Hey

As you might have already guessed, my name is Joe and I'm in California. Well... almost in California. After a lot of thinking and some really random events over the last few months, I've made the decision to pack up and leave pretty much everything I've known for the last 24 years and move to the west coast.

A little background info for anyone who doesn't know me all that well:

- I'm 24 years old and I've never lived outside of Oklahoma for an extended period of time. Some of you may remember my brief jaunt in England last summer and while that was an amazing experience, it doesn't really count as relocating my entire life.

- I have a girlfriend, Megan, whom I have been dating for roughly 5 1/2 years. She's a lot of the reason why I'm moving. She was accepted to Pepperdine for graduate school and since I kind of like her and didn't really have anything going on here, I thought it'd be a good idea to move with her.

I don't really like the idea of "blogging" my life or whatever stupid word/culture/activity it is, but I'd like to be able to share my life with people I know and this is really the only feasible medium that works for everyone.

Since I decided to start this thing after a couple of key events went down, I'll catch you up in case you haven't heard:

- After two of our prospective apartments fell through, I found a listing on www.Craigslist.com for a very affordable two bedroom apartment in Northridge. Megan called the manager, we got an application, send it back with some money, and a few days later we had an apartment. The complex is surrounded by a neighborhood with no other apartments close by, there's a grocery store, a liquor store, a Subway, and a Little Caesar's all within walking distance, and Cal State University Northridge is right up the road, meaning the area will have a college town feel to it.

My only concern is that Northridge also happens to be the epicenter of the, get this, 1994 NORTHRIDGE EARTHQUAKE. According to Wikipedia, the earthquake registered as a 6.7 in magnitude, had the fastest ground acceleration ever recorded in an urban area in North America, AND was the costliest earthquake in US history.

Awesome.

- I had a few job prospects lined up but I finalized on one yesterday. I submitted my resume through a job agency for a desktop support job for a high school in Beverly Hills a few weeks ago. I guess they liked what they saw, so they forwarded my resume to the same high school but for a job doing web design. After a week of discussion and negotiation, I am now gainfully employed by a private school district in Beverly Hills. The pay is more than I expected/asked for, so overall, I'm very happy with the situation.

I don't think it gets much more random than that, folks.

I think that about covers all the major stuff up to this point. We already have the truck reserved for next Monday and we'll be out of here on Tuesday. Pending any major disasters we should be arriving in Northridge early Thursday afternoon. I think that's it for now; I'm going to put up some pictures from the surprise going away party for Megan and Brigette last night later today, so watch out for those.