Settling in.

So I found an apartment!
I'm now a resident of Bernal Heights in San Francisco.
It's a quiet neighborhood, mostly residential, with a great little main drag of shops, library and AMAZING looking restaurants.
Seriously within a 10 minute walk there is a tacqueria, nepalese, thai, italian, japanese, 3 coffee shops, ice cream, a wine bar, 3 regular bars, and 2 kind of standard american cuisine places.
I'm loving it and I can't wait to eat at them all.
I have a feeling this may soon turn into a food blog.
Oh well.


More on the apartment soon!

Have I done something lately to make you think I'm stupid?

Sometimes I am annoyed at how often certain people I don't care to remember are brought up in my memory.

Recently at my new job a co-worker has shown that he regularly goes through painfully specific and detailed descriptions of very basic tasks. I've been at the job for almost 2 weeks and already have wanted to scream at him "I'M NOT A FUCKING IDIOT!"
The sad part of it all is that this reminds me of people who would love, no, NEED that level of specificity. I'm not going to get too deep into it, but already I can see that I'll need to develop a special way of working with this individual if only to maintain my sanity.

ROAD TRIP!!

So I LOVE road trips.

I had a great one on my way out to California.

It happened fast, I loaded my shit up in my car and took off.

Three days of travel and I'm in CA and have already started my new job.

I took some videos along the way.

Interview!!

So This weekend I flew out to San Francisco for an interview.

I'm still waiting to hear from them afterwards but overall it went well and they paid some travel costs.

I stayed with Rachel and her family who were VERY kind to put me up for a couple nights. But we had good fun and Rachel took me around town to explore some neighborhoods. I learned a few things, not the least of which was that a neighborhood with either "hill" or "heights" in it's name is NEVER flat. Also "flat" by San Francisco standards is an interesting concept.

The organization I interviewed with was in an interesting location...

(I used my new flip video for the first time. Sorry, it's a little jerky.)

All in all, the interview went well I think. What was scheduled to be 3 hours lasted 5 because we just kept talking. I had fun chatting with three of the staff members there and had a great trip. We'll see how it turns out.

The Dreaded RETAIL!

So to occupy myself during this time of job searching and seemingly endless cover letters I have started working at my brothers shoe store. I'll admit I was a bit wary in the beginning. The thought of working for the person who, more often than not it seems, delighted in creating a tormented childhood for me was less than appealing. So far that hasn't been the problem.

What HAS been the problem you ask?

I could use one word, but I'll use two for emphasis and clarity.

FUCKING IDIOTS!

Ok. I can understand people not having a full grasp of how their feet are put together, how a shoe interacts with the various joints of your lower extremities, how European or children's sizing works, or even not being sure about their shoe size. Much of this I have learned very quickly in the past few weeks. But there is no excuse for some people being just plain idiotic. No I take that back, not plain.... fucking idiotic.

When a steel toed boot is so narrow in comparison to your foot that the edge of the curved steel plate is grinding into your toes and the outer side of your foot, getting a narrower shoe is NOT a good idea. When you think you have some horribly abnormal condition (bunions) and the store clerk tells you its actually quite common and we can work around it fairly easily, continuing to try on enormously large shoes and whining about how awful it is that no one can help you find a better fitting shoe is really NOT a good idea. Coming in three different times to look at the same shoe and trying to haggle down the price with two separate clerks while getting nowhere each time is just really annoying.

In the end this is a very small segment of the population (at least I keep telling myself that). But they have a knack for making their presence known to all again, and again. Sometimes I worry about the future of humanity.

I need to share some things!

Ok so over the past couple days a few things have come up that I feel I need to disperse out to the general populace. In no particular order:

1: Netflix is amazing! Video on demand is incredible and I just watched an incredible Israeli movie called "The Bubble." I highly recommend it if you like a devastating horrifying tear jerker as much as I do.

2: Picking corn by hand BLOWS THE BIG ONE! Don't ever do it.

3: I've been listening to a band called Plushgun for a bit now. Not the most amazing stuff ever but something about it has me hooked. I can't stop listening to "Dancing in a Minefield" Check it out.

4: Rachel sent me a link that is probably the funniest thing I've seen in years. I laughed SO hard.

http://melon.posterous.com/random-thoughts-from-25-35-year-olds

5: I am watching The Daily Show from Thursday September 17th. President Clinton is on. I'm a fan. He looks WAY less stressed than I remember him from when he was in office. He's doing some great work and I respect him greatly.

BUT... he just said "the second thing is, we're putting a real emphasis on women and girls."

I can only begin to imagine how hard Jon Stewart had to bite his tongue. But take a look on Hulu. Good interview.

6: Beth Ditto makes me happy. I've been listening to Gossip's new album recently and it's quality stuff. Might be getting a little overplayed, but I love it and she is amazing.

7: Employers who still require hard copies of resumes and cover letters anger me. WHO DOES THAT!!???

That's all for now. Hope you enjoyed.

Minnesota Brownie Exchange

When you require a pan of brownies in order to enter the party you end up with a LOT of brownies. 36 pans in fact. What a glorious thing. Brownies with Caramel, or peanut butter. Brownies with S'mores, or mint sauce. Cake-y brownies, or gooey fudgy brownies. Spicy Chipotle brownies, Sea Salt, and Orange Ginger brownies. Oh how magical it all was.

I won't be eating another brownie for a while though.