Here we go again...

http://betoinsf.blogspot.com

I thought I'd never see it...

My favorite newspaper and all-around ivy-centric New York Times usually limits its coverage of college football to "The Game" and let's just say their sports department doesn't usually bring in the big awards. I was thoroughly impressed to see this one waiting in my inbox:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/08/sports/ncaafootball/08colleges.html?th&emc=th

Well done Coach Harbaugh. Go Stanford Football.

Yesterday...

So instead of being able to get up at the nice hour of 6:45 tomorrow, I should be on the first baby bullet to the city at 6:23am. Why is that? Oh because all my cold calling for the case has produced pretty much no results this past week, and my supervisor wants me to be in the office early to catch people on west coast time. That means in the office at 7:30am. Yuck! I only hope that I will be able to get a little bit of sleep tonight.

Ming called back today. During lunch tomorrow Darren and I will be signing a new lease for the place in Russian Hill! Woohoo! I probably still won’t sleep there since my bed will still be in storage in Mountain View. But nonetheless, I’ll have a place - within walking distance of the office – to call my own. Bad ass. I guess that means I’ll have to shut down the blog soon. Sad. Oh well, there’s still another week of hotel bumming for me. I can keep writing ‘til then.

Work Work Work...

OK, this one’s too good not to write about. So we went into the office yesterday. No big deal. Work a Sunday, chances are I’m gonna get some other day off later. Plus, I went in with jeans, a t-shirt, sandals, and my Stanford cap. The work wasn’t very rigorous; mostly figuring out our plan of action for the next week before our final presentation to the client. Since it was Sunday and we were all at work instead of at home, our team decided to have a nice dinner at a place called Roy’s on Mission. The food took way too long and cost way too much, but whatever; it was nouveau-Hawaiian fusion, so it had to take a long time and cost too much. But the bad thing is the long dinner didn’t get me out until 9:15 pm. No problem, I saw that the Caltrain schedule had a 10:00pm and 12:00am train that would take me back to PA in no time. But I didn’t read close enough. Turns out those trains only run on Saturday as marked by the ‘SAT ONLY’ marking above those two trains. Crap. So two taxis later I booked it to the hotel where two of the LA people from my case are staying: The Omni. Just to get an idea, one of them is paying half a G per night for this room. Andi was nice enough to let me crash her place with a particularly comfortable roll away. So after a quick Dewers on the rocks, I hit the hay, the two of us falling asleep to some quality “Family Guy” on late night TV. But I was still in my sandals, jeans, and t-shirt. Hardly appropriate dress for Monday at the office! So I got up a little after 5:30am to catch the 6:11am express that got me to Palo Alto at 6:56. Changed, shaved, little deodorant and cologne (“French bath” as some like to call it), tried to manually smooth-out wrinkles from my freshly washed clothes (no luck), and booked it back to the Caltrain station. And right as I got out of the car, the 7:23am baby bullet to SF was pulling up. Now I’m on schedule to be back in the city at 8:04am. I do believe that could be a world record for a round trip to Palo Alto with time to spruce up as well!
The cool thing about my insane life working in the city with no real place to call home is that it really reminds me of my days in Moscow; waking up terribly early, fighting with the public transportation system. Lightning quick changes at home, and best of all, meeting great new people in my life. I might well be exhausted by 11:00am today, but I kinda find this life exhilarating. Maybe I’m just kind of a sleep masochist like that.

Sunday 10am Caltrain to the city.

It might soon be over! Yesterday Darren and I saw two apartments that we were both pleased with and put the wheels in motion to get the second one we saw – a two bedroom two bath in Russian Hill, on the edge of North Beach. The other was a newly renovated place in SOMA that left one longing for a little more space. But on the other hand, it had a kitchen to die for. The reason we are waiting out for the slightly dated Russian Hill place is because of one major factor: the living room window looks out onto an absolutely breath-taking view of the bay. Alcatraz, fisherman’s’ wharf, it couldn't get more San Francisco! The kitchen’s a little dated and the outside smells like old people, but the view and the location make it easy to forget such things. Speaking of location, everybody and their mother would love to live in this area. The North Beach/Russian Hill area is teeming with people just like ourselves, just trying to have a good time in their post-college years. Almost as important for Darren is the variety of great Cafés – a must for any young writer. All fingers and toes are crossed that we can sign on this place on Monday. Just need the landlord Ming to come through.
As a side note: I’m on my way to the office. Luckily it’s ten in the morning, and I was able to get a great night’s sleep, but yes, it is Sunday. So funny, I told everyone that one of the great things about consulting is that we never work weekends; a vast improvement from the banker’s life. But, wouldn’t you know it, my first weekend and I’m heading into the office. Frankly I’m not too peeved or anything. Our team is heading in today so that we don’t have to pull multiple all-nighters this next week. Also, all signs point two a three-day weekend after the work on this case is done. Awesome!

