Welcome to California

Rachel and I arrived in Loma Linda on Sunday having traveled around 3000 miles, averaged 46 miles per gallon, crossed ten states, and had zero fights. Pause for a moment to appreciate that. Now, this: Thursday we emptied most of the trailer by ourselves, because we’re just that incredible.

Okay, enough aggrandizement. In between the fantastic road trip and our nascent home was some serious stress, the foremost of these being that the apartment we drove thousands of miles to arrive at turned out to be sorely lacking. Contrary to what was advertised by United Property Management, the place had no dishwasher or balcony, was dirty, and had a broken garbage disposal and stove burner among other things.

It might not seem like much, but after traveling a long way with a mental image of your destination, finding out it was all a lie is crushing. As it turns out, the fourplexes on either side of ours were in better shape and included dishwashers to boot; our first 36 hours in Loma Linda were spent cancelling the lease we’d signed and getting our money returned, and finalizing everything we’d previously spent weeks doing for the new place. Note: this means we have a new new address, so if you need it and don’t already have it let us know.

Rachel’s dad and a coworker helped us carry the remaining furniture inside, and Friday he and I put most of it together. Today we’ve just been unpacking box after box, filling the car with cardboard carcasses bound for the recycling center. If only there was a cash refund for recycling boxes.

The biggest news of all came on Wednesday: I was accepted to Loma Linda University’s MD/PhD program!

! ! !

Because LLU starts the program with graduate school instead of med school, instead of starting Monday, my classes don’t actually begin until September.

! ! !

A side benefit of this is that I could help unload stuff on Thursday and Friday instead of spending it at med school orientation, so in the end it didn’t matter that our stuff arrived on Thursday instead of Monday like it was supposed to. I’m actually looking forward to having the time to help Rachel set up and organize the house.

We finally got internet here this morning, a mini-drama in itself. Time Warner Cable began our relationship by scheduling an appointment for Friday from 4–6 PM, then sending an automated call “confirming” my appointment for 9–12 AM today instead. Of course the only other available appointment was Wednesday, so unless we wanted to keep waiting that was it.

Thus. It might not mean much to you, but I managed to squeak in a post this week. That makes me better than the modern US Post Office, which, despite its lofty slogan, drops everything at the first sign of trouble.