Saved by the Dogs

Moving to a new location means that one has to endure weeks of constant name/face recognition exercises. I don't really mind it. And I'm relatively good at it. (Relative to the majority of the population.) But today as I got home from work I ran into one of my neighbors in my apartment complex. I could remember her dogs' names but I could not remember hers! Krista? Kristina? Kristen? I have no idea. But for some reason I could remember that her little brown chihuahua was Hollywood and her big black Saint Bernard was RockStar. The worst part? She remembered mine! The best part? I think she didn't notice that I didn't know her name since I called out to her dogs. I guess you could say I was saved by the dogs.

First Impressions

I am officially relocated. I will move into my permanent apartment on the 18th. It'll be my very first personally funded apartment.

At work, I've finished the two day corporate training orientation that all new hires are required to take. Now I have a mountain of procedures and documents to read and tons of acronyms to learn. Yeehaa. (Notice my lack of optimism.) One important thing to mention is that the job I was hired for is not the job they put me in. To make a long story short, the program they hired me to work on was called KEI and I was going to be doing work in their Design, Integration and Testing (DI&T) group. Turns out that the KEI program was a defense contract that got canceled a few months back. Unfortunatly, when the contract was canceled, so did my original job position. So rather then resending their offer, I was then moved from DI&T to the Electronics Components group. I'm not complaining since I know some people who don't even have a job yet. It just would have been nice BEFORE arriving.

My new ward is huge! The Relief Society is so big that they can't fit us all in the RS room. We have to meet in the chapel. After the small size of the ward in Colorado and the small branches all around the Denver area, it was kind of a shock. But the biggest difference I've noticed is that the people here aren't as focused on education. Most of the people I've met are either working in a "non-degree required" job or are slowly working toward something indistinguishable at the local community college. There are exceptions of course but its difinitely something that stands out as a difference between a student ward and a singles ward. (That and the "m" and "w" words gets thrown around a lot more here). That being said, I hope I get a calling (soon).

All and all, AZ looks like its going to work out; as long as the summers don't diminish me into a smelly pile of goo.

Love to you all.