Slow Writing and What's Next

Well, it has been a couple of weeks since I wrote here, mostly because we've been busy and not really with doing anything that has been particularly exciting. We've been to another SandGnats game, which they proceeded to lose pretty handily. I have been doing a lot of writing over at both my baseball blog and at FakeTeams, and that's been keeping me busy. We did go to Atlanta last weekend and saw the Braves play the Astros. They have a very nice stadium, and comes complete with an advertisement for Chick-Fil-A which does the Tomahawk Chop (very slowly).

So we're a little over a month until Brynn's assignment here in Savannah ends, and we started making our plans to return to California at the end of the assignment. I booked my plane ticket home for both my cousin's wedding and to start searching for a permanent job. This was when Brynn's company called.

They knew that we had been wanting to go back to California, but had one assignment that they wanted to discuss with her. Well, she discussed it with them, interviewed for it, and actually landed it. So, instead of going to California for this next assignment, we are instead headed here:

Yup, we are headed to Oahu from early June until September! There's obviously a lot of advantages to having 3 months in Hawaii, but for me, the one that is really the most important is that my wife gets to me all these family members I have been telling her exist that are over in Hawaii. Needless to say, we're very excited about this. We've been spending the better part of the last week working to get things in order so that this is somewhat stress free, hence the "not very much going-on".

Our Next Assignment, and the Fun that Ensues

You know, I had started this post a couple of weeks ago, as you probably guessed from the fact that I said I would have an announcement soon. We had been working with Brynn's recruiter, and had nailed down our next assignment, and were just waiting for the contract to come in. That contract came in, and we were all set. Or so we thought...

Turns out that there is a clause in her contract with the facility she is working at (and apparently all facilities she works with) that allow them the opportunity to end the contract early for a number of reasons. This list of reasons includes low patient census. Now you'd think, well, that not having a lot of patients in the hospital is a good thing, right? And it is. We definitely think it is. But that said, the facility she is working for did, in fact, ask to end her contract early, for this very reason. So our time in Michigan is actually coming to a sooner end than we had initially anticipated.

Now, this came as a complete surprise to us that it could even happen. Her recruiter even said that it was extremely unusual, since it is very rare that a facility brings in a traveling physical therapist, and finds that they don't have a need for them during the assignment. Both the facility, and her recruiter, made it very clear that it was not a reflection on the work she had done.

This left her recruiter (and us) scrambling. Her last day at her assignment in Michigan would be 12/4. The new assignment that he had already lined up would not start until 1/4/10. A month without work, simply put, was not an acceptable option.

Another issue came from the fact that each state has its own licensing process for physical therapists. Currently, Brynn holds a Michigan license, and her original California license. Anywhere that he would have to look would have to either be one of those two states, or be a state where they could be reasonably sure that they would be able to quickly get her a license.

Over the past 2 weeks, they worked on finding her an assignment, and were able to get the final touches put on the contract for it late last week. Unfortunately, the previously committed assignment (starting in January), was no longer where we would be going.

Instead, we are now going to:

Murray, Kentucky

Now, you may ask, where is Murray, Kentucky? Here.

Murray is:

Home to Murray State University (and their D-1 sports programs)
About 3.5 hours to Memphis, TN
About 2.5 hours to Nashville, TN or Evansville, IN
About 4 hours to St. Louis, MO
About 8 hours from here in South Haven, MI

You can find more information about them here: Wikipedia, City of Murray

Now, you may notice, that this town doesn't appear to be a whole lot bigger than South Haven. We're alright with this. And the main reason is Murray State itself. The college pretty much ensures a couple of things:

1. There's going to be work in the area, due to the need to support the college.
   
2. There are going to be things to do and things to see, due to the college being there.
3. There are bound to be a lot of people around our age there, due to the college.
4. Murray State is a division 1 school for athletics. This means that there is a possibility that they will be playing meaningful basketball games in early February through March. Also the potential for some baseball and softball games to watch as well.

So, we now know where our adventure is going to lead us next. I'm hoping to have a few more posts in the coming week.

Adjusting to Working at Home

I have been working remotely from outside my office for the past couple of weeks. I have never had a job where I could do this, so I figured that there would be some adjustments I would need to make mentally to work from home every day. Definitely hit that one on the nose.

• I have created a computer set up which is similar to the layout in my cubicle back at home. I'm using a 26" LCD TV, connected to my laptop computer. My laptop is a Mac, so it is setup with a trackpad for a mouse and a smaller keyboard. Since I work in accounting, I am used to using a full size keyboard with keypad, and a 2-button mouse to do a lot of my work.I was able to get a keyboard (with keypad) from my father-in-law, and a 2 button mouse to connect to it. I had tried using the laptop keyboard and mouse the first couple of days, and realized just how much I needed those features. My printer is connected as well in case I need to print something here.
• While this helps that I don't have to take time to "get" to my office, it has blurred the dividing line between my work and my home quite a bit. It has helped that I have to login to the network for my company to have any access to my work, but it is still different.
  
• Working from a home office causes another issue I had not expected. By not being in the office with my co-workers, there is very little inter-personal interaction during my day. While a lot of the conversations I was having with my co-workers were not always particularly intense or necessarily even work-related, there's something to be said about the day-to-day pleasantries that happen when you see someone 5 days a week. This I expected. The part I didn't was how fast it would become noticeable to me.
• The thing I have found most interesting is the fact that, in spite of all the distractions that exist at home that are not available at an office, I find that my productivity doesn't seem to suffer particularly. I am still getting the same amount of work done, and in the same timeframe as before. If anything, I actually feel like I am more aware of lapses in productivity, and work through them sooner. It's been rather strange.

We will have to see how these adjustments go as more time progresses.

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.
  

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.

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.

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.