What did you do this week (and weekend)?

I successfully moved into my new apartment! I'm actually really happy how utterly smooth it all was, especially since I had essentially packed everything the very night before the actual move-in date.

I think a big mistake I made was completely clearing out my desk to start, since I had been slowly building out my desk setup for about 7 years, so seeing it so incredibly barren afterwards, like there was a void in my room, kind of shocked me out of my rhythm and really disoriented me.

It's all good now, though. I was able to mostly emulate my old desk setup in my new place, despite the new desk being about half the size.

In all honesty, I think the change was actually quite nice, as it forced me to pick and choose the really important things, clothes, and accessories, so my new flat feels really lean.

I'm also really hoping that with a new place comes a lot more opportunities to make some new friendships and relations, so if you have any tips or whatnot, I'd love to hear them all!

Anyways, thanks for indulging me if you got this far, and stay safe out there!

For those following along with my job hop saga, I passed the final interview from last week and I'm just about to wrap up the team matching process! I matched with a decent sounding team, hopefully the manager didn't misrepresent the team when we briefly spoke. I haven't fully committed to this team just yet though, I've got some people I know at this company so I'm asking them if they can see if there's any headcount for mid-level engineering positions that I can join. I'm also just waiting on the final offer letter and the salary numbers. I have a rough idea of what I can expect but it'd be nice to have final confirmation.

Related to that, my performance review process at work just finished and I received an "exceeds expectations" rating and I also got details about our annual raise and bonus. I got a solid 4.8% raise, which I'm happy about. I just find the timing of all this kinda funny since, if I do end up signing the offer letter for the job mentioned above, I'd only get one paycheck at this new base pay amount before I leave haha. Thankfully, my bonus would get paid out to me regardless of me leaving.

Besides that, I also finally went on a road trip I've been talking about doing for a while. After plans to go on this road trip with friends fell through a few weeks ago, I decided to just go solo. It was overall a pretty chill trip, had some good food and snacks before making my way back home.

I'm continuing to settle into my new role as a second grade teacher. The curriculum is flowing better, I understand the kids more, and I'm getting better at navigating the districts myriad resources.

One child in my class is posing quite a challenge and so I'm working on that. Additionally, I have a new student next week with the most vague IEP I've ever seen. Supports for day one have been put in place.

I've made some missteps along the way, and will do many things differently next year, but so far it's been a great start.

I took the week off since my parents came to visit. It was part vacation and part staycation. They arrived last Saturday. On Sunday, we checked out Georgetown in DC. Even though I've been in the DC area for a year, that was my first time there.

Then on Monday, we drove up to Rehobeth Beach and Dewey Beach, both in Delaware. That was the first time going to Delaware for all of us. The beaches there were beautiful. But also surprisingly busy, with lots of kids around still! We assumed that school would've started most everywhere already.

We stayed the night there, then on Tuesday drove down to Virginia Beach, VA. Also a nice beach town. We stayed at a hotel right on the beach and spent the night drinking some beers on our hotel balcony, chatting, and enjoying the sound of the ocean.

On Wednesday, we drove west to Norfolk, VA. Which I solo visited back Norfolk back in February. But it was nice to see the city in the summer. A lot more people around of course. I gave them a brief tour, we had lunch, then were on our way to our next stop on the way back to DC: Richmond, VA.

I solo visited Richmond back in May. I really enjoyed Richmond, and my parents seemed to as well (though they seemed more partial to Norfolk since the ocean is so close by). We got back to the DC area Wednesday evening.

Thursday was a bit of an R&R day, but we did head to old Old Town in Alexandria, VA for my dad's belated birthday dinner. Again, lived here for a year, first time there. Even though I'm like 2 Metro stops and a bus ride away. Shameful; I need to get out more.

Friday, was my second recovery day. I stayed home while they went out to DC. I was a little worried about them heading towards the National Mall (we're brown people). I had them bring their passports and their PIV cards (we're all feds govt employees), along with their driver's licenses, just in case. Though they didn't have any issues.

And then early this Saturday morning at like 4am, I dropped them off at DCA for their flight back to Vegas.

It was a lot of fun, I'm glad they visited me. I'm glad they're willing to visit me now, lol. I lived in Kansas City previously and I was the last of my family to leave. So my parents rarely wanted to visit me in KC. Before my brother also moved to Vegas from KC, they were a little more willing to come back and see us. But when it was just me left? Nope, lol. I had to go visit all of them.

Which is some BS, if you ask me. I think Vegas sucks. But now that I live in a cool, exciting place, they want to come out. Which is perfectly fine by me. I like traveling, but traveling to Vegas (or anywhere on the West Coast) and back, on a non-direct flight, is like 10-12hrs door to door each way. Doing that 2-4 times a year gets real old. So now they can deal with all that.

It's Labor Day weekend here in the States, so I'll probably be going back to my hermit lifestyle this 3-day weekend. Which I'm looking forward to.

I randomly found out about a military contractor research and development facility auctioning off assets. In my city. Promptly spent over $2K.

General Dynamics Land Systems R&D. UGV / land-based drone stuff. I got a mix of lab Test & Measure gear and what are some probably one-of-a-kind drone prototype parts and optical systems.

Then, after picking up my winnings early the next day I go out to take care of a contract job - maintenance on a security trailer. When I call in to close out my job one of my friends picks up - a fellow electronics nerd that works for the security company as his day job. We talk about our day, I mention the auction and my winnings, and he mentions that, hey, he's in the market for an Oscilloscope. We arrange for him to purchase one of them that night for just under $600, and a couple days later out the door it goes on the way to him. He has his own company that he is building up and is working on developing a product - a scope was the next bit of gear he needed. Just crazy timing and coincidence that he was the one that picked up the phone.

I actually just put up a video on servicing and upgrading a frequency counter from that equipment lot and briefly show a bunch of the stuff I got in the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBzwU5SJzSU - the look around the other stuff I got is between 1 minute 40 seconds and 2 minutes 20 seconds.

Fun week!

Gotten a job offer over the phone that will be formalized tomorrow. Nothing to really do until then but keep my mind off it.

I live in a semi-desert section of Texas, and this week I've been continuing my project to convert my front yard to a desert landscape. After digging out tons of dirt, weeds and grass roots, I had to take a break and attend to other matters, but this week, my crushed granite arrived and I've been hauling it into place. I'd already finished the west side of the yard, and this week I've been working on the south section. I'm using 1" crushed red granite, 8 1/2 cubic yards of it, and that comes to almost 15 tons. The west side is smaller, and only took 6 1/2 cubic yards.