Things that might be decidedly odd…

Room for Rent

Well, I posted ads all over the place for somebody to take over my lease since I’m moving to Seattle. Check out the version I posted on craigslist here for more info.

I Hate Football

Arg, football steals my Simpsons away.

Thanksgiving Update

On Thursday, Michael, Kara and I went over to Ketee’s family’s place in Winston-Salem for Thanksgiving dinner. The food was great, but it was also nice to just get out of town and go somewhere more family-oriented for the holiday. The most unique part of the dinner, which I enjoyed was the seafood-based stuffing. Her family is from New Orleans (currently displaced by Katrina actually) and I guess said stuffing is a standard in their family. There was tons of food though and tons of desert. I had several small slices of different kinds of cake for desert.

That night, I got an assignment done for my class. Basically, as of Thursday morning, I needed to complete the third, fourth and fifth homeworks of that class. I’m WAY behind actually, mainly because the third assignment has just been a major pain in my side for over a month. It’s slightly difficult, but mostly just tedious. The longer I’ve been in school, the less tolerance I have for doing tedious things. Hence, I decided to just skip that assignment for now and managed to power through the fourth one that night. Tomorrow, I’m hoping to finish off the fifth. Then I can come back to the third and re-evaluate how much of it I can complete before the semester is over.

The worst part is that I only took this class because I thought I would need it for the PhD program. Now that’s not on the agenda, which makes the class all the more frustrating. The material is still usually interesting, just not when I’m bogged down on tedious parts of assignments. Mostly, I just need to get these things done so that I can get my P and be done with it.

Over the past couple days, I’ve also been in contact with a couple of UNC grads who now work at Microsoft. They’ve given me some helpful info about places to live and so forth. Everybody I’ve dealt with so far at Microsoft has been very helpful really. It’s very refreshing. The fact that I’m really moving has settled in some more over the past few days as well. Part of me is getting overwhelmed with figuring out all the moving arrangements. I’m seriously considering calling up my recruiter and telling her I’d rather take the full relocation package instead of the big wad of cash. Then again, I could always just use some of the money they’ve given me to pay for a consultant to help me find housing (something like $300 for a day).

Moving

Now that it’s official that I’ll be moving to Seattle soon, there are so many other things to worry about!

First, I need to find somebody to take over my lease. If you or anybody you happen to know is looking for a nice place to share with my 2 existing roommates starting in December or January, let me know. You’d have your own bedroom and bathroom in a duplex with a yard, use of our large driveway for parking, located right on the CW bus line (stop is just one house down). Rent is $400/month, but the place is only about 5 years old with lots of nice ammenities like washer+dryer upstairs, hard wood floor in the living room, ceiling fans in every room, A/C, etc. I’m going to start sending out “roommate wanted” emails to various listservs and posting on places like craigslist after the Thanksgiving holiday.

Since I’ve taken a big wad of cash from Microsoft instead of using their full range of relocation services, I’m planning to get rid of my furniture then drive what remains across country in my car. Ketee has already claimed my bookshelf, but I have a simple desk (originally like $100, used for my computer) and a full sized bed w/ box spring ($600 new) that I’ll be selling too. Soon enough, I’ll probably put together photo ads for all this stuff and send them around to various listservs as well as post them here first for my loyal readers.

Next, there’s the acutal logistics of moving. My plan is to drive from here to San Clemente (where my parents live) for the holidays, go to Nicaragua, come back to southern CA, then head up to Seattle. I want to take an as southernly route as possible going back to reduce the chances of cold weather delaying things. Plus, I’ve already driven the entirety of I-40 already on my way out here, so perhaps I’ll do something different this time. Apparently, it’s only like 25 miles more (although AAA and Google both say about 2 hours longer) to take I-85 south to I-20 to I-10 to I-8 to I-5. When I go depends a lot on how school finishes up. I believe my last final is going to be on 12/10, so probably some time shortly after that.

