The Weather

I said I was likely to see some real weather at some point here in Michigan, and today I was definitely not disappointed. Last night we had some thunderstorms, and today the wind (along with some rain earlier) are definitely kicking up.

Apparently, we are at the end of this cell, but there are more coming in the next day as well.


Those are the waves we can see from the shore of Lake Michigan. Let me repeat. Those are the waves ON A LAKE. Realistically, the wind is probably blowing about 40-50 mph at this point.






The same lighthouse I took a picture of a few days ago. At one point, the waves were hiding the majority of lighthouse from our view.







Even the seagulls refuse to fly. Never a good sign.







More of the waves. Surreal actually.






When we decided to come to Michigan, I figured we would get some poor weather, including some snow. What I was not expecting was 40+ mph winds. Something new every day here...

Sunday Thoughts

Thoughts while waiting for more football to come on...

• My Bears are 2-1. It has definitely not been pretty, and at points has been worth not watching simply because I could have a stroke watching them. But they are still 2-1, which is one more win than the reigning champs the Steelers. So I'll take it.
• I do enjoy playing fantasy football. That said, apparently I'm not very good at it. I spent the last 10 minutes before my lineup locked looking at 2 different sets of players, and decided to go with conventional wisdom with who I left in my lineup. Guess which ones did better. Someday I'll get these right.
• As we have watched a fair amount of television since we have gotten here, we have found a couple of shows we are really enjoying: Property Virgins, House Hunters, and generally just a lot more of this channel. Guess we are really enjoying the thought of owning a home someday. I know I look forward to that someday.
  
• I've found that tv channels with similar programming will have similar commercials. That said, if I needed hair coloring anytime soon, Just for Men will NOT be getting my business. They have two fairly new commercials, both of which are just creepy. And apparently all sports are their best demographic, since they are on almost every channel I watch.

I'm hoping to put up a pair of posts about my adjustment to working from home this week.

Saturday Thoughts

It is amazing to me how fast a person can adapt to their new surroundings. We have been in South Haven for slightly more than a week now, and there are little things that I am already taking for granted.

• When we came back in from running errands today, I forgot to lock the car. My hands were full of bags from the errands, and it must have slipped my mind. About 2 hours later, I was walking by the door to the car, and wondered if I had locked it. I checked, and then locked the car. In our last apartment, I would have been concerned about 2 minutes after I got out of the car, if not sooner. Apparently I feel safer in this house than I did in the last one. (Not a huge surprise there).
• I am watching a San Francisco Giants home game on tv today, which started at 1 PM local. Which is 4 PM here. Yet in my brain I am convinced that it is still early afternoon, and that I should be hungry for lunch, and not dinner. I assume this has more to do with the outside light level than anything.
  
• We ventured down to the mall in Benton Harbor earlier today. This was a tad bit depressing. About every 3rd store front was either closed, or vacated entirely. I think we are getting a better idea of how the downturned economy is affecting people. We were in a bit of a bubble living in the Bay Area, as I cannot honestly remember seeing very many empty stores at our nearby malls there.
• As we drove through other parts of Benton Harbor, we came to the conclusion that the town had been hit very hard by the economy. I haven't really ever seen houses boarded up and abandoned. But here they were, every few blocks or so. As we continued through town, we determined it was time to leave. Just did not feel very safe in the part of town we were in.
• I am very interested to see what South Haven is going to be like come November. Nearly every sign we have passed for a tourist-type attraction has stated that it closes on October 30th, and will reopen on April 15th.
• I had this theory when we arrived that if we had a few of the premium movie channels on our satellite TV, that we wouldn't need or want Netflix because the movie channels would offer us so many recent movies. They appear to have been offering them, but the thing I forgot is that there's no accounting for taste necessarily. While it appears to be an interesting movie, I am not really in the mood to see Wanted, but that's my option tonight.
  

South Haven

I mentioned that we walked around town a couple of nights ago, and hadn't had a chance to put up the photos until now...




This is the view down the sidewalk near our house. Approaching sunset.
The photo doesn't even do it justice, in my opinion.









The beach and its' view. Realistically, it is only a 5 minute walk to here.









My beautiful bride, and me





From the beach there is a canal that leads to the main boat harbor of South Haven. For me, it is unusually scenic, and generally just very pretty. Further down on the opposite bank is an old-style clock/lamppost. If I had gotten a good picture of it, it would be here. But apparently I can't hold the camera still when taking pictures of clock/lampposts.





