Kelly and I are moving to Fremont. We found a larger, 3-bedroom apartment for $400 less per month. The third bedroom will become a dedicated office, an arrangement we've missed having. We don't necessarily need the additional square footage, so that's a pure bonus. The significantly lower rent almost makes up for the 5% across-the-board salary cut NVIDIA handed out in mid-February. The new location is generally quieter than our current apartment in Japantown. In particular, we won't have the constant street noise. Finally, Fremont is more centrally located, so when Kelly finally finds a job, whether in Oakland, the city, the East Bay, the South Bay, or the peninsula, her commute will be easier than it would be if we were still in San Jose (which is South Bay for all you non-Norteños).
On the downside, I lose my sweet 15-minute surface street commute. It's a small price to pay, though, when we compare that to the benefits. Moving day is Saturday, March 21st.
Posted by Kurt Wall at 12:01 2009-03-08 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)
Who Are the Extremists? (San Jose)
I was at my favorite coffee shop (yes, a truly pathetic Web site) picking up some coffee beans and saw a flyer from Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights (sorry, find your own link) for a counter-protest against the Walk for Life—West Coast. The flyer is a real piece of work. “STOP THE WAR ON WOMEN,” it screams. “Unite to Fight the Right Wing!” Turn the anniversary of Roe v. Wade “a day of mass outrage against ultra-right bigotry.”
They demand:
- Free abortion on demand
- No forced sterilization
- Defend immigrant rights
- Stop the racist Minutemen
- Civil rights for queers; Rescind anti-marriage Prop. 8
The proposition is, apparently, that marching in favor “free abortion on demand” defends women's reproductive rights. Help me out here. What does abortion (you know, terminating pregnancy) have to do with reproduction (you know, having babies)? I'd say the two are diametrically opposed. I was also amused to learn that people who oppose abortion and/or same-sex marriage are now “ultra-conservatives” and bigots. Who's doing the name-calling here? Who's lumping people into a category based on a single characteristic?
The best part, though, is the hyperbole that opposing abortion represents a war on women. That's just rich. I guess if I were to use that tactic, those who support abortion are waging a war on the unborn. Yes, I absolutely get that a woman has the right to determine what happens to her body. Perhaps she should have thought of that before she spread her legs and got pregnant. Beyond that bit of moralizing, though, is the question of who speaks for the unborn child whose life gets terminated? I've been a long time coming to this conclusion, but I have finally decided that life begins at conception, so abortion constitutes murder. In my book, the right to life trumps a woman's right to control what happens to her body.
I guess that makes me an ultra-conservative bigot.
UPDATE: And, before someone asks, yes, I do oppose the death penalty on the same right-to-life grounds. Which is not to say that there aren't some people I'd be thrilled to see dead and even some who in my opinion deserve to be hustled on to the next life. But, whether someone lives or dies is not a decision that's mine to make. In fact, it puzzles me that many of the same people who support abortion rights oppose the death penalty and that others who oppose abortion support the death penalty. It strikes me that we can't have it both ways.
Posted by Kurt Wall at 21:12 2009-01-17 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)
Revenue Enhancement (San Jose)
At length, I received my so-called courtesy notice from the traffic court for my jay-walking ticket. The damage comes to $124.50. That's right, $124.50 for failing to cross the street at a pedestrian signal.
Nice racket.
Posted by Kurt Wall at 21:43 2008-05-05 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)
San Jose Flea Market (San Jose)
Today's mini-adventure was a trip to the San Jose Flea Market, on Berryessa Road, about a mile east of our apartment. There was plenty of junk, to be sure, but what Kelly and I liked was the awesome produce section. $12.50 bought us 2 pounds of tomatoes, 4 pounds of oranges, 4 boxes of sweet strawberries, about half a pound of green beans, a mango, and a papaya. The tomatoes were 99¢/pound; the oranges were 4 pounds for $1.00; the strawberries came in at 4 pints for $5.00, the bag o' green beans was $1.00; the mango was $1.50; and the 2-pound papaya was $1.50/pound. Goodbye, Safeway produce department!
Posted by Kurt Wall at 15:45 2008-04-26 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)
DMV: The Saga (San Jose)
I went back to the DMV Thursday morning past to register TruckWerks. That didn't go so well. Before getting my plates, I had to have it inspected, so I pulled into the inspection lane and waited my turn (fifth in line). When the inspector got to me, he started to read the VIN from the dashboard but couldn't see the entire number because a piece of foam from the seal as covering the number. He told me I'd have to move it or go to CHP to have it inspected. Evidently, his job does not extend to getting it off the engine block or reading it off the inside of the door. I was instantly pissed because I don't have time for this, having had to take time off from work, whereas Peckerwood was getting paid to be there.
Lesson number one: Don't use tools when you're pissed off.