Currently, I’m planning to drive alone. It would be rad if I had somebody to join me on my cross country trip, partially or all the way. Hint, hint: that means if you want a free one-way cross-country road trip (a great way to see the southern portion of our fine nation), contact me. I (actually Microsoft) would be paying for hotels, gas, food, etc. You’d just need a way to get back to where ever you’re trying to get afterwards. My friend Jeremy from undergrad expressed interest, but he’s going to be traveling abroad around that time and hence won’t be able to do it. Also, if you just want to be dropped off along the way somewhere (like I said I’ll probably be taking I-20 and I-10, but modifications are possible if it means I’ll have company) that would be rad too.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I’m heading over to have dinner with my friend Ketee’s family in Winston-Salem. It sounds like it’s turning into a major family gathering. Her family is interesting, so it should be a good time.

It’s Official

I accepted the job offer from Microsoft in Redmond, WA. I called the recruiter today and filled out the online paperwork. Shortly after that I called NDL to let them know I was not going to take their offer. It’s been a tough decision all told, but I think it’s the right one to make at this point in my life for professional as well as personal reasons.

Now, I just need to finish up here so that I can start worrying about moving, Christmas at home, Nicaragua and starting a new life in Seattle. My official start date is going to be January 23rd, which should give me some time to find a place to live in between Nicaragua and Microsoft.

Poland

Now the question is when is the European Union going to bring the hammer down on Poland for things like this. Joining the EU is a package deal. You can’t take the economic benefits without also upholding the many rights and policies concerning free speech and tolerance of sexual orientation.

U-Haul Weirdness

I was pricing out what it might cost to get one of those little trailers for helping moving my stuff to Seattle, should I choose that option. Here’s what U-Haul quoted me:

• $160 from Chapel Hill, NC to Seattle, WA
• $180 from Chapel Hill, NC to San Clemente, CA
• $524 from San Clemente, CA to Seattle, WA

WTF? Additionally, I could just get the NC to WA rate and pay an extra $20/day to hold on to it while I’m visiting my family for Christmas. Still, it seems pretty weird that those numbers are so dramatically different.

Being Social

Today I didn’t get much work done. I had intended to go to campus to do some work in Mathematica (I don’t have a copy on my machines at home). However, there was a football and basketball game today on campus, which meant there would be nowhere to park. Hence, I decided to just take the day off.

I did some laundry and had dinner with my friend Steve at Tyler’s in Carrboro. From there, I came home to browse the web. I ran across this odd site, 43things.com. It seems to be very popluar in Seattle. I stumbled across it through its work for microsoft category. An interesting new way to waste time I suppose.

After that, I went out to Top of the Hill to meet some friends. We hung out there for a while before heading over to Hell, where we finished the night. Since I was planning to drink a bit, I walked into town, but fortunately Steven was able to give me a ride back home. It was a pretty good night out really. I had some great conversations with several people about all kinds of interesting goings on in their lives and my life.

Doh

I just went back into Sitterson from the bus stop after getting annoyed that the 6:41pm bus hadn’t shown up yet. However, now that I look at the schedule I realise there is no 6:41pm bus!

Normally, I’m not on campus this late at night, which is why I got confused. I had a long conversation with the recruiter from Microsoft this evening about my compensation and benefits package. The salary is a bit lower than I had hoped for. A fellow student today was just telling me about how one of his friends got offered the same amount of money (this was before I heard the number) straight out of undergrad. After you factor in cost of living it’s probably about the same as what NDL/Emergent has offered. Moreover, it’s still a decent amount of money and it’s important to remember that this is just a starting salary.

However, the benefits they’re providing are very good. You can read about them here. I talked to her for about 30 minutes just going through all the benefits. I then asked her a few questions about rents and how possible it is to commute from Seattle into Redmond (answer: yes it’s very possible and many of the younger workers without kids do that).

It’s impressive, but I’m still giving myself the weekend to mull things over.

Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics

While poking around the net about Seattle, I came across an interesting article on gay demographics. Relevant highlights include:

• Washington ranks 3rd in per capita same-sex couples (after Vermont and California)
• Among large American cities, only San Francisco and Oakland have more same-sex couples per capita than Seattle
• Among all metropolitan areas (of all sizes), Seattle ranked fourth in same-sex *male* couples per capita following San Francisco, Ft. Lauderdale and Santa Rosa. Its rate was actually higher than that of New York even.

Interesting.

Also, I was curious about how populous the area is. Greater Seattle has about 3 times as many people as the Triangle or about half as many as the Bay Area (3 million total).