So, we went down to Murrietta to the dealership where we bought our car for them to reattach my mirror that had been knocked off a couple weeks ago (See July 2nd). Three guys came out to check out the problem with the mirror, and then finally one of them just popped it back in right in front of us. I promise that I tried that at home, but I'm somewhat consoled by the fact that it took three of them. Plus, my pride is a lot cheaper than a brand new mirror. A lot cheaper.

Hey everybody, here are some pictures of the new place. Let me know if you have any questions, as I suspect that they are mostly self-explanatory.

I am declaring my head cold nonsense officially over. I think I've gone all day without coughing, sneezing or blowing my nose. To answer Jason's question, Jamie and I have a 2003 VW Jetta Wagon TDI. Jeff tells me that he prefers me to say 'not comfortable with myself' rather than 'fat', because he apparently has a MONOPOLY ON FAT!!! Anyway, I'm going to try and get those pictures going now...

Here's that business card I was talking about...<p><img src="images/Thumbbusinesscard.jpg" border=1>

Good evenings. I thought that now that I have lived here in LA for a grand total of two and a half weeks, I should go over what I've learned so far. Here goes: <ol> <li>Parallel parking. I'll probably continue to get better, but I am pretty impressed with myself and some of the spots I've squeezed into, and even more impressed with the spots I've squeezed the car into. <li>I'm fat. <li>20 miles = 90 minutes <li>Los Angeles is no San Diego <li>1920's Spanish style buildings lose their charm when crammed together and layered with (2003 - 1920) 83 years of dirt and grime. <li>Los Angeles in the summer without air conditioning can get pretty darn warm. <li>Not to feel bad about the cliché that is listing what you've learned in your first two and a half weeks in LA. </ol>

I feel kind of bad blogging from work, but I've done everything I can do until I get a call back from someone, so I figured I should make some use of my time, rather than just sitting here staring at my phone. What have I been doing? Well, the person who set up this software didn't really seem to know what they were doing, so I'm going through and reconfiguring what's there. The software is called Soffront, and it's not a bad little product, unless someone goes in and messes with things they don't know about. Apart from that, I am generating reports for the sales team that keep track of who is doing what. The trip to work went fairly quickly today. I think there was an accident on the 405 just north of where I get on it, so traffic was pretty light. Mark sent me his text editor, which was very helpful in solving some problems here at work today.

By the way, I have taken some pictures of our new place, and as soon as I can get them on to my computer, I'll make them available. I might even do it here, if someone were kind enough to offer their thumbnail generator and method for putting pics on their blog. (inconspicuous whistle) I created some business cards last night for Flatland Media. I figure I should have something to give to people that I come into contact with.

I may have just moved into the realm of 3 meals a day. I haven't been a regular breakfast eater since my mom used to make an Eggo for me in the mornings. The only way I could even stomach that was because I wasn't even really awake yet. Working out of the house, I tend to sleep later and go to bed later, so I usually just wait till lunch to eat. Years of that practice have made the thought of food before 10:30 am give me a queasy feeling. But having to get up at 6:30 and drive 30 minutes to work, I figure I could do with a bit more energy in the mornings, so I'm eating some kind of cereal bar. You know the one from the commercial that has the milk in the bar as well. Well, I think by 'milk', they mean 'marshmallow', but I'm not complaining. For my second meal, I had a sausage and pepperoni lean pocket and two strawberry shortcake fruit newtons. Was it delicious? Yes. Am I bored right now? Yes.

I think I might become the hero of LA, if I were to introduce the left turn signal at many of the intersections throughout our neighborhood. At almost every light, in spite of heavy traffic, two cars get to turn left, and they have to pull out in the intersection and wait for the light to turn red to do it. All the more reason for me to plan my routes with only right turns.

It seems like just yesterday that I last blogged. Unfortunately, the clear display of the dates on this blog give me away. Well, at least the reason is good news. I posted my resume on monster.com earlier this week. The next day I got several responses, including one from a company that specializes in temp jobs for computer professionals, Volt. They had found an opportunity that seemed to match with my resume. We talked a couple times that day, and then the next day, Thursday, I started a 2-3 week project in El Segundo! The only down side is that I have to commute, and Jamie has to take the bus or walk to work when I'm gone with the car. The commute can be as short as 20 minutes with no traffic, but it has taken me as long as an hour and a half to get home. I tell you, if someone is going to invent an alternative to our highway system, they'll probably be sitting on the Santa Monica Freeway when they come up with it. The job is at Menemsha Companies, a general contractor that does a lot of Starbuck's work. They need me, because they bought an ASP-based Customer Relationship Management software package, and they need it customized for their company. The work is right up my alley, and I enjoy it, except that I have to use Notepad to write the code in, which slows me down a little bit.

On another note, Jamie and I qualified for Wawanesa insurance, which is about the cheapest auto insurance I've ever seen, but it is apparently hard to qualify. The only thing we have to do to finish up the process is get California driver's licenses. So, very soon, we will become official residents.

First of all, this head cold that is still lingering really robs me of the will to write. But I laugh in my head cold's face (which I guess is also my face), and I write anyway. I don't think I mentioned it before, but we had been having some weird problems with the water in our bathtub not draining while at the same time the water in the toilet made strange noises. So, we called in the landlord, who brought over some drano. We were about to leave for the 4th, so we decided to wait on the drano until we returned. On Sunday, we poured in the drano, and then ran hot water, but the hot water itself didn't seem to want to go down the drain. To make matters worse, when we flushed the toilet, water went up instead of down. Just for kicks, I thought I'd see what happened when I ran the bathroom sink. When I did, stuff started coming up out of the drain in the bathtub. Enter Roto-Rooter. The landlord got Roto-Rooter there within a few minutes. When I started to describe the problem, the guy was finishing my sentences, because he knew exactly what the problem was. It took a couple hours to fix, and I had to hold it for a while, but now everything is up and running.

On another note, I just saw a squirrel outside my window, which reminded me that we saw a possum or an oppossum outside my window the other night. It was kind of creepy, like it was a baby ROUS.

Hey, just wanted to let you know that Jeff finally posted a musing. And Jason, welcome to the LATE nineties.

Jamie and I didn't get back to the Siebers until 12:30 or so last night. Then, we had to get up at 5:30 this morning to head back up to LA for Jamie's first day of work, which starts at 9:00 am. On the bright side, we made really good time with no traffic. The down side is that now I have to force myself to stay awake until it's time to take her to work. I tried holding my eyelids open with toothpicks to no avail, so I'm writing this instead.

We spent the day on Coronado Island at Jamie's aunt and uncle's place. Jeff was there, as was Noella and her boyfriend Jason. First off, we attended the parade. I mentioned that I didn't really get the concept of parades, and Jeff explained that it was because I wasn't in band in high school. Touche. It was pretty out there for California, but I would like to point out that I did not get sunburned, even though I spent 45 minutes in the sun with no sunscreen. (Upon realizing this, I ran home to lather myself up. with SPF 45 90 3000 googleplex.) In the afternoon, we got to see a patriotic medley of American favorites down the years performed by a 'non-audition' group that had driven all the way from South Dakota just for this one performance. By the way, in case you weren't sure, 'non-audition' = 'they don't have to be good' = 'they weren't. We took all we could stand, went back to the house and had a virtual meat party for dinner (not a real meat party, because Shana's grill wasn't there). We went out to the golf course to watch the fireworks, and while we waited, Orlando Spinelli's lesser known cousins performed some pretty awesome magic tricks with some glow sticks. The fireworks were great, and then we headed back to the house to have dessert and play games until traffic off the island had died down enough for us to leave. The End. Good night.