First things first: I uploaded trip pictures to Picasa. They can be found here: http://picasaweb.google.com/113708845568647784424/TripToNM#
So, my day began relatively early, as I woke up at 8 am. I showered, brushed my teeth, and trimmed my beard, then walked to work. I was going to walk with the other girl here, but her boss emailed and her and told her she didn’t need to come in until 10.30 (I was aiming for 9.30). The walk is pretty straightforward (but by no means straight), and takes about 10 minutes. I showed up, and the summer student coordinator was at the check-in desk, so she showed me around a little and took me up to my bosses’ office. They weren’t there, so we went to head back to the lobby, only to run into my bosses on the stairs. My bosses took me to get my computer set up, but the sysadmin wasn’t around. So the three of us went to my cubicle and talked about the research I will be doing. I’m not going to go into too much detail at the moment, partially because I don’t have a full grasp on it yet, and partially because I have other things to write about now. After we were done, we visited the sysadmin, who got me set up with an account.
I find that getting a new computer. reinstalling an OS, or getting an account on new machines is a fun occasion, but it’s always annoying how nothing ever works. I have, over the years (mainly the last two), developed an array of keyboard shortcuts I mindlessly enter. Open a terminal? ctrl+F12. Pull open the wikipedia page on Mount Rushmore? ctrl+F6 w Mount Rushmore {enter}. So, I had to spend some time remaking all of those tricks on my new account, which actually proved annoying when the keyboard shortcuts page was A)difficult to find in the menu and B)not working. So that was my big frustration of the day. Also, I needed to install a program, but I only had access to the binaries, not the source code, so I had to alias a command to run it instead of linking it in $PATH. If you’re still following along, you should probably get a life.
Other than that, work was fairly smooth, with the exception of lunch. The other student currently here and I decided to go to a cafeteria we heard about. But, after about ten minutes of walking, we found out it was closed, and the coffee shop next to it wasn’t serving food. So, we walked over to Taco Bell, showing up about forty minutes after we left the office. I scarfed down a meal, and she ate hers like a normal person, then we walked about fifteen minutes to get back to the office. So, it was a long lunch. Afterwards, we found out we could have signed out a van. Oh well.
We also got our pictures taken at the HR office and got our checks for the first two weeks of work (holler!). Plus we signed out some bikes, so we can explore the city a little quicker. After work, we used the van to go to the bank (which was closed), then to the grocery store. When we got there, a pickup truck had blocked off traffic, and an ambulance pulled up. I realized there was no way to get through, so I started turning around when the van stalled. At this point in time, a police car drove in and blocked off the area where I had just come from. So I had to restart the van and pull next to the cop car, then find a parking spot away from the door.
Inside, we were tasked with the difficult task of finding food we could have that wouldn’t go bad without refrigeration and that didn’t need any form of cooking. I saw some Gatorades on sale, so I grabbed some of them, plus I got a bag of Magic Stars (my absolute FAVORITE cereal, but it is no longer carried by Buehler’s) and some pop tarts. Then I got some plastic utensils and three cheap disposable tupperware things. I also grabbed some sliced bread to go with the peanut butter and jelly I brought with me from Ohio. Which left me with dinner still. So I grabbed some bread from the bakery and a bowl of crumbled Feta cheese that was on sale, and decided I would have bread and cheese for dinner. I also grabbed a diet root beer to finish the meal.
When we got back to the guesthouse, we realized there was a lounge that has a fridge, microwave, stove, and oven. D’oh!
We took the van back and rode our bikes home. I lingered around my room, eating my dinner and watching Hulu. After it was dark, I wandered over to the lounge to watch some TV. Ratatouille was on the Disney Channel, and was also the last film I saw in Cleveland. So that’s a coincidence, huh?
That’s the extent of the day’s excitement. I might try to go bicycling a little tomorrow, if the weather isn’t too unbearably hot.
