It’s been a surprisingly busy week, as is likely evident by the fact that I haven’t written anything about it yet. I have started going through my NZ photos, but there’s 1950 of them, so it’s going to take some time. A fair fewer turned out than I’d hoped, with the killer in 95% of cases being window reflections. I spent a while in Photoshop trying to fix up an exemplar such photo, but didn’t have much luck. I might try again when I have a bit more time.
Tomorrow I’m off to the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) to do the written test, at least, for my Californian license. Thus, I spent about four hours tonight reading the guidebook cover to cover, all excruciatingly long-winded 90 pages or so of it. After the initial weirdness of driving on the wrong side of the road, and sitting on the wrong side of the car, I’m now pretty comfortable driving here. The rental car I have is a Mazda 6 V6 S, which is a pretty darn snazzy car given what I’m used to. It’s surprisingly big, though… kinda fat, so it’s been “fun” to park in the obnoxiously small garage here where I’m staying.
But it doesn’t have an MP3-playing CD system, or even a line-in socket for my iPod. Not impressed with that. :/
On the upside, it has cruise control, remote entry, central locking, power windows, power seats, a driver door that stays open, a battery that doesn’t go flat overnight… ;)
It’s a nice car, but surprisingly expensive, actually – I certainly wouldn’t mind one as my permanent car, but I don’t think I can justify the price. :/
I opened a new bank account with Citibank, and went to close the Bank of America account, only to find out they’d already closed it. Figures; I spend three months trying fruitlessly and endlessly to close the damn thing, and then when I give up and walk away, they do it for me.
Once ye ol’ paychecks start a-flowin’, I’ll be able to more seriously pursue a car. ’till then, my priority is finding an apartment. I’d initially figured a good $1500+ for a single-bedroom place, but I’ve heard from a few people that you can get “liveable” places for less than $1k. We’ll see, anyway. I’m not very fussy with my living, provided it’s quiet & clean, so I should be able to get by with something small and consequently cheap.
Anyway, bedtime for me. I apologise to those I haven’t been in contact with yet, but I will as soon as I can.
