I feel like I just got here, but I’m already more than a third of the way through the summer. I definitely made the best decision in coming out here. The work I have is interesting, there is no commute, and the weather is perfect. It hasn’t rained once since I got here, which is a huge contrast from home. In fact, it’s only been overcast twice, and both times that was only in the morning before the sun came out in the afternoon.
Overall, things have been working out well. Running in the morning has gone fairly well, but over the last few days my quad has been sore for some reason. It’s been keeping me from doing any workouts or making any more trips to the mountains.
I took a trip to Monterey over the weekend. It wasn’t a long drive, but the traffic sucked. It seemed everyone wanted to go to the coast for the weekend and there are only a handful of small, windy roads to get there. Some serious infrastructure improvements are needed. I walked around Fisherman’s Wharf and Cannery Row for a few hours and then came back. It was much cooler along the bay than in Mountain View, probably by 20 degrees. I also noticed that the water in the bay was very clear and you could see the bottom when looking out, which was unusual compared to home.
Monterey was a pretty touristy place, not much different than Atlantic Ave at home, with all the junk shops selling useless trinkets. There were some restaurants that offered chowder in sourdough bread bowls that looked pretty good. I walked to the aquarium, which looked like it was worth going to, but at $25, I should have come earlier so I could spend more time there. It might be worth a trip back to see it, especially since I’ve heard it’s one of the most popular destinations in Northern CA.
On Sunday I saw the new Die Hard movie. I don’t think it was quite as good as the reviews that I read, but I was still entertained. Everything was way over the top and you could tell that a lot of scenes were made using models instead of CGI. Suspending disbelief, it was well paced and the villains were pretty good as well as the ending.
The previews had the trailer for the Simpsons movie, which has been generating a lot of hype lately. There were some articles on the internet that said that a few 7-Eleven stores in 10 major cities were being converted to look like the Kwik-E-Marts in the series. Since there are only a few, some die hard fans of the show have driven hours just to see one. One of them happens to be right down the street. I ran by it this morning, and sure enough, it looked just like the ones posted on the internet.
That’s definitely the big plus about being here. I feel like I’m right in the middle of things. Apple just released the iPhone with worldwide hype and its headquarters is ten miles from here. Google is across the street. Yahoo is on the other side of the base. And, I’m working with NASA. The stuff that goes on here really matters. The paper at home said that Norfolk was ranked last in terms of places for new tech professionals to work. I can definitely see that now.
So far I have had some success with buying/cooking my own food. I’ve graduated from the canned/frozen phase and entered the grilling/broiling phase. I got some chicken over the weekend and broiled that and then used the leftovers yesterday to make a chicken quesadilla, which turned out well. I made it in a skillet and put too much oil in the pan, so it got pretty greasy. Again, I wouldn’t mind making more complicated things if I had a kitchen in my room. Sometimes when I am upstairs in the kitchen, other people are using it too, which can make things difficult.
Aside from earthquakes, which I haven’t really felt, I guess the big problem out here is wildfires. There was a big one in Lake Tahoe last week that made a real mess of things as well as a few smaller local ones. At home, it’s more about hurricanes and storms, but there only seems to be a really bad one every five years or so.
This brings up another issue. For an area that is supposed to have such a liberal reputation, the local and state governments seem quite oppressive. Fireworks are banned nearly everywhere with heavy fines if you are caught using them (edit: the news reports that San Jose will arrest anyone using fireworks). In most localities, you can’t water your lawn except in the middle of the night, again with heavy fines if you are caught (water is diverted away from reservoirs to save some sardine-looking fish). Also, skateboarding is banned in San Francisco and cars with “illegal” engines or transmissions are confiscated and crushed. These are just some of the examples that I caught on the news. The newscasters love to use such rhetoric as “ban”, “illegal”, and “restrict”. This place is a police state and I can see why Critical Mass rides are so popular. I’ve seen more cops here in a month than I do at home in a year. Just driving around I see them everywhere. I got pulled over by one, questioned about where I was from, and let go last week when I went to mail a letter in downtown Mountain View. It also doesn’t help that I have to fork over my ID every time I go to work or return to the base after leaving for a run or a drive. It’s like being in some Soviet bloc country with the secret police: “Show me your papers.”
Well, since tomorrow is a holiday I won’t be going in to work. Unfortunately, I won’t get paid, either, but that’s how it goes. It will be nice to have a day off in the middle of the week, though.
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