It truly is amazing how out of nowhere, so many things can happen and work out well.  So let us discuss the torrent of recent events, and how they’ve un-folded so far.

My new job still is amazing.  A couple weeks ago, my boss comes up and asks if I’d be ok to travel for a few days.  She then explains that there is going to be a huge move in the company offices in california, 4000+ servers in their lab moving from their old building to their new.  Obviously, they needed help.  She said they’d pay to fly me out, put me up in a nice hotel, and feed me well.  Oh, and if I paid for her ticket, my wife could come too.

As this was my wife’s first time flying (at least since she was less than a year old) we really wanted to make sure that we sat together, but were worried that it might not work out, as work would be buying my tickets, and we’d be buying hers.  Fortunately, there were some issues with getting my purchase requests taken care of, so they told me to just buy 2 tickets and they’d reimburse me for one of them.  Sweet!

The other condition for me coming to California was that I would be able to take some time and see my Grandpa.  Fortunately, that went off without a hitch, and we just got back from visiting him.  So hooray for no issues on that front.

Anyway, we get ready for this trip, even though there were concerns about it not all working out down to the day we were supposed to go.  Obviously they worked out.  So off to the airport with us!  Now, I find out that my driver’s license had expired on my birthday a couple months ago… This is a problem.  Fortunately, the airport let me through with just a few more moments of security checking, but when we got to LA we realized that I wasn’t going to be able to get the rental car we needed.  Fortunately, my boss flew in a couple (boring) hours later, and gave us a ride to the hotel.  We had been planning on sharing a car from the start, but that made it a bit difficult to do.  Eventually, we were able to get a car for my wife, as my boss went back home Sunday evening.

The hotel is amazing, though I have to wonder why a “5 Diamond” hotel, with an ocean view, valet parking, etc. still uses crappy single ply toilet paper…  Anyway, our room is in on the executive floor, a nice suite with an ocean view.  You’ll have to ask Kibeth about any more details on the hotel, as this has really been the first time I’ve been in it without passing out on the bed as soon as I can…  But we’ll get to that.

Thursday night, they take the team managing the move out to dinner.  Lawry’s The Prime Rib in Beverly Hills.  Holey crap that was some amazing food!  Kibeth came, as well as all the family members of the people that were there.  The dinner was fantastic, and the conversation was almost better.  It has been eye opening to see that there really are groups of people like me.  At dinner, at any given point I could join in on a conversation about running raids in World of Warcraft, the history of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, or the details of configuring a Cisco Catalyst switch.  I’ve never felt more at home with a group of total strangers.  After all was said and done, most of the guys there guessed the tab for dinner was probably around $2000.  And all just to welcome us to California.  I love this company!

From that point on, I’ve just been working 13-16 hour days, with occasional stops to eat and sleep.  I have learned so much in the past few days, and I can’t wait to get back to my lab and start applying the knowledge.  We are moving to a new building next year, so it will be nice to have the experience of this move, and the contacts of the guys who helped us out.

And I’m now too tired to get half my words straight (thanks to the inventor of the backspace key, you get a semi legible  end result).  I will try to post more in a few days, when I finally wake up.  In the meantime, I just hope the LAX airport security people are as nice as the local ones, and don’t arrest me for having an expired license or something…