I’ve been in California for six days now. Let me try to exhausingly recap my schedule first, and then I’ll add thoughts and impressions. Where relevant, times are in Pacific. This entry covers the first day.
Saturday
[1:30am] — wake up to go to the airport.
[1:50am] — my driver calls, says he’s downstairs but to take my time.
[2:15am] — head to airport.
[4:00am] — flight leaves Orlando for San Francisco. I’ve used points to upgrade to business, so everything is smooth at the airport as far as check-in and boarding.
[7:00am-ish] — for some freak reason, I get a few SMS’s and emails on my phone. Bear in mind that there isn’t wifi on board. We’re at 35,000 feet and the cell phone works for 2 or 3 mins. Weird. One of the messages is from Citi’s Fraud department, informing me there’s been a questionable charge on my account. Hmmm.
[9:30am] — land in San Francisco. Try to avoid noticing burned grass between the runway; fail.
While waiting for my bag, I pull out the laptop, log in to my Citi account, and see at least one questionable charge. Did I spend $200 at a grocery store in CA today? What about $207 at a family clothing store today, also in CA? I did not. Citi closes the account and will overnight some new cards. This all happens in the short time I’m waiting for baggage claim.
For a few hours here everything proceeds smooth-as-silk. My bag is one of the first 10 or so off the plane. Just before my bag comes out, I get an email from Avis: proceed to G20 to pick up my rental car. Sweet Mother, this is a welcome development, as the Car Rental place at SFO is an undesirable place to hang out in line. Car is fine, traffic is light, weather is beautiful (64, sunny), so off down 101 South we go.
Here’s where we hit our first snag. The front desk lady at the Avalon Silicon Valley is confused by who I am or why I’m there. It’s complicated because I’m in corporate housing. I rattle off all the companies I’ve been working with (LinkedIn, SIRVA relocation, PC Housing) and have a hit with PC Housing. Ah. I get keys, they make me sign a move-in inspection form before I inspect the unit (what!?) and off I go. I basically park in the first spot I can find and then wander around looking for the apartment.
Success! And it’s nice, too. The rental furniture is not only functional but it’s attractive as well, even if not high quality. The housing people did a great job of staging everything. I unpack my suitcase, test the TV remotes, and then am immediately bored. After all the activity of not just today but the last few weeks, it’s unsettlingly still and quiet.
Let’s go to lunch! I head over to Fiesta Del Mar (the Shoreline Ave. location) and have an awesome seafood salad.
I’m all kinds of exhausted, so I head back to home base for lounging time.
By 5pm I’m wiped (I’ve been up for 15.5 hours at this point) but also very hungry and in no mood to cook the spaghetti the housing people staged the apartment with. It’s pretty bad when you’re too tired to cook spaghetti. Instead I walk across the street to the awesome Faultline Brewing Company. The beers are good, the portobello hamburger is good, the sweet potato fries are good, and I’m satisfied.
I walk back to the apartment, hit the sack around 10pm, and then wake up at…
Originally published at bbhart.com on August 30, 2013.