One Week Old in California

Today, well by about 3PM today, I'll have resided as a California resident for one week. Good lord! After seven days, I am absolutely sure of two things:

1) My job is going to rock. Yessir, despite being mired in the corporation's Human Resources (HR) Hell, I've gotten to play engineer just enough to get a taste for what's to come. And it is looking awesome. Que sobrosa!

2) I am lost without my wife. Life is empty without her, and although we chat on the phone for over an hour each day I still hate coming home alone to my humble, rented, spartan room and knowing I won't get to see her again for a few weeks. This will be hard.

I don't have too much time to expound, but here is a breakdown of my journey to date:

• Friday (February 26): Left Boise 5AM in newly purchased Saab. Saab drives great, but (surprise!) leaks gas when filled to full capacity. Still averaged over 33 mpg on the trip. Swung through Lake Tahoe, tried to meet up with old girlfriend to no avail, continued over Donner Summit. Note to self: Avoid Donner Summit at all costs for future trips. I'm 0/2 in terms of stress (snow/ice) - free journeys across that wretched area. Landed in Santa Rosa, met up with one and only friend here (to date), slept in his spare room on an inflatable mattress.
• Saturday: Room shopping. Of the five rooms I had lined up, I only viewed two. The other tenants either weren't around (so very professional), or I decided to drive on by after seeing the area. By 3PM I decided to rent a room from a single mom with a teenage daughter and early-20s son that live there part time. Comfortable, but most importantly uber-cheap. Went back to friend's house for the night.
• Sunday: Moved in to room. Spent the day monkeying around with habitation setup and unpacking my crap. Made it out for a two-hour bike ride in this friggin' awesome area. Beautiful. All the locals are complaining about the "terrible winter". It was 64-degrees and sunny on my ride.
• Monday: New Employee Orientation (NEO) at work. Or should I say: Intruduction to Acronym Mayhem (I-AM). Lasted all day, never met my teammates there, but managed to rendezvous for a mighty-fine dinner with my boss downtown. The fed me a 22-oz. Lagunitas Imperial Stout and a massive bowl of curried Saigon noodles. I survived, and even smiled and relaxed a bit.
• Tuesday-Thursday: Training. Paperwork. Very little practical engineering. Did I mention paperwork?

And Today: Oh my, the future is so wide open! Well, not really, I'll probably just plow through more training paperwork, but I know I have a meeting scheduled this afternoon with the other team members. Mostly my day is about staying focused on the tasks at hand and why I'm here in California and why it's worth it. With Lauren and our little bun-in-the-oven so far away... well, just need to keep my head down and not freak out.