There is a movie theatre in downtown South Haven. 3 fairly recent movies. Note that the regular price is $5.50 (matinee $4), and also includes a small soda. As I recall, I could get a small soda for near $5.50 back home. We are going to have to check out the Monday special (2 for $10). I know I could only get one ticket for $10 at home.




We are looking forward to exploring a little more. Hopefully this weekend or maybe another night this week.

Our Digs

One of the things that is nice about working with a travel company, is that sometimes we will get some rather nice housing while on assignment.

The travel company, as a part of the contract for the assignment, will arrange for, and provide housing as a part of the compensation. Where the housing is, and how nice it will be is really determined based on the assignment location. For our current assignment, we are living in a VERY nice house. This is mostly due to the fact that the area is so sparsely populated, and there are very few options other than vacation rentals.

We are currently residing in a vacation rental house, approximately 3 blocks from the beach, and about 7 blocks from the downtown area. Both are reasonably walkable.




This is not the house we are living in. But it is a very nice house, and a pretty good representation of the neighborhood we live in. The whole area seems like we're living in a Norman Rockwell painting.








This particular house has a screened-in porch in the back, and a rather large porch in the back as well. There was some patio furniture and a barbecue listed as available when we looked at the listing, but as of yet have not been able to get access to those.





These are both features that I don't imagine will be in every place we live, either. Since it's detached, it has its' own mailbox. And in the front of the house is a sun room with a pair of comfy chairs.






This could very well prove to be another arch-nemesis of mine. When it starts snowing, having a 15+ foot driveway could prove to be a lot of shoveling. Definitely going to park the car as close as possible to the end of the driveway when the weather starts turning really badly.




Being in a new location so often could prove difficult, but it is really nice knowing that we will be well taken care of, and comfortable while we are there.

Ruminations and Observations

Not too much today, since I worked....

• I have slowly started to learn about this "weather" that I had always heard about in California. During today, it went from foggy to partly cloudy, then overcast and then rainy, and finished up humid and overcast. The humidity reminded me of Hawaii.
  
• Having scoped out the competition, I can really see how it is that Walmart comes in and blows the doors off of local grocery stores. Nearly everything we priced out was 50 cents to a dollar cheaper. While there's something to be said about how they run their business, they aren't kidding about being the best prices around.
• There's something very satisfying about going into a used book store and just looking around. I walked to downtown and made it to Black River Books, the used book store here. The store is very nice, and I am looking forward to spending some more time there.

Around South Haven

We walked around South Haven tonight, and came away with a lot of observations...

• It is so amazing that the beach and the lake are only 3 blocks from our house. Walking on the beach here, I can see us going to the beach quite a bit until the weather turns.
• We walked up through the harbor area, and it looks like it was built recently. Although I am guessing it was not. Very well maintained. I guess it is a bit sad that I expect things to be in disarray.
  
• The downtown area is so quaint. Even though the majority of the stores were closed when we were there, you can tell that they will be interesting to explore on a different day.
• The movie theater is a definite throwback. Three screens, we are hoping to go see a movie tomorrow. Probably Inglourious Basterds.
  
• It is a bit surreal coming from a highly populated area to being here now. We walked home from downtown South Haven (about 6 blocks or so), and we were the only people on the streets once we left the main street in downtown. Reminded me of walking around at 3 in the morning, except that it was 8 pm.
• There is a rather unique store not far from downtown, that appears to sell all sorts of unusual items. In the window were: a gas pump, and a pedestrian walk signal, among other things.
  
• Just another reminder that we are in the Eastern time zone: When a television show states that it is live, it actually IS live. Unlike on the West Coast, Dancing with the Stars was live. We are rooting for this guy, since one of my co-workers knows his mom. And he seems pretty cool too.

I don't assume to think that all the assignments we take will be like this, but this is a great start, and gives me confidence that it will be good.

A Full Day in Southwest Michigan

So after a full day here in Southwest Michigan, here's what I've found.



This is the view from our driveway. In the distance, that's Lake Michigan, not the skyline. It is approximately a 1/2 mile walk to the beach, and also about a 1 mile walk to the downtown area of South Haven. Pretty sweet.





This is the view from said beach. Should be interesting when the cold weather shows up starting sometime in October/November, but it should be very nice in the meantime.








This, apparently, will be my arch nemesis at some point. For those that are not familiar (which I was not when I got here), this is a snow stick. It's main uses are: 1) to mark where the fire hydrant is for snow plows, and 2) to tell you how high the snow is currently. Guess I'll find out how well it works at some point.





