The wild wild west

I lived in the SoCal area back from 1996 to 1998, and to be honest, I hated it. There were a lot of reasons for that: I was young, I knew nobody, I didn't have a car (a terrible thing in California), I lived in an area that totally sucked for people without a car, and then things like how California is a hellhole, I hate the weather, and people out here are rude and obnoxious. You know, those small details.

There was a time when I swore that I'd never, ever live in SoCal again. But, at the same time, I also swore many years ago that I'd never work for Dave again, and my opinion on that one ended up totally changing.

The initial plan was to head out of Omaha on the 28th, hit Denver, head West through the Rockies, end up at and waste some time in Vegas on Sunday, and then make the final 4.5 hour drive to LA on Monday. Things were initially looking good, and the weather report sounded like we weren't going to be running into anything too nasty anywhere along the way.

Then, of course, we hit Denver the first night, and just as we get to the outskirts of town, we're basically in the middle of a snowstorm. (Poor Hitomi was driving, and got totally freaked out as visibility dropped to near nothing.) Checking the forecast, it sounded like we'd be hitting more bad weather as we travelled West, and the idea of heading through a good chunk of the mountains in the snow along a route I'd never taken before was sounding less and less enjoyable.

So, the plan was changed: we would instead head South from Denver down to Albequerque, and then West through New Mexico and Arizona to hit Cali from that direction instead. This route added a couple extra hours to the travel time, but ended up being very smooth and worry-free for the most part. (Except for the small chip I got in my windshield, which then before I had a chance to do anything about turned into a much larger crack. Grr.)

So... Southern California. I still don't love the place, and really, never will, but I'm far more open to the idea this time than I was the first time around. To the people of SoCal, seriously:

1: Clean your god-damn air

2: Stop being such douchebags

3: Quit honking your horn for every stupid little reason

4: Just go somewhere else period so I don't have so much traffic to deal with

5: Come to the realization that with this much traffic, any decent intersection should have turn signals

Other than that, things aren't too bad so far. I hated the idea of finding an apartment and making things final from 1500+ miles away, but we seemed to really have lucked out. The office staff were, unsurprisingly, totally helpful before I signed the lease, and are a bit ambivalent now that they have me in their clutches.

Rule of thumb, however, is to pretty much expect that from any apartment management staff, so whatever. The apartment itself? Not too shabby honestly. It's two bed / one bath, and the previous owners had been here for a long time, so the apartment got a whole lot of updating done to it. New paint (a nice light brown versus the traditional white), new carpeting, new countertops (really nice granite in the kitchen), new fixtures, and more. I hated the idea of being a second floor apartment - meaning we'd have people above AND below us - but we totally lucked out by having parking stalls directly under our apartment, meaning we can stomp around to our heart's content. As for those above, other than the loud noise of water we hear when the upstairs toilet flushes, I've not hear one sound from anybody either above or next to us. (With the exception of when people are out in the hallway.)

We've got an outdoor pool and sauna, tennis court, running track, putting green, and 24-hour fitness center, which are nice. The apartment has tons of wall outlets, very nice for a tech junkie like me. Within walking distance are two malls - one big and one very big - with a third about a ten minute drive away. Also in walking distance are Best Buy, Circuit City, and the store that I adore, Fry's. (Went there once when I was living out here before, and always wanted to go back since.) There's a Yoshinoya not too far away, a legit Ramen place, and a bunch of other nice stuff within very close proximity to us.

So, I don't know... I don't so much enjoy being back out here on the coast, but so far, this doesn't seem like too bad of a place to live for a while. Well, at least until it come summertime, and I'm sweating my ass off in 100+ degree heat.