Day #1

I promise, I won’t actually do a count down… that would make me as miserable as it would annoy all of you.

Lets get my bitching out of the way first… My car wasn’t done Thursday or Friday as promised. We called Friday morning and they said it would be done between 3 and 5… ok… they never called and no one was there after 5. Called again at 8am Saturday they said it would be done at 9am. Turned the rental in and went to get my car… they found something they didn’t fix… “come back in two hours”. The shop let me us a Dodge Durango for the time being and I went back in 2 hours… then sat there for two hours… At about 1 they brought the car up. I took a look at somethings that needed fixed and found some interesting (read annoying) facts: they didn’t give me a front license plate bracket even though required by state law, they didn’t give me back my front license plate, the fog lights did not function, the gas door wasn’t fixed, and the center console cup holder was broken (not to mention they took everything from the inside of my car and put in a box in my trunk). I gave the car back, took the Durango, and ran some errands. I called the shop around 4 to see if my car was ready, picked it up at 4:30ish. As I tried to drive away, I heard a very disconcerting whine from my steering… Gave the car back again… Turned out to be air in the steering fluid… but how do they try to give a car back with that noise? On my way home I decided to fill my tank so I didn’t have to in the morning (because there was no way I was leaving Saturday now). To the gas station was all left turns… on the way out I had to turn right and discovered the right turn signal didn’t work… I just went home (I fixed it later that night myself as well as realigned the headlights… which they pointed 5 feet in front of the car).

The drive wasn’t bad yesterday. About 40 miles north of Charleston I got stopped in traffic for about 30 minutes (most likely because of an accident) but all told it took me 8.5 hours including one stop to fill up on gas and a bathroom break. The condo (which is much more an apartment than a condo) is decent. The neighborhood seems quiet and I have all the room I need. It is also very close to work so my drive to and from is ok. I am also close to the airport so I won’t have to do a whole lot of prep for Theresa’s visit or my trip north. I had a pretty serious bout of loneliness last night as the realization set in that I knew no one within 60 miles of me (which still isn’t fair because my cousin, while interesting, isn’t really in my sphere of social interest… so we should really say within 250 miles since Jill lives in VA just across the tunnel under the causeway). Talking to Theresa helped a lot… hopefully I can sustain…

So my first day… I left 45 minutes early to make sure I was on time… the drive was about 15 minutes but it took me about 15 to find my building… The overhead map I was given only showed trees (actual satellite photo) and some of the signs weren’t clear. So I was still 15 minutes early… only to find out that the man who was to meet me was going to be 45 minutes late… yippie. That wasn’t too bad though. I met up with him and got my security badge and a tour of our teams facilities… I think I saw close to $1M or better in networking equipment today… it was pretty cool. I’ve been left to myself since about 11:30am… with nothing to do except connect my phone and computer (big plus… they gave me a ThinkPad T60 for the summer). Hopefully they’ll either tell me to go home or do something soon.

Depressing Fact: I’m the only person sitting in my row of cubicles.