Other observations from today:

1. We really are in a very sparsely populated area. We went to Target this morning around 11, and the place felt deserted. Granted, I am used to the mass insanity that is any retail store in the Bay Area, but even still it seemed odd.
2. Super Walmart is growing on me. Again, granted that I would not ever go back into the one in Mountain View because it is so busy, but out here, the place is huge and wide open, clean, and not very busy.
3. I'm not sure it would matter if it was growing on me, since there are really only 2 places I can get groceries here in South Haven: Super Walmart, and the Village Market Food Center. I will have to check out the latter at some point, but the prices at Super Walmart are so much cheaper it shocked me.
4. Today was one of the few times in recent months that I have been able to just sit and relax on a weekend day. I had forgotten how nice it was.
5. Being on Eastern Standard time is a bit of a change. I have lived my whole life in Pacific Standard, and as such you take for granted certain things. Like being able to watch football on Sunday at 10 am, 1 pm, and 5:30 pm. Not out East. It's at 1 pm, 4 pm, and 8:30 pm here. I found myself during the 1/4 pm game wondering why I was hungry, as I thought it was too early. Except it wasn't. It was already approaching dinner time.
6. It was nice being able to run errands in the morning, and get back in time to watch the games right after lunch.
   
7. I am going to have to get used to seeing "weather", as in real weather. That picture above was taken this afternoon around 2 pm, and by 7:30 it was raining. Not too heavily, but enough to wet the ground for sure.

Tomorrow will be my first day in Michigan working from home, and my wife's first day at her new hospital. Should be interesting, since it is a much smaller hospital than she's worked in previously.

Subscribing to Anything for 13 Weeks

For those of you who are interested in subscribing to You Can Do Anything for 13 weeks, here's how you can:

1. You can send me your email address, and I will email you when a new post will be going up. I generally post entries early in the morning, and hope to put them up a few time per week. Your email address will not be sold, or distributed without your consent.
2. You can subscribe via RSS reader. There are links setup in the toolbar on the right side if you are familiar with using a RSS reader. I use the Google reader, but there are quite a few free options out there. You can reference this for some more information.

Thanks to everyone for their support and their time on this!

Travel Observations - Day 4

From our final day of driving to South Haven, MI...

• I had some idea about the whole college football thing being huge in the Midwest, but nothing until we spent the morning driving out of Cedar Rapids. Every other car that passed us had a car full of people decked out in University of Iowa gear, with car flags flying. (They got their wish too, since Iowa defeated Arizona.
• I have found a surprisingly good new restaurant: Steak 'n' Shake. They are excellent. The shake was amazing, and their BBQ burger was at least as good as Carl's Jr's (or Hardee's out here).
• The idea of a 60 cent toll road seems rather unusual, but it seems to work rather well for the state of Illinois. Their roads were among the smoothest we had encountered.
• I really hope that we were getting something for the extra money we were forced to spend on gasoline while in the state of California. Because it's only $2.59 here, as compared to $3.15 back in California.

Not too much today, as it's been a long day. Hoping to have some photos from around this area tomorrow, but we'll see. Still have to unpack, and have to watch the Bears game also.

Travel Observations - Day 3

From the road to Cedar Rapids, Iowa...

• Nebraska looks surprisingly similar from one end of the state to the other. I spent about an hour and a half reading, looking up from my book about every 15 minutes or so. It really didn't matter when, because it was usually some version of corn fields.
• Cue Eric to make a joke about this.
  
• Apparently, the Conoco in North Platte is trying all things to get some extra business. Picture to follow, but on the giant neon sign out front, they advertise that they have "the best looking cashiers". Didn't go in to find out if there was truth in advertising. I'm guessing it may be better that way.
  
• Football is HUGE in the Midwest. While this was not a surprise, it was a bit unusual to see 4 different sports writers picks for Friday night's High School football games. (All 10 of them).
• Iowa is much more scenic than I was expecting. I was essentially expecting more of Nebraska, and was pleasantly surprised to find miles and miles of rolling hills, and generally more people settled along the highway.
• Iowa also has two versions of a highway rest area: A standard rest area, and a "modern" rest area. The key differences: "Modern" rest areas have new amenities such as restrooms, a visitor information kiosk, and Wi-Fi. Standard rest areas are pretty much just a larger shoulder to pull off and stop the car in. There are no bathrooms, or really anything for that matter.
  