Lesson number two: Don't use tools near your windshield when you're pissed off.
I start trying to move this rectangular piece of foam sealer. I didn't have any tools in TruckWerks, so I eventually used the longest narrow thing I could find, which turned out to be the flat end of the tire iron. Bad Idea™. I cracked the windshield in precisely the spot where the VIN shows through the the black mask on the bottom of the windshield. At that point, I left earth and was in orbit. I also left DMV because it was clear the registration wasn't going to happen.
Lesson number three: Don't tell an antagonized customer "It's not my job." Especially when he has a tire iron within reach. For the record, I didn't succeed in moving the piece of foam out of the way; TruckWerks did not get registered Thursday; Peckerwood did not get a tire iron implanted in his forehead.
TruckWerks got a new windshield yesterday. I'll be on my way back to DMV to complete this process, God willin' and the crick don't rise. If Peckerwood or one of his colleagues decides something else is wrong with TruckWerks, I hope Kelly has sufficient savings to post bail.
Posted by Kurt Wall at 08:19 2008-04-26 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)
Fun with DMV (San Jose)
Kelly and went to the DMV today to get drivers' licenses and register our vehicles. I was hopeful but had low expectations of the DMV. They neither frustrated my hopes nor surpassed expectations.
I made an appointment for two people to get two licenses and to register one vehicle. The clerk at the front explained that her printout only showed one person on the appointment request, so I got the appointment number. I was done and had my interim license (more about that in a minute) in less than an hour. I scored a perfect 36/36 on the written test. I rule! The place was busy, so I was pleased.
Kelly, not so much. First, the guy at the identification verification desk did not believe that Kelly's legal name included a single letter, A, for her middle name and we did not have the particular piece of paper demonstrating that was so (it's a long story, don't go there). Even though our marriage certificate uses the initial, he wrote down the name from her birth certificate and, when she later protested about that, had the stones to claim she wrote it. So, now her license, rather, her interim license, claims she has a middle name other than A.
Second, the guy at the testing desk told she only had to answer the questions on the front of the test sheet. When she returned the test for scoring, he told her she also had to do the flip side of the test because she was from outside California. Why couldn't he have said so in the first place, then?
Finally, when it came time to register Kelly's car, we had to:
- Leave the building
- Drive to the inspection area
- Ring a bell
- Get the inspection
- Exit and re-enter the parking lot
- Go back through the line
- Go to two different windows before we got the plates
Needless to say, we were happy to leave. I don't tolerate screaming children running loose very well, so my nerves were shot by the time we left.
Now, about those interim licenses. WTF is up with that? It takes all of 3 minutes to spit out a nicely laminated license with the picture they already took. But, no, I get a flimsy piece of paper that says "Interim License" that is good only for driving (not for identification), which I have to use for three to six week while $deity knows what happens. Even as bassackward a state as West-By-God-Virginia or Missi-Dumber-Than-A-Stump-ssippi has the technology to print a laminated photographic driver's license is less than 5 minutes.
Posted by Kurt Wall at 20:08 2008-04-17 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)
Back to Santa Cruz (San Jose)
Kelly and I went to Santa Cruz this morning. We took some pictures. For me, the highlight of the trip was eating fresh seafood at Stagnaro Brothers on the wharf. Kelly had a plate of steamed clams; I went for the scallops (Sizzling Sea Scallops on the menu). The clam chowder was terrific; multiple clams in every spoonful and they weren't stingy with the garlic, either.
In addition to eating, we took a nice long walk down the beach, strolled the amusement park on the boardwalk, and enjoyed the ocean views and the sea lions. I'm so glad we went over early, too. On the way back, Highway 17 heading west to Santa Cruz was backed up from Scott's Valley to Los Gatos. That's about 13 miles of bumper-to-bumper traffic. If I were stuck in that, I think my head would explode.
It was a pleasant day. I really enjoyed showing Kelly the beachfront environment that planted in my mind the dream of living in northern California. It never fails to leave me speechless as I listen to the deep-throated crash of the surf and watch the waves relentlessly roll in. I could watch it for hours. She was similarly affected.
Posted by Kurt Wall at 18:32 2008-04-12 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)
Late Night Disturbances (San Jose)
There I was, sleeping soundly at 1:30 a.m. this morning. The sounds of an argument woke me up. A young man and woman were at one of the gates to my apartment complex, the one right next to my apartment. When she started yelling "You're hurting me!" I got up, put on some clothes, and went out on my porch — I don't have a balcony because I live on the first floor — to find out what was going on. When I hear a woman telling a man "You're hurting me" and "Ow" that tends to get my attention.
It's stupid to get involved in a domestic dispute and the last time I did it I wound up in the emergency room because the guy involved pasted me and knocked me out, but I wasn't going to be able to sleep as long as they were going at it and there was no way I was going to let a man hurt a woman. Fortunately, just my presence changed the situation. She was crying and wanted her keys; he was pissed off about God knows what, but backed off. Just as I was offering to let her into the complex, the police rolled up.
