On New Chapters and Adventures

Well, I have finally started my adventure. At the wonderful hour of 3:30 in the morning on January 3rd, I woke up to head to the airport for the beginning of my journey. Fortunately, despite the early flight time and the fact that I am sooo not a morning person, my roommate and I made it to San Francisco safely and without much fuss. I even had the fortune of being upgraded to First Class… on my flight from Colorado Springs to Denver… I almost think it was more of a hassle to have to move from my original seat than it was worth having the First Class seat for a flight where you spend just as much time taxiing as you do flying but oh well.

They’re putting us up in the Grand Hyatt at SFO (San Francisco Intl. Airport) which seems like a pretty nice hotel. The TV is nice and big, the bed is nice and comfy, and the bathroom has this fancy motion activated light down at foot level so you don’t have to turn the light on in the middle of the night which is nifty. I’ve also got a fantastic view of the international terminal here at SFO, at least I have a bit of a view of some of the hills so it could be worse. I decided to take the opportunity and do a time lapse video with my camera so I could figure out some of the settings. I think it turned out pretty nifty and I’ve posted it on my YouTube channel (link up below the menu) if you’re interested in seeing it.

Our first day was mostly just hanging out and relaxing, we were lucky enough to get to the hotel around 10:45 AM so we didn’t have anything scheduled until the initial welcome Zoom meeting in the evening so I got myself all nice and settled in. This morning (second day here) I went down for my first COVID test of the journey. Definitely not my favorite experience but they managed to scratch the itch I’ve been having on my frontal lobe that I couldn’t quite reach… The food has also been good so far, they gave us a menu of what all we’d be eating all week when we checked in yesterday (speaking of food, lunch just arrived so I’ll probably wrap this up soon). Other than that, I’ve just been spending my time doing typical new hire stuff, ya know, filling out paper work and we have orientation sessions scheduled for Zoom meetings most of the week.

Tonight we’re supposed to have some outdoor time where we’ll be able to get some fresh air and stretch our legs a little. Unfortunately, today has been gloomy and rainy so far so hopefully it’ll clear up by then. Over on the photos page I’ll be posting a few pictures that I’ve taken/will take and I’m doing another time lapse of the weather which will be posted on YouTube when it is done.

Thanks to everyone who has shown interest and support as I start my journey, hopefully my posts will continue to entertain and inform!

— Matt “man this sandwich looks tasty, I think I’m gonna gain some weight here” Butcher