I Moved To Seattle!

I moved to Seattle! Yes, it finally happened. No, the thesis isn’t done; I’ll have to fly back when it’s done to defend it. Seattle couldn’t wait any longer. I would have written about this sooner, but I’ve felt so tired in the evenings since I moved here. Moving is always such a chore. Thankfully Microsoft made the move very easy by shipping my belongings and car here, providing temporary housing and a rental car, and connecting me with a rental agent in the area. I decided to wait until I start work on Monday, November 10, to look at housing so I can talk to my coworkers about places and areas they recommend. Traffic is a big factor here, so talking to people in the know will be helpful.

Arrival

I flew from Sacramento to Seattle at 10 AM on Monday, November 3, and arrived just before noon. Picking up the rental car and finding the spot where I was to pick up my apartment keys went swimmingly. I couldn’t check into my apartment until 5 PM, so I killed time in a nearby Starbucks. I used my iPhone’s maps to find the Starbucks, which are usually very accurate, but they got the location for my apartment totally wrong, which left me driving around for almost an hour in the rainy gloom. Eventually exasperation drove me to open the envelope containing my apartment keys, where I found a map giving directions straight from the place where I had picked up my keys to my apartment, which, it turns out, was just down the street. I was tired, so I ordered pizza, unpacked, watched the election news, and went to bed.

Provisions

My apartment is fully furnished and lacked only a few necessary kitchen items. It came with single-serving portions of stuff like detergent, shampoo, dish soap, and the like and no food, so I had to go foraging for provisions. I split up the shopping for food, household necessities, and a few kitchen items over Tuesday and Wednesday.

Attire

I found my wardrobe to be severely lacking, so I went on a shopping binge. I bought four pairs of shoes, two of them formal and dressy, since my last pair of black dress shoes maimed me. Men’s Warehouse is awesome. The salesman who helped me tried talking me into a two-for-one deal on suits of any price, which sounded good, but I need to prepare myself mentally to spend $500 on clothes, so I had to put that on hold. I’m going to call a friend who used to work there to see what he thinks. It can’t hurt to have a suit, right? I just need to find excuses to wear it.

Transportation

On Tuesday I went to the Department of Licensing to apply for a Washington driver license. Thankfully I didn’t have to retake the driver test. It took about an hour to wait for my number to be called, as I expected, but when it was my turn I was told that I needed a proof of residency, which I hadn’t been told before. I had to drive all the way home, get a letter, then drive all the way back and get back in another line (which was shorter, I’ll give them that). I got my car emission tested today, so it’s ship-shape. As soon as I receive the pink slip, I’ll be ready to roll.

The Roads

The roads in Redmond are a little different than California’s roads. A few things I’ve observed:

carpool lanes are on the right side,
low, yellow, triangular prisms used sporadically as lane dividers,
left turns often lead into two left turn lanes and a straight ahead lane,
lanes appear and disappear with little notice,
and lines are hard to discern and lanes are hard to follow at night.

Driving here makes me nervous. More than once I’ve made mistakes or felt that I was close to getting into an accident. I feel a little more confident now, though. I feel stupid that I’m inexplicably having a difficult time adjusting to driving here.

At one point, the freeway leading from the airport to Redmond split three ways at once, which boggled my mind. It reminded me of the awkwardness of the left-sided off ramps in Santa Barbara. I think we’re just wired to think of oncoming traffic being to the left of us so some kind of danger warning flares up when we start veering left.

Flora And Weather

The trees here are amazing! Most are broad-leafed, like Maples, and have turned yellow, orange, and red. I love driving down 8th St. because it’s like driving through a park or colored tunnel. I tried to take pictures with my phone as safely as possible while driving. Some of the leaves have fallen and carpet the streets, but it doesn’t look messy. There’s no doubt that it’s Fall here.

The weather has been relatively mild, with sporadic rain showers and drizzle, some occasional sunshine and blue sky, but mostly gray clouds. It’s cold day and night, but more so at night. Thankfully I bought a few warm things before the trip here!

Touring

I’ve been focused on getting acclimated and settled since I arrived, so I haven’t had any time to see the sights or explore yet. I’m planning on driving to downtown Seattle tomorrow to check out the Space Needle and the Seattle Center and anything else worth seeing in that area of downtown. I had dinner tonight with a friend of mine, Dan, from Cal Poly and Delta Upsilon who lives in this area too. We talked about hanging out more, and he might be interested in doing some touristy things with me. I can’t wait to see it all! I plan to contact and hope to connect with my aunt and uncle, who live in the area, soon.

Microsoft

I checked out the building where I’ll report on my first day today. It’s actually very close to my apartment. I bought several dressy items of clothing, but I’ll probably dress somewhat casually for my first day. What can I say? It’s the way of the programmer, and of Microsoft. I’ve been trying to read through a book on the technology my department builds, but I doubt I’ll be able to finish it before I start. It’s probably not immediately critical anyway. I’m really excited to start work, to meet new people and hopefully make new friends, and also to possibly work on something interesting and challenging. We’ll see.

Thesis

As you might expect, I haven’t been able to focus on my thesis much the past two weeks. Now that things have settled down somewhat here, I’ll be able to pick up where I left off. It’s always felt like two steps forward, one step back, but I just keep my head down and focus on what’s in front of me. I think that if I paid attention to my overall progress, I’d have gone crazy by now.

Pictures

I’ve started an online collection of my pictures that I will add to periodically at faught.shutterfly.com. I just unpacked my digital camera, so the pictures should on average be of better quality from now on. Check there and here for further updates to my new life in Seattle!