Here is something I will never understand. You're a slender, unarmed civilian guy, and you're going to argue and fight with 4 police officers who have guns, pepper spray, night clubs, handcuffs, and the ability and willingness to open a serious can of whoop-ass on your head? On my planet, that's called Stupid. Dumbass did everything he could not to cooperate; the police, to their credit, gave him every opportunity to calm down and chill out. Seriously, they bent over backwards to cut meathead a break. It wasn't going to happen. Dumbass had to prove his manhood. He failed. Miserably.
After a very short scuffle, he's handcuffed and sitting in the back of a cruiser, she's sitting on the curb sobbing, and I'm still standing on my porch, stunned by what I've just seen. I give a statement to one of the officers, dumbass is hauled off to jail, and the young woman, still sobbing, enters the complex and disappears. I went back to bed and slept until 9:30.
I couldn't make this stuff up.
Posted by Kurt Wall at 11:52 2008-03-09 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)
Winter "Storm" (San Jose)
California is currently being hit by its first big winter storm, which equates to strong winds and heavy rain. Wind and rain don't seem storm-like to me because I've lived in Utah and Pennsylvania, where "winter storm" means metric buttloads of ice and snow and temperatures well south of freezing. Naytheless, this certainly qualifies as a storm by California's standards—roads are covered by mudslides, trees are falling all over the place, power is spotty in a number of areas, and the sheer amount of rainfall yesterday (Friday) alone exceeded the amount of rainfall Santa Clara County received for all of 2007.
It's a good day (or weekend) to stay home or at least off the freeways. I just got back from running my usual Saturday errands and the 280 was insane. Some people were driving with due respect for heavy rain, slick roads, and reduced visibility. Most though, were driving in the usual fast and aggressive manner I've come to understand is typical of California or they were driving timidly, like hats and q-tips. I'm not sure which is worse, aggressive drivers who don't give a thought to cutting you at 70 miles per hour on the freeway or the frightened drivers who are too intimidated to change lanes.
Posted by Kurt Wall at 15:40 2008-01-05 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)
Banks and New Accounts Redux (San Jose)
…in which I discover the gotchas.
In the previous episode, I recounted the saga of trying to deposit and use my paycheck. It went off more or less as as I was told. Mr. Manager verified the funds behind my paycheck (give me a break—I don't think NVIDIA is going to bounce payroll checks) and released the hold on the funds. Bills I paid with a check on Saturday were paid in Monday's business. Life was (mostly) good.
What wasn't clear was that although the hold was released, the check still had to be processed, meaning the funds didn't actually post to my account until Monday night. Grmph. I suppose that would be an obvious detail to bankers and their kin, but to a gear head, it isn't immediately apparent. As it was, my bills got paid, so I won't gripe any further on the subject.
Mr. Manager also said to call him before noon on Monday. Which I did. At least four times. Let's just say he's lousy at returning phone calls (granted, I only left one message). I finally went to the branch to see him. He came out of his office almost immediately, told me his counterpart at the issuing bank was out to lunch, and asked me to call back in thirty minutes. I did. There was no answer, so I left voice mail and got busy with work. I called again about 3:30 p.m., got to a receptionist, who started to transfer me then said Mr. Manager had just come out and told her that he was in my account releasing the hold at that very moment. End of story.
The lesson I learned was not, as one might suspect, never trust what a banker tells you. Rather, the principle with which I came away was that if I tell someone I'm going to do something, be darn sure not only to do it but to do it when I say I'm going to do so. And, return phone calls! For the most frustrating part of the whole situation was not knowing what the status was, something a two-minute phone call would have done.
Posted by Kurt Wall at 18:44 2007-12-06 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)
Rosicrucian Museum (San Jose)
I visited the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum & Planetarium today. It was interesting, but nothing about which I got overly excited. The grounds and the museum buildings themselves were much more interesting than the majority of the collection. For example, there were far too many "replica" items, the lighting was awful, and it was generally poorly curated, IMNSHO. I suppose the interpretive work was accurate, but I'm not an Egyptologist so I can't be certain. Overall, I give it a C+ and would recommend it more for children than for adults wanting a solid look at Egyptian history.
Nevertheless, it wasn't a complete disappointment. Some of the artifacts, particularly the mummies and the items from the early Christian (Coptic) and Islamic periods, were fascinating. There were at least two mummies of adults, a mummified child, and a number of mummified animals, including an Apis bull, a baboon, and Nile catfish, and at least one cat.
I took a few photographs but had a rough time with the lighting and also struggled to with battery life on my camera. On the subject of camera batteries, I think I'm going to investigate lithium ion batteries instead of using the alkalines, which this camera eats the way my nephew eats chocolate cake.
