Switching

I'm moving/integrating this blog with my new blog: A Nest For Two. It seems that it will fit better there.

Journey

Tene and I got to Mountain View, California last night around 6:00 PM. I know the exact time because the storage center where we're keeping our stuff until we find an apartment closed at 6:00, and we barely made it in time to get our unit.

We decided to leave on Friday, and our plan was to travel through the night until we got to Mountain View at Ungodly Early O'Clock, whenever that ended up being. So, around noon on Friday we hopped into our rented U-Haul and started driving.

The first part of the drive was rather uneventful - no surprise, western Utah is little more than desert. Tene was at the wheel, and I was spending my time listening to my iPod (we have a radio transmitter) and singing. Somewhere around the Great Salt Lake we entered the first of many high wind areas. That was a little scary - U-Haul's are basically giant metal kites - and I was glad that I wasn't the one driving. It also started storming a little - rain was falling pretty constantly throughout the trip.

Utah's west desert area is desolate. There's nothing out there. I mean, there's sage brush, and a lot of dirt, and some tumbleweeds, but it's overall pretty empty. That's probably why it's called the west desert. But while we were driving we saw this weird thing in the distance. I took some pictures of it, remarked that it looked like a tree, and puzzled over what it was. Turns out it's something called "Metaphor: The Tree of Utah." So .. yeah. Utah has some random abstract art piece just sitting out in the middle of the desert. No real reason for it.

Shortly after the random artsy tree (which is what I searched for in order to find out what the heck it was) we got to the Bonneville Salt Flats. This is where the high-speed-mile tests are conducted (or, so said the placard erected at the rest stop). Tene and I got out and stretched our legs, and walked a ways out onto the salt flats. I don't believe I've ever seen them in real life before (and if I had, I don't remember it at all), and I was surprised at how un-Earth-like they look. It was also interested to be shown so clearly that salt - in all its deliciousness - is nothing more than a type of rock. I took a hard chunk of the salt flats (Tene pulled it up for me), and filled a water bottle with some loose salt/sand from the edge of the rest stop. Then it was my turn to drive.

I didn't drive long - I think I was behind the wheel for maybe an hour. I drove from the salt flats to Wells, Nevada, where I realized I was far too tired to keep driving. Tene took over again, and we had more uneventful driving between Wells and Winnemucca, Nevada - a 3 hour drive. At Winnemucca I took over and drove to Reno Nevada. Another 3 hour drive. Nevada is big ...

At Lovelock, Nevada I had my first hit of culture shock. It was pretty mild, all things considered, but it was still a little surprising. We stopped at a gas station - I needed some caffeine (thank you Starbucks Mocha Frappachinos - I realized after I started drinking it that I had wanted a Vanilla Frappachino, but ... oh well), and the truck needed to be refueled - and when I entered it I was hit by the very distinct smell of cigarette smoke and the distinct sound of gambling machines. This would never happen in Utah ... so it surprised me.

Lovelock had an interesting (and cute) romantic culture. At the gas station there were a bunch of locks available to buy in order to connect them to a chain somewhere - which is apparently stolen from a Chinese custom. I thought it was cute, and started thinking ways to implement it in a fantasy story. If anything comes of that, I'll put it on Truth in Lies.

So, I drive to Reno, Nevada. As we approached Tene and I discussed whether to push on through the night or if we should stop. We ended up deciding to stop for the night, and stayed at the Sands Regency hotel.

The girls had a bit of an adventure here. We weren't certain we could take them into the hotel with us, so we decided to keep them out in the truck. Had it actually been warm, I would have felt a lot better about this. We ended up putting them in their smaller temporary/training cage, and wrapping it up nicely with a blanket and some pillows, as insulation. I guess it worked out, because the girls were just find in the morning (if a little chilly to the touch) and two of the pillows, and the blanket, had been chewed a bit (and there was cotton in the nesting box that wasn't there the night before).

The next morning, Tene and I set off again at around noon. And the last leg of our adventure began. We soon crossed the Nevada-California border without trouble, and had to stop shortly thereafter so that our truck could be checked by the Agricultural department. The woman who was checking our truck seemed a little concerned when she saw my large cage in the back, but she made cute noises at the girls and we were sent on our way.

The drive through California was pretty uneventful. I was glad we had waited the night out - the mountains as we came down were beautiful, and I would have missed them had we gone through the night.

Then, as I said earlier, we got to Mountain View at around 6:00. It took about an hour to unload the truck with the help of our friend, Bancus, and then we dropped off the U-Haul and trailer.

I'm glad we're here, safe and sound, and I don't think I want to make another trip like that again. Unless I'm in my own car, then it might be okay.

Big News!

Well, it's official. Tene got the job at IMVU. Starting on April 12 he's going to be one of a handful of sysadmins working on babysitting the many servers that run the IMVU clients. So, before then we need to get our behinds to the San Francisco/Palo Alto area, find an apartment, and move in. We also have to find someone to take over this apartment (Sky Harbor, the apartment complex we live in, does reassignments - which is good for us) and sell or give away a decent amount of stuff, and a few other things of that nature. It's quickly becoming decently stressful (for Tene. I'm staying relatively calm, oddly enough. My jobs are easy - packing and getting the apartment Craigslisted. Tene is the one dealing with finances).

