We’re here. Actually, we’ve been here since Saturday, but this is really the first time that I’ve been still and unoccupied long enough to record anything for posterity.

Last Thursday we met Reza to get our keys and sign the lease. It was quick and painless, and we got to go in and look at our place, which looked great. Gone were the bare slats of the wall and the half-ripped-out ancient carpet. Instead, nice textured yellow paint covered the walls, and we had brand new hardwood on the floors. Very nice.

Saturday morning we narrowly avoided a huge traffic jam and picked up the truck in Berkeley (El Cerrito, actually, hometown of Creedence Clearwater Revival). Back down to Fremont, and the packing began. It went of without a hitch, with helpers trickling in until about 4pm. The process was complete by 6pm, when my parents showed up. We strolled down to a decent Italian place called “Fontina” on Shattuck where I rewarded all the movers with free food.

Sunday was a great day. It made obvious the benefits of living so close to the middle of a town like Berkeley. We woke up, had no food, so just walked out for breakfast. Then, I was setting up the desk, and it needed to be hacked up a bit to get the legs in the right place, so I walked around the corner to the hardware store for the things I needed. Later, we went from hungry to fed in less than 30 mins by strolling to another nearby restaurant. I’m definitely going to take this for granted very soon.

But not yet. For now, I have to cope with the commute from Berkeley to Cupertino. One hour, fifteen minutes, on a good day. It’s not so bad, and only for two weeks, but it feels silly all the same. I look at the gray haze on the horizon and imagine that I’m personally responsible for it being a shade darker.

The last few days have been spent, predictably, trying to impose some order on the mess of all of our stuff. We’ll have more pics and a complete tour of the place online soon, no doubt. In the meantime, witness the OCD of our computerized apartment layout (this is one of several versions that closest matches the current reality):

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Comments

amy — 2005-07-20 07:32:15

congratulations, both of you! and bryan, i’m really sorry to hear about your ankle. i’m happy it wasn’t as serious as it could have been, but it still sounds pretty traumatic. you’re lucky to have such caring people about (coughcoughlesliecoughcough) to take care of you.. : )

bryan — 2005-07-20 09:44:30

yeah, she is a genuine sweetheart. i lucked out on many levels.

I knew this. No surprises here. Still, I made the drive in one chunk for the first time on Friday afternoon so that I could talk to James about my SCA talk. That is a long-ass drive. I can’t believe people commute from SF or Berkeley to Apple for years. What a crazy place the Bay can be. Luckily, I’ve only really got two weeks of that pain to go through.

I burned up most of Saturday trying to build a cable to splice an iPod into my car stereo, and failed. I’m not giving up though, since commercial adapters go for $90 or so. The goal is that when we do our summer roadtrip (Canada is the plan, all the cool kids are doing it) we can bring Jim and rock out. When I finally figure out how, I’ll make some sort of guide to save others pain. Also, I’m trying to figure out how to use my phone to connect to the internets on the road so we can post up-to-the-minute photos of I-5.

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Comments

Susan — 2005-07-11 15:05:42

Canada! How much fun! Who is going?

bryan — 2005-07-12 08:18:47

Why Leslie and I of course :) We’ve been trying to take a road-trip together since magical mystery tour.

Well, Leslie is off to Thailand and clearly having a grand time. I picked up on packing where Leslie left off. I think we’ve got about 2/3rds of the stuff packed up at this point, mostly stuffed into G5 boxes that I stole from work supplemented with Crate and Barrel boxes from Cameron’s wedding presents. We’ll look like the most well-heeled grad student couple ever when we move in. T-minus two weeks to Berkeley.

The weather here is in full-blown summer mode: perfect every day. Not too hot, nice and cool in the evenings. When, inevitably, we leave California, it’s a virtual guarantee that we’ll bitch about the weather. Because weather is just not supposed to be this good, continuously. Really. You actually start to bitch about how boring the perfect weather is (it reminds me of Blind Melon, sing it with me: “… and I start to complain that there’s no rain…”).

The rest of my spare time has been sunk in to my summer grad student activities. The last week or so I’ve been trying to whip up slides for my SCA presentation, which I’d say are half done now. This is probably the most preparing I’ve ever done for a presentation. It can pay off, though, because talking at conferences seems to be one important way to establish yourself in the incestuous world of academic research. I should be giving some practice talks at Berkeley and Pixar befordhand, which will help.

I spent Sunday rafting with Doug, Ali, and some friends from work on a river north of Sacramento. Full pictorial documentation on gallery.

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Comments

em — 2005-06-28 18:09:51

Wicked cool ride!

johanna — 2005-06-30 17:35:06

You guys look so cute in your wet suits!

bryan — 2005-07-01 11:29:00

it’s all about style baby.

Two years. That’s it. It’s over. We threw a little party to celebrate the end, and I’ve put a few pictures up, but the rest didn’t make it before I left town, so right now you can only see the stacks of money before we dump them over Leslie’s head. More to follow.