Well, I'm slowly starting to get settled in. Didn't do a whole
lot on Sunday, since I didn't have an apartment yet. Went and saw
the new Harry Potter movie, it has a very different style from the
first two. The movie was pretty good, but I think I liked the
style of the first two better. Went and checked out the storage
closet. Since I wasn't there when they loaded it, it's going to
be fun trying to find stuff in it. Most of my office stuff is to
the side and near the front, so I'll try and unload that so I'll have
some space to move around in. I don't want to unload much of my
personal belongings from storage right now, since I hope to find a
house to buy within a month or so.
I got things sorted out with the housing office on Monday, and am now
in a one-bedroom furnished apartment on campus They have just
finished renovations, so everything in it is new and it is really a
nice little apartment (pics above). I dropped by work
today. I have a really nice office in a brand new building.
The building is so new that furniture has just been ordered for my
office and it won't be here until mid-July. I did get special
permission to move some of my boxes of work stuff into the new
office. Got some clothes and other stuff out of storage, and
picked up some groceries. I went to the famous Midnight Sun
Baseball Game Monday night. The game starts at 10:30 p.m. and
goes on until about 1:00 a.m., all under natural light. The teams
are part of the amateur Alaska league, which is a summer league with
mostly college players. A significant number of major leaguers
have played in the league, like Dave Winfield and Tom Seaver. The
stadium was packed (about 3,500 people), and the game was a lot of fun
to watch. The home team, the Goldpanners, beat the Kenai
Peninsula Oilers by a score of 9 to 1. I took a few pics with the
disposable camera I got as one of my going away gifts, so when I get
the pictures developed I'll post a few.
I obtained local phone and internet service, so I'm slowly getting
reconnected with the world. My new phone number is 907-455-4664
(it's publicly listed, so I might as well put it here). Although
I don't plan on using it for a few weeks, the new email is
herrick@alaska.net.
I went out with the real estate agent to look at houses Tuesday.
This is going to be a difficult process. There are a bewildering
array of variable in finding a house, many of which don't exist in more
conventional places. There are multiple options for water supply,
heating, whether you live at high or low elevations, what you have a
view of, whether or not you have a garage, and the list goes on and
on. The agent I'm working with is very knowledgeable, and I think
we're at least converging on a set of parameters for what I'd like to
find. Whether or not what I'd like is available is a whole other
matter.
I picked up my mail on Tuesday as well. They had a whole cart
devoted to me at the campus post office, so I'm sure they were happy to
have me show up and get my stuff out of there. I've got a whole
new to-do list updating my address with various entities and sifting
through 3 months of mail.
Thursday morning I was interviewed by the local paper and the local
public radio station. That was pretty fun and exciting.
Not much else to report. I'm getting caught up on correspondence, trying to get set up in my apartment, and so on.
