Idaho

It's been a whirlwind 2 weeks. Starting with the drive from Texas to Idaho for my new job, and now with my first week of work. Ordinarily, I would tell (all 3 of) you about the 4 day trip, but right now I am feeling very unmotivated to do so. Or really to even continue this blog. I think a rebranding may be in order. I don't think my original niche of law school advice is for me anymore, especially now that I have an actual job that I have to, ya' now, do.

So, email me if you want to see pictures from the trip (Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Idaho). I'm going to leave everything up in case anyone wants to read my Australia archives.

TTFN

Countdown

I'm sitting in my should-be-more-empty-by-now apartment thankful that a few of my neighbors don't feel the need to secure their wireless internet signal. Seriously, I'd be bouncing off of the walls right now if I didn't have internet access. I wanted to drive my new car around some more before I tow the trailer with it, but it seems unhitching the trailer is significantly harder when it's full of stuff.

I did finally get someone to come with me, one of my best friends from high school. The only thing that sucks is that is new manager at work wouldn't let him take an extra day off without finding someone to cover for him, which he wasn't able to do. Apparantly, there aren't many people who work 8am to 6pm who wouldn't mind working 2pm to 2am. Who knew?

We'll be leaving sometime around 1am tonight, then breakfast and lunch with somefriends of mine in Dallas. Wednesday afternoon we'll head to Amarillo and as much further as we can get before we get tired.

Thursday will get us to Santa Fe and Taos, NM and all the way to Denver by nightfall. If we make good time on Wednesday, we may be able to push a few more hours past Denver.

On Friday, we'll have a long stretch (about 10 hours) from Denver to Salt Lake City, Utah. After S.L.C., we will only have 11 hours to go before we get to Moscow and my new home. Well, maybe "home" is too strong a word for right now...let's go with "domicile" (nice legal word) for now.

I have a feeling this is going to go by much faster than I thought it was.

Wheels and a roof

Talk about whirlwind! In 3 days I went from homeless with an 8 year old truck that made a new noise everyday to signing a lease on an 1100 sq. ft. condo in Idaho and a brand new Honda Pilot! I feel almost grown up. I'm guessing I'll feel all grown up when I actually get the car on Saturday and when I get the keys to my place. My landlord (described by self and others as "eccentric") has already mailed me the keys.

I'm still trying to find someone who wants to drive with me. 2200 miles is a long way to go by myself. The drive should be really pretty, though. I'm planning on going through Santa Fe, N.M., Denver, Co., Salt Lake City, Ut., and Boise, Id. 4 days of 10 hours a day, or 3 days of 14 should do it. Man, that's a lot of driving!

From the "What Took So Long" file (cross reference with the "Change is good, but why does this feel bad?" file

The Jefferson County (Beaumont) commissioners have voted to change the name of one of their county roads. (Full story above) The previous name was "Jap Road." Yes, you read that right. Aside from the fact that it took this long for enough people to care the word is a racial slur, those opposed to the change actually defended it saying it "honored" the Japanese farmer (I sh*t you not) that lived there in 1905. I'm sure that the city of Austin really had to debate hard to decide between "Cesar Chavez Blvd." and "Dirty Spic Lane."

The other thing that bothers me is that they changed the name to recognize a restaurant that was on the road for 30 years that closed recently. Hmmmmmm..."The name honors the Mayumi family patriarch."...How can we change the name and still honor him? Mayumi Road? "Naaahhhh, lets just go in another direction." That just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Like "Jap Road" was OK, but "Mayumi Road" is just too "foreign."

Am I crazy?

NOTE: I'm sure the majority of Beamont-ians are nice, well-meaning, educated...well nice and well-meaning anyway. But there seems to be enough that aren't to make this non-story a story, ya know?

Car Shopping...

Things are getting down and dirty now, gang. Even though I've known when I would have to leave Austin, it still freaks me out as being too soon. I think I would feel better if I had a place to live up there. (BTW, there's some guy has a rather extensive photo tour of the Moscow area if you want to check it out.) I emailed some folks who are going to help me, but it's still 7am there so I don't expect anything until later.

The other big mind drain right now is buying a car. Initially, I thought I wanted a Toyota Tundra, but I wasn't totally impressed after test driving (it seemed even smaller that I thought it would be). I also looked at the Toyota Highlander which I thought was pretty OK. My Dad wants me to look at the H0nda Pilot, but they are very popular right now and would probably be out of my price range because the dealers aren't really "dealing." I also want to test drive those new Chevy Colorado/GMC Canyons, but it seems they are hard to come by. Hardly anyone withing 200 miles has the model I would want. *sigh* I wish I had more than 2, check that, 1.5 weeks.