So, what did I do?

I took a flying visit to Texas for work, literally a two day trip, but some nice weather over there.

I took a little longer trip to San Francisco, it was absolutely brilliant, was great to see old friend’s again! I spent some time when I got back making a ‘photo book’ of the trip, short but sweet and definitely well worth the air miles. :)

Click here to get the poor quality version, the full quality one is huge!!

We went to local bars, restaurants, spent a flying visit to Alcatraz, literally when the Blue Angels Airshow was circling overhead! Had some good California food and chocolate, even got some Irish Chocolate into the bargain, throw in a campus tour, a dinner party, a trip to wine country and a great dinner in the Culinary Institute of America…. and it’s not bad for a 3 day trip!!

I also took a trip out to Stone Mountain, yes, it really is a mountain (well, maybe a large hill), made out of one big rock! It’s pretty cool, and the leaves were just starting to change colour, so I think I got some nice photos from the top! It’s about 20 miles outside Atlanta, so you can see the skyline in the distance, it was a gorgeous day, I even hiked to the top — definitely going to go back.

There’s a huge carving memorial to the Southern Generals:

I loved walked down by the lake, it was heavenly:

See what I mean by the mountain just being one big rock:

Even the walk up the path, while tiring, was really pretty:

Atlanta, and Georgia more generally is just covered in trees, one of the nicest parts about the place:

Here’s midtown Atlanta skyline from a distance:

The walk down was far better than the walk up the mountain:

They even asked us to dress up in work! I went for the “Matrix” look (aka all black), but tried to pick up some fake guns in the party shop and they were all sold out, had to settle for knives!

I took the easy route out on Hollowe’en night, went to a party in Midtown as an Assassin, all black with knives, but without the trenchcoat, which was so unbearably warm!

Other than that? It’s strange, this place is starting to feel a little bit more like home, have printed out a lot of photos and stuck them up around the place and it’s starting to feel like it’s mine, here’s some photos of the photos.

Other than that? I’m planning my trip home, hope to have that sorted soon and then it’ll be really fun! Just need to get some friends to keep an eye on my plants for me :) Nice peace lily in my bathroom and my poor fern is still holding on, barely, to life!

Any requests for Christmas pressies on the Fio express, just shout.

Visited 2 other states since my last update, first of all Tennessee — I spend the weekend in Chattanooga (choo choo!) with some friends. Turns out it was a festival weekend (Annual Southern Brewers Festival) so the guys were in heaven! All the beer was combined with a semi-final of a hamburger eating competition (ewww! the guy ate 42 Krystals hamb burgers and five Black Angus burgers (each of which counted for five Krystals) for a total of 67 in 8 minutes!). This was followed up by a great set of bands, all set by a big bend in the river, beautiful place — even if I did get a little burnt.

This week I spent 2 days in Connecticut, in West Hartford. It’s a pretty little place, and it was great to wake up and spend time in cool air without all the crazy humidity, it was great, even if it was a whistlestop tour — I’ll be back though.

One of the nice parts of the flight to Hartford (and believe me, in those teeny tiny chairs there wasn’t much to pick from) was the view… the sun was just starting to set, and while photos out of the airplane window aren’t always the best, one of two turned out ok.

The saga of my car-less-ness continues, I’m in a Subaru Impreza right now, which is kinda nice. Really need to go and do the driving part of my test for the Georgia license!

(No photo because it’s raining and I’m too lazy to go out and take one!)

One of the nice things about last month was “Labor Day” weekend, it was nice to be able to relax, spent time at a BBQ, party in Piedmont Park and bowling, poker playing…. and that was just Saturday night!

One of the nice things about Atlanta is that it’s relatively spread out, which means there’s great views of the different high-rise areas from all over, here’s a night scene from the park (no tripod with me = no good photos without the fence, sorry!)

Here’s also tons of amazing houses around here, here’s two of my favourites from my drive to work.

Took a drive down to the Little Five Points area in Atlanta, it’s a bit younger and ‘hipper’ than everywhere else, found a great bookstore and am starting to rebuild my book collection :)

Along with that, my stuff from Ireland finally arrived, so I’ve finally got more clothes (it’s impossible to find “long” jeans around here) and personal stuff around.

I’m still working on personalising my apartment, with yet more wall-art, I love these things, they’re little butterflies that I can swap around, they’re not stuck flat on the wall, so it’s a nice bit of interest.

I picked up a Papasan chair & stool too, I love it, it’s really comfy and great to curl up into.

Working away other than that, been pretty busy but things are coming together! I’ll try and do more updates in future!

Of course, there’s always the odd “Only In America” moments that make things fun — I’ve been learning the fine spot of Corn Hole — I’ll take a picture next time, but I’ve been assured it’s a good old fashioned ‘southern’ game!

One of the guys in work got married too! Told us the morning of the wedding he’d need the afternoon off to get married! So after he left, we treated his desk to the wedding-bell-special:

Oh, and on the flight to Hartford I looked through the SkyMall brouchure (thanks JC) and these just cracked me up… even more so when I saw a guy buy some….

