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I’m Living in the City & Other News

Justin, Ami and I met on Monday night and decided that all three of us will not live together this year. It’ll work out better that way as we all get to settle in to lives in the Bay. So, Ami and I have found a place in San Francisco in the South of Market area. The place is 3-4 blocks from Yerba Buena Gardens, SFMOMA, the Metreon, the 101/80/280 and something like 6 blocks from the 4th and King CalTrain station and SBC Park. The name of the apartment building is Soma Residences and we’ve rented the 1bed with loft. The location is great for commuting and night life although it’s a bit “urban” (read: there’s a soup kitchen on the same block) but it doesn’t feel dangerous. The building has secured entry and we’re going to rent two underground parking spots. We sign for the place on the 8th of August and we can move in on the 10th. All very exciting. Ami and I now have to buy furniture/etc since we realized we don’t have any of that stuff.

This last week has been great/chaotic. I went to dinner with Eric at Passage to India and had Indian Chinese food (which is all the rage in India when I was there last year). On another night I had tapas with Ami and Justin at Cazuelas and got drinks afterwards at Molly Magee’s at Santana Row, where we met an incredibily dump conservative girl (and proceded to fear for the future of this country, as usual). On Friday, Hotmail went bowling during the day and a bunch of us saw a movie (Harold and Kumar) in the afternoon. In the evening, Ami and I checked out our to-be new neighbourhood and met up with Brian to get a taste of the nightlife. Saturday was the company picnic at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and Sunday was dinner for Pam’s birthday. Quite the whirlwind week.

In work news, life has calmed down quite a bit, which is great. I’ve got a new tablet (Toshiba M200) on order to replace my aging Toshiba Protoge. We’re also doing some planning on site visits in Europe and Asia, so hopefully if things work out well I’ll be doing some traveling and ethnography soon. I’ll report fully on that later if I get to go (how awesome will that be — cogsci in action!).