible damage plus the car drove the same. Ironically the car had been pulling very slightly to the right up to this point and now it seemed to bang the alignment back to straight. I'm pretty sure that having the pressures up to about 45psi for the trip helped keep the rim in one piece. Once I got to Flagstaff, AZ I had gone as far west as I needed and made the turn south toward Phoenix. It was here that I drove through a national forest for about 25 minutes. I was impressed that they had trees like this in AZ, I had no idea. When I was through the forest and down the mountains, I began to pass some cactus. Again this landscape change was instantaneous, there seemed to suddenly be tons of big-ass cactus. I was in a coma briefly. Actually I was just driving through.

Now I was approaching Phoenix which has some really cool banked highways. I got off at my exit around 8pm local time. Turns out Most of Arizona doesn't participate in Daylight Savings time so the local time is now equal to Pacific daylight savings time (aka -3hrs from eastern). In the 15 minutes I've been on the roads in Chandler tonight I've seen 3 accidents being cleaned up with lots of flashing lights. I think the lesson is don't run red lights, and especially red turn arrows.

I'm in a hotel for the night (Best Western again, the official hotel of this road trip), and I sign the lease and move in to my apartment tomorrow morning. I start work next Tuesday so I have the next few days to get settled in and find some furniture for the apt. The final numbers for the trip are: 27.1 mpg, 2540 miles 69 avg mi/hr and about 36.5 hours (this includes driving around towns for gas/meals/hotels). Thanks for following my updates and for the responses.

NY to AZ, Day Two

So today started early. I woke up at 6am (central time) which is damn early for me. Partly the excitement of the trip, partly the convenient location of budget inn in relation to the highway on/off ramp. I already mentioned how the faucet didn't work, but luckily the shower was functioning, so I got washed and dressed and on the road before 7. I was still too far for my in-car navigation to calculate the full trip to Phoenix, so I chose a midway point, Amarillo, TX. The distance to Amarillo was just over 1000 miles; more than the 750 I drove yesterday. Indiana was pretty much entirely farmland as far as I could see from the highway. Then on to Illinois.
I was well south of Chicago so all I saw of IL was also farms. Soon enough I got to St.Louis, MO. The arch was pretty cool, plus the city looked quite nice. It was the nicest city I drove past so far. After STL things got pretty repetitive. I was surprised by the slightly hilly terrain of the rest of MO. I thought the Midwest was all flat but as you can see it has nice rolling hills.

Getting into Oklahoma was a nice milestone. I noticed that the license plates no longer carry the slogan, "Oklahoma is OK." I guess they were tired of all the shit they were getting for that. I'm not sure the new slogan is any less humorous. "Native America." Now I understand that this probably has to do with the large number of Native Americans living in OK, but when you think about it, isn't all of America, Native America? And really, wouldn't the original 13 colonies be the most Native America?

When I got into Texas tonight I started seeing these really bright flashes in the sky that I thought were fireworks or something. It was hard to see because they were obscured by some clouds. As I got closer could see that this was a lightning storm. This was pretty weird for me because these bolts of lightning were really bright and quite frequent, but I heard no thunder and there was no rain. That's why it took my so long to identify what was going on. Turns out these lightning storms are pretty common here, and they are usually accompanied by hail and dust storms. Kind of strange when it's in the 80's.

So I made it to Amarillo, TX, and I'm in a much nicer hotel tonight, a Best Western. The room is huge and it's worth the $60. Plus the included internet is a nice change. To send my last email I stopped at a Best Western along the way and sat in the parking lot to grab the wireless internet.

I now have just under 800 miles to go till Phoenix. Looks like I'll be able to make it tomorrow evening. Since I'm ahead of schedule I might stop to do some sightseeing tomorrow.

NY to AZ, Day One

I began my journey around 11am on Sunday. I was excited to fill up my gas tank for the first time using my new rewards credit card that gives me 5% back on gas purchases. NY and NJ went by quickly but why is Pennsylvania so damn long. Also, why do they have signs up every half hour for construction that is not actually going on? Then on to West Virginia. I didn't realize that WV pokes up between PA and OH. So that was short, then on to Ohio which is the answer to the riddle, "What state is round on both sides and high in the middle?" Ohio went by rather uneventfully and soon I was in Indiana. I am now about an hour from Indianapolis where I am staying in a budget hotel for the night. I have learned in my 30mins at this hotel that I will go for the $40 hotel room tomorrow instead of the $30 one. Needless to say this hotel doesn't have internet access, which is why you are getting this a day late.

I was just trying to think of something funny to write about how if this is what my dorm room looked like last year that I would have killed myself. Then I realized that my dorm room for the last year was about this nice. Possibly worse. But the cold water faucet actually worked in my dorm room, and the hot water came out faster than a trickle. On the positive side, all four walls of the hotel room match, which is more than I can say for my old dorm room. Oh, one more sign that you are in the Midwest, according to a note left on my bed, my housekeeper has been "Kelly". One more thing. Apparently there is a man named Mr. Raper who has a large RV store. There are about 10 billboards when you first get into Indiana. At first I thought they were a joke but no, you can call 1-800-RAPER-RV. Also, that particular area of Indiana is known as "Raper County" according to him.

Now about some of the pictures I took. On the road I drove in and out of rain all day. The picture of the semi driving at me is not photoshopped in any way. As you can see I did get to enjoy some sun, and it was up in the seventies in central PA. I saw some interesting vehicles along the way and got a few shots of those.