I'm really excited to be moving. Well, I'm a whole bunch of emotions: excited, scared, worried, sad, happy ... It's a big change, and will be one heck of an adventure. All the same, I'm going to miss my friends and my family. I'll definitely be keeping in touch; through this blog, Facebook, texting (which I don't do often), chat and IM clients ... even snailmail if I have to. Overall I feel that this move, this huge change, will be good for Tene and me, though, so we're going to do it.

We may be leaving as early as Sunday or Monday(!) to go start looking at apartments. We're still looking into our options for moving all our stuff - and there are so many options! I mean, seriously! It's hard going through them all, just because there are so many.

Four New Members

Tene and I welcomed four new members to our family on Saturday: Anise, Ai, Absinthe, and Moe.

Having had a few days to play with them, I've found them to be all adorable and sweet. Moe is the most courageous and curious - she enjoys being out of her cage and interacting with Tene and I, and we enjoy playing with her. Anise, Ai, and Absinthe are sisters, and are all very shy. I'm going to have to spend a decent amount of time trust training them, but I suspect that they'll come to enjoy spending time with Tene and me.

I'm very happy that I have rats again; I've really missed having affectionate little pets. Just knowing that they're around helps me, mentally and emotionally, deal with a lot of things. That might sound weird, but it's how I feel.

Tene and I are thinking about getting other pets too: we're considering a cat, or possibly a parrot (or some other intelligent bird). For now, though, we have our rattie girls, and we're happy.

In other news, Tene interviewed again with the New Company on Friday, this time in person (I really missed him while he was gone for two days). Hopefully today we'll find out how the interview went.

Well, that's everything going on right now.

Moving Seems Imminent

On Thursday Tene is getting on a plane and flying to San Francisco. On Friday he's going to have a day-long in-person interview with New Company - to see if he meshes with the team he would be working with there. We're both feeling really good about this, and I would be surprised if he didn't get the job. I'm getting more and more excited - I'm ready to actually move, since so far we've just been waiting to move.

I've learned that I really hate waiting.

Once we find out if he'll get the job or not, I think we'll take some vacation days and go look at apartments in Palo Alto. There are 6 or 7 that I'm interested in looking at, but there might be others we notice while we're there that we like as well. So, time will tell. I hope we find somewhere nice that isn't too vastly expensive.

In other news this weekend (Saturday) I get to pick up my three new family members: Anise, Absinthe, and Amaranth. I was hoping to be getting 4 little rattie girls, but due to a misunderstanding between myself and the breeder I missed out on Moe. So instead I've asked to be put on the waiting list at CandiRats Rattery in San Francisco. I'm also considering a couple of other waiting lists, but I haven't decided for certain yet.

In light of my ratties coming home shortly, I've started finishing the cage that I started ages ago. Since I didn't do so well with the plexiglass earlier, I've decided to have the tray pieces custom cut professionally by the local Delvie's Plastics. After a week of back-and-forth email-tag with their sales department, I got the estimate: $65 which includes shipping. I've let them know that I don't need shipping (I chose a local place for a reason, after all), so I'll probably only have to worry about paying 50$.

Other things I hope to do with the cage are get a lot of toys for them, and make their cage as comfortable as possible for them. I want them to be challenged and enjoy their lives with me. So, tomorrow Tene said that he would take me to go get that stuff. Another thing I'm working on is getting permission from the Apartment People to allow the girls to live in my apartment with me as therapeutic pets. I believe my psychiatrist will back me up on this, so this shouldn't be too much of a problem - more time consuming than anything.

My birthday is coming up soon, and (aside from an XBox 360, a PS3, a Wii, and maybe a new computer) all I really care to have is a sewing machine. I've become interested in sewing, lately, and I'm hoping to learn how to sew my own clothes (and other assorted things). So I'm planning on just getting the money from my dad and stepmom. Tomorrow I'm going sewing machine scouting to try to figure out if there's something nice I would like to buy (something cheap, that will work well for basic clothing making, and that'll be a little portable/sturdy).

Other things I'm thinking of in the near and far future:

• I hope to start to nearly completely change my wardrobe. My ideal wardrobe will consist mainly of sundresses, but will also have skirts and tops. Also, tons of socks from Sock Dreams.
• I hope to get my hair cut shorter, and possibly do something "emo" to it. Coloring would be nice - I'm thinking either red, pink, or maybe blue (or a mixture of both), and possibly some blonde hair. I'm hoping to keep my hair in a manageable state of straightness more often than not. The sort of styles I'm thinking of are like these:
Obviously I like colors, and I would really like to do something different with my hair. It's rather boring as it is right now.
• I reallyreallyreally hope to get Kyoot! updating again. I've been drawing a bit more, and my style is starting to improve again - but it's definitely not where I want it - and I'm working on 3 or 4 comic pages simultaneously. I suspect I'll post the first new one soon after Tene and I move.
• I want to start becoming the person I see myself being in a few years. Basically a housewife - I want to make our apartment a home for Tene and I. I want us to be happy and comfortable. I want dinner on the table every night when Tene gets home from work. I want to start exercising every day. I want to cook most of our meals. Basically, I want to be the best person I can be. I want to make Tene, and myself, happy.

In other news, I went to the doctor today for a painful bruise, which ends up being nothing to concern myself with. I also had a couple of my bruises checked - they look good, but she suggested that I go see a dermatologist eventually. I also also had some blood drawn to make sure that I don't have either a failing thyroid or mono. I'm still tired most of the time, and I'm unsure why.

Well, that's it for now!