Now I have gotten into my apartment, and have stocked up on this to make the place a little more like home and bit more livable!

Ikea is my friend! It was hilarious trying to cart all that stuff in my place, but I made it eventually.

I’ve been using Velcro type hook things to stick the pictures and stuff to the wall, and I love the blackboard with the key holder that I got!

Here’s a quick tour:

I love my bar stools — an early morning (7am!) find at a garage sale, I think they match perfectly, not bad for $20 each :)

Also, I didn’t want to paint, but it felt a bit dull, so I got some “wall art” to make it a bit more personal:

Shopping in Target was fun too, got a ton of vouchers from the nice folks at work, so went shopping for more stuff! Found the ‘trolley escalators’ so surreal! Clever though!

There’s a few “Only In America” sights too — here’s where you can buy the individual MMs in the colour you want:

And this guy sure loves Melons!

Other than that, I realised why they talk about the “Red Hills
of Georgia”, the clay really is that colour! They’re digging up and building a wall on my route to work and I snapped a photo while stopped waiting for the traffic to clear up.

The other news, in the epic Fio-Tries-To-Get-A-Car-In-America is that I’m still on rentals, but I changed cars again, leading to the wonderful ‘dead battery’ because this one doesn’t beep! It’s a Kia Spectra, and it’s pretty nice other than that!

Now that I have my social security number (memorized but don’t know where is ‘safe’ to keep it!), I can try and get my Georgia Driver’s License, looks like I will need to do a test. I’m not worried but it’s just another thing in the way… you can’t make an appointment, you just have to turn up and wait.

I can’t apply for a car loan until I have the license, and it looks like that’ll be difficult. :( Having no credit history in the US means they most likely will say no, which means I’ll have to think harder! They did offer me a $300 (pre-pay) credit car… which is a bit of a laugh — I showed her my card which had at least 20 times the limit and tried to explain why the $300 one just wouldn’t work for me!

Other than that? It’s been fairly quiet, work is busier than I can keep up with, but still get time to chill out at the weekend, I even found some ducks!

Got back to the social security office, remember I’ve been sent back as they didn’t have my entry processed, and they go through my details ans give me a reference number and tell me that I’ll know in anything up to 4 weeks. Nice. In the meantime — my apartment now needs a guarantor… plus 2 months rent up front. Plus security deposit. Ahhh… what fun. Next stop — car insurance…. looks like to be expensive and may not happen until I get the… you guessed it, social security number! On the plus side, I can fill the can for $36 dollars :) And car prices are pretty decent. The upside of the recession I guess.

On the plus side, I’ve been having some good times, bowling one night was fun — including the incredulous looks I got when the guy who was giving me bowling shoes asked me what size I was to which I could only honestly reply: “I don’t know!” and then take off my shoes and read the label on my shoes (thankfully they had the american size as well as EU and UK written on them) — but they guy clearly thought I was missing more than one or two marbles.

Saturday was a good day, I looked at some furniture that was OK, more on that later, but then I went shopping — lots of goodies for less than $50 — and the shoes are far enough away from any borrowing *cough* sisters to keep them safe!

Last weekend on Sunday I drove past a little park in the middle of a housing estate, that’s one of things about Atlanta, it’s full of trees and parks and lots of little places that aren’t marked on the maps! I sat here for about an hour or two just reading a book and having lunch on a bench — it’s was really nice — thankfully it wasn’t crazy humid.

Best of all, there were a few little creatures floating around to keep me company.

One of the things I was missing about work in Dublin was having a park next door, while it’s not the same, the “Garden Level” in the office block is quite nice and has some amazing views.

One of the views is of the lovely buildings called the King and Queen buildings, they’re quite pretty!

They also look nice at night, I had no tripod with me, so it’s quite a shaky picture, but you get the idea:

(yes, that is the roof of my car in the lower part of the picture).

The view from my desk has the best view in the place (trees, grass, etc), but turning slightly it overlooks the car park, and when it rains, it’s just like home:

The rain can be torrential, but is usually over in minutes. I’ve seen lightening at least twice a week since I got here! The humidity is the worst part, you really do end up running from car (air con) to buldings (air con) — and surprisingly it seems to be just as warm in the evenings, 6pm feels sweltering, going out at night usually needs shorts… a bit like Bermuda, but more sweltering — no sea breezes I think is why.

I’m starting to get my desk a little more organised, got some photos from home, and the other picture pinned up is Mr Men representations of all the people in the office I did when I was in really late one night waiting for other folks.

It’s kinda cool too, we’ve just got a Bell installed, that they ring when there’s a deal signed, ala Lloyd’s and the NY Stock Exchange — already there’s a great buzz around it in the office, generally results in cheers and claps from us and visits from our co-workers in different business units — it’s a real conversation piece — the trick is to get it when no one is looking — and it’s right behind my head so I’m generally the one who jumps!

There’s always a certain amount of slagging over my “Irish” accent, the number 3 amuses people to no end, we’ve also started a translation board to help people out…

Speaking of Games, I’ve finally managed to master Blokus I think…. first of many victories :)

More next time!

