Dr Moo in California

We decided to go have another game of Tennis yesterday. We booked the court on Monday to ensure that we got one (we had been warned that weekday evenings could be very busy). Anyway, we turn up at the court only to find the whole place in darkness. Turns out they closed the centre early due to rain. What was the most annoying part was that it had only rained for about 2 minutes a few hours earlier and then stopped. And the rain wasn’t particularly heavy. The courts were completely dry and usable, but without lighting, it was impossible to play. What was even more annoying was the behaviour of the centre staff. When we booked the court, we had to leave a contact phone number and are expected to give at least 24 hours notice should we wish to cancel our session. However, no one called us to inform us that our booking was cancelled at their end, which I think is very inconsiderate. Not only that, when we turned up, we were just told “we’re closed”. No explaination, no apology. Just them effectively saying “go away”. This is not appropriate behaviour for staff anywhere, never mind at a city run facility.

Last week Alicyn and I decided that we were both rather less fit that we would prefer to be and had better do something about it. I injured my back a couple of months ago and it still hasn’t fully recovered (still getting a little sciatica), so we wanted to take it slowly and build ourselves up to it. We’ve been taking some walks and trying to eat a little more healthily (though we failed on the healthy eating part this weekend). However, we decided we needed to be a bit more proactive in our approach to getting heathly, so yesterday we purchased tennis equipement. We now both have tennis rackets and balls. We also have a booking tonight at the local tennis centre for an hour long game. Will let you know tomorrow whether we survive.

This week Professor David Brailsford from the University of Nottingham (my PhD supervisor) visited. He was attending a conference at the start of the week and visiting Adobe (and I believe some other places) for the rest of the week. As the current Nottingham Insider at Adobe (as they like to call me), I got chance to meet up with Dave. It is always great to chat to Dave and the conversation are fascinating. At Nottingham we would just head round to Dave’s office to chat. The conversations covered almost anything and were great fun. It got to the point where we’d just turn up a Dave’s office, tell him we were bored and sit down and chat for a long time (until we got turfed out for taking up way too much time) Those were the days!

Dave also, very kindly, took me for a lovely meal in Palo Alto and I got the spoils (the remainder of the wine) to take home. If anyone is in the Palo Alto area looking for a restaurant, I highly recommend trying Cafe Brioche on California Avenue. Hopefully Dave will visit again before too long and I can return the favour.

This blog is supposed to tell people about what I’m doing and isn’t supposed to contain diatribes against things I don’t like. However, to de-stress after the horrendous journey to work, I’m going to break my rules (OK, so they held for about two days before I broke them).

The Californians treat rain like the British treat snow. A few snowflakes cause instant pandomonium on the British roads and anything other than a light drizzle of rain does the same in California. Setting off at 8:15am with “plenty of time” to arrive before 9am, I get stuck in three traffic jams. The first is a simple “fender bender” which was slowing traffic due to rubbernecking. However, then on the slip road from 85 to 280, a driver has decided that he can’t handle a straight stretch of road and has rolled his car, blocking one of the two lanes exiting and causing all the traffic heading in the San Francisco direction to have to pull into the San Jose traffic. If this wasn’t bad enough, as I near my exit on 280, traffic just stops. It didn’t move again for 10 minutes. Turns out that five cars had rear-ended each other and blocked a major exit (my exit in fact). Only after the police arrive and pull all the crashed cars onto the hard shoulder do we move again. Argh! Got in at 9:10am, so about 55 mins into work.

So, I’ve just started this new blog, but I’ve already been here for three months. On top of that, some people have not spoken to me that much since I left Nottingham and might be curious (or more probably not) about what I’ve been doing for the last year and a half. So, in brief-ish summary, I’ll fill in the details.

Pre-California

I left Nottingham and found myself self-employed and contracted to a Dutch firm (Mimotek). They paid me well and the lifestyle wasn’t bad. Unsurprisingly, my work involved creating PlugIns for Adobe Acrobat. However, I decided that I wanted a slightly more structured job and when I heard Adobe was hiring late in 2004, I applied. After phone interviews and being flown to San Jose for further interviews, I was offered a job. The plan was to get out here pretty quickly on a J-1 visa and switch to a H1-B visa when possible. Thanks to my earlier intenship out here, that proved impossible, so I couldn’t start at Adobe until Oct 2005 when my H1-B visa came through.

Still working for Mimotek in the interim, I decided to take advantage of the fact that I had been paid quite well and could take longish holidays. I decided to visit my friend Joolz in Hong Kong and Judith in Tokyo. I spent 7 days in Japan and 11 days in Hong Kong and had a pretty good time. I had also agreed to go on a holiday with my friend Simon, so went to Mexico and lounged around on the beaches there for two weeks (all inclusive holidays are fun!). I also popped across to Tenerife for a short break and Amsterdam (to say goodbye to Mimotek and to enjoy a nice long weekend). I then flew out to work in California.

California

I moved here at the end of September 05 and started working for Adobe (based in San Jose) about a week later. Adobe put me up in an apartment for the first month, but I then moved into my new place (which is actually in Sunnyvale). My time has been consumed since then with playing on my xbox 360 (yep, sad) and trying to get the place into a reasonable state (unfurnished, so taking some time to acquire everything). I passed my californian driving test back in early Dec and since then have been looking for a car. I did pop back to England for two weeks over xmas (way too cold) and when I got back decided that $1200 a month on car rental really wasn’t sensible. My problems were solved on Sat (14/1) when I bought my new Ford Focus.

And that has brought me up to date Apologies for such a long post on such a boring topic (i.e. me).

Well, it only took me three and a half months, but finally, after paying out a ridiculous amount per month on car rental, I’ve got my own car — a 2005 Ford Focus ZX5 SES. While I would have liked to have purchased something a little more exciting, my poor credit rating (takes time to establish credit in a new country) and the expenditure involved in moving to a new country, means that a Focus was the way to go. I’ll upload a photo some time in the near future.

Well, as the title says, welcome to my new blog.  My life isn’t that exciting or interesting and so, like most blogs, this site is no doubt not going to get updated that frequently or with anything of particular interest to anyone.  However, if for some reason you are interested in what I’m up to, here is the place to find out!