Two days ago...

September 25, 2007, 10:03PM. Going home. On the CalTrain. Heading back to my sister’s place because yes, I am still homeless. And boy, is this one of the worst industries to be in while homeless. All I needs is my own personal bed to come home to, pass out on, get some awesome REM sleep, and wake up refreshed for another short walk back to the office. Instead, I am averaging about 1 hour 30 minutes to get to work or to get back home. For all my wondrous applause of the advanced public transportation system here, I’m not enjoying it particularly much. Or maybe it’s that I’ve pretty much had it with Palo Alto. Not only did it disappoint as a college town, it is now causing me commuting headaches aplenty. A boss on my case suggested that I get a hotel in the city and charge it to the firm. Not a bad idea. If only I could afford SF hotels with the available credit that I have now. When I asked him if he was serious, he said “yeah, that commute is costing me two hours of work every day.” Good to know I’m valued as an employee! But I guess our whole case team is stressed. We’re charged with a particularly tough case with a deadline that borders on absurd. We’re all stressed. The sick part is, I actually kinda love this shit. It’s exhilarating. I’m become a short-term expert in my field and working my ass off to achieve that status. Nice. I asked the same boss if I could have an hour off for lunch tomorrow to take a look at an apartment with my potential roommate. He said that that was valuable time for contacting people on the East Coast so not really. Maybe I could do it Friday, or Saturday, or Sunday, but we might be working Sunday. Haha., gotta love it.

Quick Review

Alright so I’m still technically a vagabond even tough I’ve been living very nice recently. On Sunday night I flew out to LA (I’ve always driven) for my first week of training in the LA office. It was great. They put me up in a “boutique” hotel that was only a couple miles away from the LA office (very important in LA for the purposes of traffic). There were many a handshake, many a power point presentation, and many a meal taken care of by the firm. Nice.
Thursday Night
Since Monday, the orientation people kept referring to Thursday night. Really got up our expectations about it, considering they wouldn’t let us know exactly what was going to happen that night. “Oh, you’ll find out.” ??? Turns out only the associates (the ones that are coming straight out of undergrad) were invited to out Thursday night event. The consultants (the ones with PhDs and MBAs) were doing something else that night, but apparently it wasn’t going to be nearly the same, whatever it in fact was. Slowly but surely more and more information was leaked about Thursday night as the time approached. “limo” and “lots of alcohol” came up multiple times.
Come Thursday day, we were let out at the very generous hour of 3pm and we were told to “go home and come back in a taxi.” Since home for the SF associates was the hotel, we did as we were told and went home. I changed, took a short nap, and returned to the office at 6:30pm. When we got up to the twenty first floor, there were many white plastic bags, and first and second year associates looking pumped. Back down on the first floor we waited around outside as a stretch Ford Expedition pulled up and we climbed in. Must have been a good twenty of us in there. Champagne was passed around and a toast to LEK was given. Then other beverages were promptly consumed. I really don’t have to good of an idea of the rest of the night. But it went something like two amazingly nice cocktail lounges on the beach of Santa Monica, yummy yummy tacos at “Tito’s Taco’s” (I’ve never seen such ravenous consultants), and some swank Hollywood club that I probably wouldn’t have been able to get into otherwise. Nice. I think even our BYU associate appreciated it.
Back and Forth
I might have been hurting a little on Friday, ain’t gonna lie. But the day was short and the food was plentiful (which my stomach greatly appreciated). At 5pm the San Franciscans boarded a flight back to the bay. It was nice to get back to our area of town. I met up with Stan, Aditi, and Fish for the first time after the whole summer and we did some mad Malibu mini-golfing. A well-deserved rest and up bright and early to go meet up with Darren for another Saturday of apartment hunting in the city. The first place I saw in Potrero was going to be a little out of our price range, so Darren didn’t come, but I went my own anyway to see the unit. It was gorgeous. I kind of fell in love with the place. Frankly none of the other three places we saw that day even came close. So I called the manager. Asked to see it again. No answer. Tried again a couple of hours later nothing. Four calls two messages, and two e-mails later I still haven’t heard from this guy. I’m worried the unit is probably gone by now. Damn, it was so nice and spacious. Fingers crossed that something like that can be worked out for us. But for now I still live homeless. Yuck.
Off again
Now I’m half-way through my flight to Boston and I’m remembering how much I hate flying eastward. Tomorrow our first meeting is at 8pm, Boston time. They must hate the west coast over here or something, cause that’s just cruel. I guess I am being flown to Boston and put up in the Hilton and I’m also writing this entry on a 12-inch Dell that actually has more than 20 minutes of battery life (imagine that!). That’s all very kind of them. But couldn’t they push things back an hour or two for us Californians? Suppose not. Here’s to a very early night tonight.