Posted by Kurt Wall at 22:41 2007-11-24 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)
Road Trip (San Jose)
...what a long, strange trip it's been.
I left Pittsburgh on Friday morning about 7:00 a.m. and arrived here in San Jose on Monday afternoon at 1:00 p.m. The trip wasn't really that strange, but it was certainly long: 2,766 miles door-to-door. After a short stop in Indianapolis to visit my agent and friend, Marta, I continued on through Illinois and into Iowa. I spent the night in Coral Ridge, which is just west of Iowa City, Iowa on I-80. Saturday saw me exiting Iowa, passing through Nebraska, and finally coming to rest in Rawlins, Wyoming. On Sunday, I left Wyoming, passed through Utah (that was like returning to a nightmare, so I was glad to Nevada), and wound up spending the night at the Circus Circus in Reno, Nevada. I paid my Nevada tax at the craps and blackjack tables in Reno. I completed the trip on Monday.
Happily, my new apartment was ready. The furniture had been delivered and set up Monday morning, so all I had to do was sign the lease agreement and schlep my stuff from the car into the apartment. That duty done, I did some shopping for basic grocery items (1/2 'n' 1/2 for my morning coffee, for example) and some necessary home furnishings (pillows, which it had not occurred to me to pack), and then collapsed in a heap.
I spent Tuesday, 6 November, on more complete shopping trips to Safeway and Trader Joe's for groceries and Target for furnishings. I finished up Tuesday getting a much-needed haircut at the Great Clips near SJSU. Today, I went over to NVIDIA, signed my offer letter, and then had lunch with Lonnie, my friend and soon-to-be immediate boss. My orientation at NVIDIA starts at 8:30 a.m. on Monday the 12th, so I still have a couple of days (and the weekend) to dink around before I resume gainful employment. Today, I also took a quick tour of the Guadalupe Rose Garden, which is just across the 87 from my apartment. The array of roses is simply breathtaking, as the photos I took can only hint.
I'd like to visit the Rosicrucian Museum here in San Jose on Thursday or Friday and then drive out to Santa Cruz one day this weekend to kick around there. I'll continue to update the blog as I get settled in and discover San Jose.
Posted by Kurt Wall at 10:46 2007-11-09 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)
An Apartment! (San Jose)
I won't have to sleep in my car or under a bridge.
My lease application at the Pavona Apartments was approved today. I got a nice, small, one-bedroom apartment in downtown San Jose. I have no idea if they neighborhood is safe or if the place is roach-infested, but it's always a challenge to rent an apartment long distance. I only have a six-month lease, so if the place is awful, I'm only stuck there for six months.
Here's the floor plan. It's definitely on the smallish side: 531 feet2 with a 9'x8' bedroom and a 10'x12' living room, but it will do. It comes with a full-size washer and dryer (among other amenities), so I won't have to suffer through schlepping my clothes to a laundry or, worse, a laundromat.
The next step is to fill it up with furniture. I've never rented furniture before, so, again, I hope I'm able to get some decent furniture without having to go deep into hock. Given the size of the bedroom, I can probably only fit a full-size bed into it; I'd prefer a queen-size, but 9'x8' doesn't give me much room to play with and I'll be sleeping alone until Kelly gets the house sold and can come out to join me.
Posted by Kurt Wall at 10:45 2007-11-09 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)
But What Does the Apartment Look Like? (San Jose)
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I've been browsing apartment Web sites looking for an apartment in the San Jose/Santa Clara area. Generally speaking, they are attractive, easy to use, and informative…
…except when it comes to showing images of the interiors of the apartments. Property managers naturally want to show off their buildings, amenities, and grounds. Unfortunately, too few property Web sites include comprehensive or representative photographs of the units' interiors. It's making me crazy.
I can accept those photos that show model units. You know the ones I'm talking about. The models are furnished and decorated by professionals, so the furniture and accessories make a terrific impression on the viewer. They also give me an inferiority complex because, well, my apartment will never be as gorgeously decorated or as (anally) clean.
More often, though, there are no photos of the interiors, furnished or otherwise. I don't understand this. Yes, I want to see the immaculately maintained buildings and grounds, but I'm not going to be living in the clubhouse, sleeping by the sparkling pool, or camping amongst the acres of trees, shrubs, flowers, and fountains.
Rather, I want to see what the inside of the apartments looks like because that's where I'm going to be spending most of my time. The floor plan diagrams are a good start, but it is much easier to formulate a mental picture of what an apartment looks like if I have images of the interior in addition to the floor plan.
So, from a prospective tenant to all of the property managers out there and the Web designers building their Web sites: please show me what the apartments look like on the inside! Thank you.
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Posted by Kurt Wall at 10:45 2007-11-09 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)