• Cedar Rapids seems to be a very nice city. The only thing that is a bit confusing is that, while they follow a standard grid plan for laying out their downtown streets, they use numbered streets in both directions. That's correct, this accurately shows the intersection of 1st st., and 1st ave. Strange.

Tomorrow is the last day of driving (thankfully), and we will be in Michigan by the end of the day.

Travel Observations - Day 2

My observations as we went from Salt Lake City to North Platte, Nebraska

• Forgot this one from yesterday: They are not joking about salt in Utah. We passed at least 2 enormous salt processing plants with gigantic piles of salt. And the salt flats are a very unusual sight for sure.
  
• I had forgotten that Salt Lake City had hosted the Olympics in 2002, at least until we got to Park City. From I-80 you can see the Olympic ski jumps, and underneath one overpass they had carved quite a few Olympic logos and icons into the walls.
• Based on the amount of billboards we saw, Little America must be the state's greatest tourist attraction. These billboards were about every 3-5 miles, and were going in both directions along I-80, the full length of Wyoming. When we passed it, there was a very small hotel/resort. But they did advertise a good restaurant and a playground. I was surprised to find out afterward that it was ONLY a hotel. And that there are 4 of them. Skip it.
• Wyoming also brought me my first interaction with "snow fences". You can read about something similar here (and see a picture of a wooden snow fence about halfway down), but the gist is that they are used to help keep the snow from blowing onto the freeway. They do look fairly cool on the side of the freeway.
  
• The state of Wyoming apparently really likes fireworks. We saw at least a half dozen billboards for fireworks wholesalers. There was a giant warehouse in the first town when we crossed in from Utah. Gotta love any place that likes blowing up small stuff.
  
• Wyoming is a very beautiful state. Extremely scenic, especially the rolling hills and grasslands. Not to be confused with the majority of Nebraska, which is corn fields.
  
• The state of Nebraska is apparently the home of Arbor Day. So said the sign when we entered the state anyway. Not entirely sure what to make of that.
  
• Apparently Applebee's 39 cent wing night is the place to be here in North Platte. The place was EXTREMELY packed, and was probably one of the best meals I've ever had at an Applebee's. As is typical with Applebee's, they had a whole bunch of local sports memorabilia, including two of their most famous Cornhuskers.

Tomorrow will bring us into eastern Iowa (Cedar Rapids), and then finally into Michigan the next day...

Travel Observations - Day 1

Just some observations from the road to Salt Lake City....

1. Interstate 80 is pretty much under construction from north of Auburn, California all the way to Elko, Nevada. Each of the closures went with a similar pattern. They would start by dropping the speed limit from 75 to 65 mph, then to 55 mph a quarter mile later. They then close one lane, and a few miles later they re-open the lane and close the original lane that was open. Very strange
2. On I-80 near Truckee, the DOT workers did a less-than-stellar job of clearly putting a cone path on the road. As a result, we ended up taking the off-ramp instead of continuing on the freeway. After doubling-back, we were back on our way. At least we weren't the only one.
3. The majority of Nevada is scenic in a rustic way. Nothing but open space between Reno and Elko, really. I cannot imagine what it was like to cross this state before the highway system, let alone before cars.
4. No matter how it works in your mind, all the stuff you thought would fit in the car will not fit in the car. Hopefully we will have a better idea when we leave to make our next assignment.
5. There are at least 5 "Business Loop" I-80 freeways in the state of Nevada. Which I find interesting because there is also a Business Loop I-80 freeway in Sacramento as well. Maybe I don't understand how business loops work.
6. Our Garmin GPS receiver is a lot smarter than I thought it was. When calculating our approximate arrival time in Salt Lake City, it took into account the fact that we would be changing time zones when we crossed into Utah.

Hopefully will have some more observations when we arrive in North Platte tomorrow.

Our Trip Across to Michigan

The assignment starts one week from tomorrow, so as I write we are finalizing our preparations for our drive across to Michigan. We have driven to Nebraska from California before, but did that in more time and involved sight-seeing and some visits with friends. This time, very little sight-seeing.

We will be leaving on Wednesday morning, bright and super early, and aiming for Salt Lake City, Utah. From there, we leave the next morning for North Platte, Nebraska. When we were in Nebraska last time, I told myself that I would avoid driving through it if I could. Apparently I can't, so we're still stopping there. From Nebraska, our last pre-Michigan stop is in Cedar Rapids, IA. A reasonably short drive (only 5 or 6 hours, I believe) from there to our home in South Haven.

