moving and job hunting

Another long stretch without an update, I know. I’ve only had internet for a few days now, and they have been busy ones.

Last Friday (a week ago), Leslie and I moved into a great little (well, pretty big, actually) two-bedroom apartment in Santa Clara. It’s fairly cookie-cutter, but we’re doing our best to make it into a home. It was found after two frantic days of house searching on our part on Tuesday and Wednesday of last week. The house hunting was complicated by the fact that Leslie was committed from basically 8am-9pm everyday. So mostly I drove all over South Bay looking for a place for us to live, knowing that we needed something we could get into by Friday when Leslie’s parents were due to arrive with all of her stuff.

We were originally looking for a two-bedroom house or part of a multiplex, but it turns out that in our budget range all of the duplexes and houses are pretty shoddy, or in bad neighborhoods. The standard housing for people our age around here is the two-story apartment called a “townhouse.” So we looked at a couple of those, had one rented out from beneath us, and finally were going to settle on a condo in Santa Clara. It was big (1100 sqft), but oldish, avocado green countertops and wood paneling everywhere. But it was available, and we were desperate. I had also looked at a 900 sqft apt in a big complex, and after accosting Leslie to show her the old condo, we discovered that the “old” condo was also surrounded by “old” people, and on a whim decided to go by the complex. For some reason, we just felt better there, and right there on her lunch break put down the hold fee on the apartment. A couple of days later we moved in. While we were signing the lease, her parents pulled in to the apartment complex with all of Leslie’s stuff in tow.

After we got it all moved into our new place, her parents stayed for the weekend and we had a great time talking, eating, shopping, unpacking. They headed out early on Monday, and Leslie started work (no kids until next week), and I started looking for work. Now, this was the least concrete part of my plan: I move down to the bay, Leslie and I find a place, she teaches, and I… get a job somewhere. It didn’t bother me too much that I’d decided to start looking for a tech job in Silicon Valley, in what might be one of the worst job markets ever. But here I am now, trying to find employment. I spend a few hours every day looking up companies and jobs and applying and sending in resumes. Really, online job hunting is like pouring your soul into a black hole and hoping for a response. But I’m better off than most. I’ve got several good possibilities cooking at big companies here in the bay, and with luck I should have a job somewhere around here in the next few weeks.

So I’ve sort of been acting as a housewife for the last week, getting stuff arranged and put away and set up and so forth. On Tuesday the cable guy showed up to bless us with sweet, sweet internet. That night I got a call from the people shipping The Box down from Seattle to here in the bay. So on Wednesday I recruited my brother, we rented a U-Haul truck and drove the 20 miles or so to where it was stored, transfered it all to the truck, then headed back down to Santa Clara and put it in my apt. Just really got most of it settled in yesterday, and all I can say is that the capacity of our apartment to absorb all of our crap is astounding. I must not think about all the work that will be involved when we move out, possibly in less than a year.

So next week Leslie starts actually teaching, and I languish here until I can find employment. I’ll try to get some pictures up on gallery soon; when I do, I’ll post another update.