Sunday 12th

I was far too tired from the long flight, the age it took to get through the airport, as well as several late nights packing / spending time with friends and family. Flight was ok, read a good book by Fiona O’Brien that my parent’s got me for the flight.

Then I picked up the “Monster Car” (aka the Dodge Charger) — it’s huge! And a 5.7L engine…. wayyyy too big for me! It’s fine to drive, just parking (because it’s huge) wasn’t fun! Plus, you can see how much bigger than me the car is!

Plus it’s not easy being green with something that gets 16 miles per gallon!

Driving was fine, but I was glad to have a friend come in to meet me to keep me sane driving on the 8 lane (one way!) highways! Then we got to the hotel… it did lash rain, with thunder and lightening that night, but when it didn’t here’s how I got on:

I’ve a studio type room, it’s nice:

Monday 13th

Spent some time in work getting some things sorted — I got the desk with the nice view — and everyone was really welcoming, which was fantastic!

Then I spent almost 2 hours in the social security office only to be told to come back in 10 days as my entry into the country wasn’t on record yet…. not fun! But, I did get to read a lot on my new (lovely) (amazing) Sony Reader:

Had dinner in a friend’s house, which was great, nice to see some familiar faces, it was tasty food too.

She’s a good person to talk to!

Got a bit scared about the bugs from what she told me though, which wasn’t good! Got a little lonely that night, so spent some time on Skype (thanks to the big bro for the new headset) talking to family and friends:

Tuesday 14th

Got up early and headed to the Bank, got not 1, but 3 bank accounts, 2 “checking” and a savings, apparently I got a great setup because the company has a good relationship with the bank… need to learn more!

Next, I decided to change the car for something a little smaller, when I got there all the had were the littlest cars, but that was fine with me — it’s a dream to park! It’s a PT Cruiser, and reminds me of the dandelion cars from Pushing Daisies!

Had dinner out with a friend from work in PF Changs, it was great, and my fortune says: “Hope is the most precious treasure to a person.”

I discovered I don’t like driving in Atlanta at night, it’s not well lit enough for someone who doesn’t know their way around, even with the GPS I was getting confused!

I also got my phone (iPhone 3G S today) but was feeling to tired for any more photos….

Borrowed on a long plane trip and eventually found in the Popular Science section of a local bookstore it’s worth reading. Risk has a tagline of “Risk: Why We Fear the Things We Shouldn’t – and Put Ourselves in Greater Danger”, here’s my thoughts.

Prologue:
Starts with the events of Septmeber 11th, how they were broadcast to such a global audience, people turned away from flying (to driving) immediately, but after 1 year people went back to flying. Research showed driving deaths that year (due to more drivers? not enough stats to draw real conclusions) of almost half the amount of people who died that day, and the prologue finishes with a powerful, if misguided, statement of “It was fear who stole their loved ones.”

It also mentions media coverage of the story as “selling” us the fear, when the Antrax was discovered it was a double hit to our fear receptiors, but some what unusally, we feared flying, but the rest of our lives were broadly unchanged (no bomb shelters built, etc.)

My Dell Studio 15 came with Vista pre-installed. I tried to use the internal “Shrink Volume” as much as possible but didn’t get it too far — even when I used JK Defag (which is excellent at what it can do), turned off paging, etc. So burned a LiveCD of GParted and it worked like a charm.

Created my swap (2x memory), shared (big FAT32 drive for sharing files between windows and linux without needing any extra magic) and the ext3 partition for ubuntu itself.

Rebooted into Vista — got a lovely “One of your volumes needs to be checked for consistency…” or similar, which I’m told happens every time you touch the drives when Vista is off, but it ran through the bug checking and then booted into Vista no problem. (My brother made the comment that it thought my whole laptop was doomed when he heard what I was doing — he’s not a big linux fan).

Next, Ubuntu 9.0.4…. downloaded, burned but with errors. All the checksums worked out, so, confused, I tried another download, it burned without errors but when I tried to boot off it the installer kept freezing.

My frustration continued and eventually I stuck it on a USB key that I’d turned bootable with UNetBootin, which is a cool little app that lets you specify an ISO or pick your distribution to use, and changed by Dell boot config to check the USB drive earlier on.

Loaded the installer, chose to manually configure the partition allocation, chose them all, even selected my shared drive — I’ve since decided this was a mistake as it was stuck as root owner and I couldn’t get it to work nicely with samba — one of my friend’s make samba work for me, but that’s another story/post.

End of the day — everything pretty much worked!

• Media buttons — yes. The media center launches Rythymbox out of the box!
• Sound — yes. Out of the box — but very low — fixed.
• Microphone — yes. Out of the box? Not quite.

So what’s up with the Mic? I’d heard reports of problems back with 8.0.4 but I hoped it would all be ok

So I popped up Sound Recorder (Applications -> Sound & Video) and hit record …. nothing. The fix I found at ubuntuforums.org, thanks pspotts!

As for the low volume, in the same preferences you can also see the “Mixer” levels, and I saw that the normal “front” sound was set to ~85% — upping this to 100% and all my volume issues have disappeared. Happy!

More on this later.

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