The last two weeks have been pretty intense. Getting back from Germany. Finishing up packing my stuff in Colorado. Flying to Seattle. For one night. Then flying to San Francisco for two days of new hire orientation for a new job. The training was in Menlo Park. Last time I was down there was almost 15 years ago. It was weird. I don’t remember my previous trip well enough to tell whether things have changed much. But it is definitely a weird place now. I unlocked the skill to use uber. So that’s good.
And as soon as I got back to Redmond I started my new job for real.
Every day has been packed with so many new things to learn. It’s been a blast. Each day goes by very fast but now, looking back on the last couple of weeks, they seem like months to me.
Here are a few things I learned
- King Sooper’s/Krogers/Fry’s is called Quality Food Centers (QFC) up here.
- They sell regulation strength beer and wine at grocery stores including QFC. I guess we’re all grownups. Civilization hasn’t descended into barbary anyways.
- They do this slow dusk and dawn thing. It starts to get dark around 4 but it’s not completely dark until 6:30. Once we fall back an hour it’ll start getting dark at 3. Good times.
- The rain is weird. Many different kinds of rain. Like in that Forest Gump movie. Haven’t had the sideways rain yet.
- Even when it looks totally miserable outside it’s not cold. I’ll have to calibrate for that.
- I swear to God they do something different at Starbucks. Even when they pump the black juice from the thermos in the back it tastes very good.
- Housing is insane. Perhaps not Silicon Valley insane but twice as insane as Boulder. Forget about finding a 1BR/1BA for under 6x10^5. Microsoft, Boeing, Amazon, Facebook in town can’t help.
- Lots of Teslas on the roads. And Tacomas.
- I still love oatmeal.