This should be interesting. Definitely the start of the adventure.

The Things I Look Forward To

I wrote a post about the things I'll miss recently, and thought I should also note some of the things that I am definitely looking forward to with the upcoming travel.

• Spending time with my wife - As a newlywed, I am really looking forward to being able to spend time traveling, and even just relaxing with my wife.
• The adventure of new places - While I feel like I have traveled a fair amount, I have never lived outside of California. Knowing that I will be moving every 3 months to a new location is really interesting to me.
• Leaving California - The state I have lived my whole life in has been having some rough days lately, and it will be interesting to get new perspectives on other states and their lifestyles.

I am sure I am forgetting a few things in the haste of getting ready for this trip, but these ones stick out in my mind.

The Things I'll Miss

I've been thinking about some of the implications of our traveling adventure in the last few days, and came up with some of the things that I will miss because of the traveling. I divided them into two groups.

The higher end:

• Our friends - While we don't hang out constantly with our friends, we generally get together with them fairly often. This just means that when we are back in town the meetings will be more concentrated. Email, cell phones, and Facebook will help to keep us in touch with these people, but it is not quite the same as face time.
  
• Our families - Both my wife and I are pretty close with our families. While we don't visit with them super often based on our current proximity to them, we have gotten used to seeing them fairly often as well.

The lower level:

• Our favorite local restaurants - While I am sure that we will find new restaurants that we will enjoy quite a bit, we will still miss some of our favorites we have found here. Blue Mango, our favorite Mongolian BBQ place, Pasta? among many others.
• Our slow-pitch softball team - We had established ourselves on a pretty good team, and with the traveling may find it hard to play for some time. Definitely a sport we will try to come back to at a later date.
• Our city-league volleyball team - Yes, we didn't win a game. Yes, we collapsed every time we were close to winning a game. But the quality of play was very high (for the most part), and it was always fun to go.
• Sonoma - We both went to undergrad in Sonoma County, and while we have not had time to go there in at least 6 months, the option to go was always available to us. Definitely a place we will visit when we are back in town (hopefully anyway)
• The ocean - I haven't actually been to see the ocean in a fairly long time, but I have always known it was never more than a couple hours away at most. While we will be living next to a gigantic lake (Lake Michigan) for this first assignment, I don't think it is going to be quite the same. I have always loved being able to just go to the ocean and watch the waves come in.

The Process of Packing Your Life

We have begun the process of packing our apartment for the start of our journey. Since we will be living in furnished apartments, we will not be needing quite a few things. As a result, we have started going through all of our possessions, and making determinations about what to do with them.

We do not plan on maintaining a fully furnished apartment here, but instead will put many of the duplicated items into storage, and maintain some of our items at my in-laws home instead. Our largest items will be going into a storage unit, as we will not need them in our travel apartments, and they are not really needed at my in-laws. These will most likely include:

• Our bed and bedframe
• Dressers
• Couch and chairs
• Our Dining Room Table
  

The next group of items are the ones that will need to go with us to our destination. The majority of these items are either things we will need on a daily basis, or are not easily replaceable at our first stop:

• Clothes & Shoes
• Computers
• Printer
• My video games (Nintendo and PS2)

Also, we will be taking many of our "semi-personal" items. I view these as items which will give us reminders of home. These include some of our movie collection and a pair of digital photo frames.

This will leave us with the remainder of our possessions. The majority of items in this group are going to be things that are not easily replaceable, but not needed based on our assignments:

• The personal knick-knacks that make our house a home
• Movies (the rest)
• Board games
• Our wall hangings (posters, frames, etc)
• Our dishes and glasses
• Other kitchen items

It has been a bit freeing to do this. A fair amount of items were hand-me-downs or donations, and as such may not necessarily match our style. We are grateful to have had them, but when we set up in a more permanent location, we will be able to replace these items with some that match us a little better. It has also made us take a really hard look at items, and forced us to determine if an item will be going with us long-term. It has been my experience in the past that any time you move there are a few boxes of stuff that you generally should deal with, but don't because it is easier to just shuttle it along to the next apartment. However, since we are going to be paying for a storage unit, we would like to keep that to a minimum.

The most surprising thing to this point has been the fact that it has not taken particularly long to do this. As of this writing, we had packed almost all of the items that were going to storage that were not likely to be used in the next 2 weeks before we move. And realistically, it only took about 6 hours to do this. When we first started this, I knew that we did not have a lot of possessions, but I am a bit surprised that we have this little.