Saturday I decided to visit Techshop over in Menlo park area which is 20min or so down the 101 from me. They are one of these Hackerspaces or membership run workshops. They had an open day on saturday so I toddled along.
Monday I did most of a day of work then had to rush over to SFO to drop the rental car and catch a flight over to orange county. Normally when I fly there it’s an 11h trip to LA then a hours drive so the 1h30 trip this time was refreshingly brief.
So I spent the morning in IKEA and came away with parts of a bed and a sofa on order. I got back and began assembling the thing.
Damn that stuff is labour intensive! I got most of the base assembled and then found I needed a screwdriver.
So I managed to sort out an international money transfer so I can pay the rent and deposit on the new place who only take checks. This took till now to clear and transfer and yet more fees.
So I drove down this morning to sign the lease and pay the deposit pick up the keys.
It seems like my current lack of a social security number is not an obstacle to getting various services so long as I have the cash to pay for all sorts of extra fee’s. This has the effect of making everything that much more expensive. It doesn’t help that the bank in the US is playing silly buggers holding on to checks I deposit because it’s a new account.
So I spent the day looking for an apartment, work paid for a guy to help me out show me the good neighbourhoods etc and he drove me round. Nice guy named Leo who was also a musician in a Santana tribute band. Anyway we drove round 10 properties in the immediate area and further afield.
So I arrived in california to the remains of a pretty nice day. I just got the tail end of work kicking out so the roads were fairly busy but not too bad. I got to the hotel in reasonable time and set myself up. The hotel room was pretty nice reasonable bed, tv, bathroom, and a little kitchen area.
So here I am in T5 waiting, I’ve been waiting for a while now first till it was time to check in next for the security and now till the gate time comes around.
So today was my last full day in the UK it was also conveniently close to my mum’s birthday so I spent it packing and also enjoying a nice pub lunch to celebrate.
It seems to do this rental thing there are a lot of palms that need greasing. Since I’m not going to be in the country and I don’t have anyone local who is foolish enough to get lumbered with the chore I’m having some outfit manage my flat for me. This obviously costs and they get a cut of my rental income.