Huntington Beach: The Real Orange County

Greetings from Fullerton, California. While I wait for my Beckman Coulter desktop to be set-up I figure I’ll do a quick blog.

Doug and I left Vegas on Monday morning after a pretty solid last night at New York, New York. The drive to Huntington Beach, California was a short four hours. When we arrived we immediately checked out some mattress stores and I purchased a comfy full sized bed, an upgrade from the twin beds I’ve been sleeping on for 22 years. We ran around Orange County to pick up new room essentials and did laundry for the rest of the night.

Tuesday morning we moved all my stuff into the apartment and my mattress arrived. Dave graciously moved all his belongings into Ian’s room so that I could get set-up. The remainder of Tuesday was spent shopping and taking a ride down Pacific Coast Highway to show Doug Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, and Dana Point. After dinner at Beachfront in downtown Huntington Beach with Doug, Dave, and Bobby, I drove Doug to the Long Beach airport. It was definitely strange driving back from Long Beach knowing my only tie from back home was flying back to Boston. I really am alone out here. I have to say I never would have been able to make this trip and make the move without the help and support of Uncle Paul and Uncle Doug.

I spent Tuesday night organizing my room. Edit: I spent Tuesday through present organizing and reorganizing my room. I will probably keep moving things around until I feel settled. So far the room has come together nicely.

I went to my first day of work on Wednesday. I had to drive from Huntington Beach to Woodland Hills. By Google Maps that’s just over an hour, but it took my 2 hours in traffic. I drove for four hours on Wednesday! I made the same commute Thursday after picking up my laptop and Blackberry in Irvine. PS: Blackberry-- totally overrated at first. Then on Friday when Bobby and I were out shopping we used it like 5 times to find places. Blackberry is now considered coolest invention ever. On the way home Thursday I drove through the hills into Malibu and saw the Santa Monica pier, which was cool.

I took Friday off work to run around and get errands done. Friday became known as the day of accomplishment. Bobby and I picked up some room essentials including a nightstand. That evening we put it together, by we I mean I screwed the handle on while Bobby put the whole thing together. Saturday became my personal day of accomplishment as well. It is crazy how much I still have to get done. Mini-list: Oil change, bank account, furniture, cleaning CHECK, driver’s license, registration, car insurance, more cleaning IN PROCESS…the list continues…

Friday night I had my first Main Street HB experience as a full time resident. Bobby, Ben, and I drove down to Dukes to meet Ian, Tony, Jackie, Sean, Sutton, Carmen, Cali, and other people I don’t know. Ok the rundown on new friends: Bobby, Sutton, and Ian are Bentley kids; Tony and Ben are Ian’s friends from the Cape who live in the area; Sean is our neighbor; Jackie is Tony’s girlfriend; Cali and Carmen are friends of the guys/beach volleyball girls.

Saturday I again spent the day running around doing errands. I cooked a Philly cheese steak pizza in the afternoon (Gattis would be jealous), did some cleaning, and then jammed on guitars with Bobby for the rest of the night.

Sunday I started the day by doing laundry and ironing, very boring. In the afternoon I walked down to the beach and played volleyball with Sutton, Cali, Ian, Carmen, Tony, Jackie, and a few other people. I was terrible in the first game, but being as competitive as I am I rebounded and played pretty decent the rest of the day. I even had a 15-0 serving run, serving for 15 straight points and a win.

Here I am at my first day of work at the client, Beckman Coulter. It has been pretty chill so far, I don’t have a PC yet, so I am on my Beecher laptop. I am going to continue to blog while I am out in Huntington Beach, so keep checking in to see what’s going on out on the West Coast. Stay tuned and I’ll try to get some pictures up.

DMatti