State of the California Thing

I've been thinking recently about the whole moving-to-California thing, and how I think it's worked out so far. Granted, I've only been here four months, and it's not entirely fair to compare how well I've acclimated here in that time to having been in Madison more than seven years. Nonetheless, I've been missing some things in Madison lately, and have therefore been thinking about them.

My big conclusion is that the one thing which I'm unequivocally more satisfied with here than in Madison is my job. Which, now that I feel settled in to it, is not all that surprising.

There are plenty of reasons for this. One big one is that Apple is just a more laid-back company than Epic was. At Epic, I had to log my hours every day, even though the overwhelming majority of them were non-billable. And I had to fill out a "work plan" every Monday, which was hardly ever useful to me in any way. And Epic kept fairly close tabs on how many hours people worked, and in many cases what time they got in during the day. At Apple, none of this applies, and it makes for a more comfortable work environment. I'm no longer a clockwatcher, and I'm willing to work more erratic hours, now that I can. Work, to me, is far more qualitative than quantitative, so counting my hours doesn't make a lot of sense, especially if I'm getting the job done.

There are some factors which are just a matter of Apple being a big company: A good, large cafeteria on campus, which I'm perfectly happy to go to nearly every day. I no longer have to contemplate where to go for lunch, or think about the fast food option. As I've reported here, the fitness center is turning out to be quite a plus, and having things like a coffee bar, credit union, and ATM machine on campus are all big pluses.

But the biggest factor here is just that I recognize that it was time for me to leave Epic. I'd been working there for over four and a half years, and had certainly done nearly everything there was for me to do on my product. (Yes, there's always more to do, but there was progressively less variety in the work.) And having been in fairly good touch with much of the company, it seemed clear that just moving to a different team at Epic would not have remedied that. Some of that is just that the whole Windoze programming thing was basically uninteresting to me. Visual Basic technology really is quite primitive - I realized that when I was informed that the class system didn't support inheritance. (Well what good is it then?)

I'm not one to burn bridges, but it's pretty clear to me that from a strict job perspective, this was the right move to make.

The Bay Area has a number of good points, but Madison has enough advantages that it's hard to say the Bay Area is the better place to live.

It was nice to live somewhere where I could walk nearly anywhere I wanted to go, and bike everywhere else. Madison has a friendlier, more intimate atmosphere, as you'd expect from a small city. There are a few places out here where I imagine that's possible, but ones like Palo Alto and Menlo Park are hideously expensive, even assuming you can find a place that allows cats fairly easily.

The scenery in the Bay Area is often stunning, but there was a lot to be said for the simple - and nearby - beauty of Madison's lakes, and the UW Arboretum. Hopping on my bike to do an hour ride around Lake Monona was terrific; an hour's ride from my place here might get me... to another urban part of the valley. I think it's somewhat better on the peninsula, but still extremely urban, as far as I can tell.

California does have an advantage in the weather category. Although it's been very hot lately, it's also fairly dry. And, of course, I expect winter to be very mild by contrast to Wisconsin. Of course, in Madison I was able to afford a nice apartment with central air conditioning for a very reasonable price, and I'd expected to be able to find a house with the same had I stayed there.

I've been missing some of the restaurants in Madison. Especially the gyro place I hit most weekends which was near my apartment. And Michael's Frozen Custard, as well. I haven't really found a restaurant out here which has blown me away, and everything is more expensive here, too. I have been enjoying the Thai restaurants I've eaten at here, but John says he thinks the best Thai he's ever had was at a place in Madison.

I do think the Cafe Borrone is a step up from the coffee shop I went to in Madison, so that's something. I'd like to move to be fairly close to it.

And, as I've said, none of the comics shops I've been to compare to Capital City Comics in Madison. Which for me is a significant thing. It's takes a while to 'break in' a new shop anyway, and none of them ones here have the potential of Cap City. Probably due to the higher rents and resulting lack of floor space.

As you could probably tell, I was never entirely satisfied with my social life in Madison. After grad school, I never felt like I had a group of friends I got together with regularly, that I really really plugged in to a particular social scene. I always felt like a bit of an outsider in the SF3 group. I did have a gaming group for a while, but was bummed that I seemed to be the one who always organized it, and when I stopped organizing it, I often didn't get invited to the sessions that other people put together. It was a drag.

And, facing reality, my best friend, Karen, was going to be moving away from Madison when she got her Ph.D. Madison felt like a very closed space, and meeting new people was quite difficult.

California is certainly different in many ways. I've got the regular Wednesday gaming thing, and a variety of people that I do things with regularly or semi-regularly. I love getting together with CJ and David. At times, I've felt so busy I could barely see straight. But... something's still missing. Or it sometimes seems like it is. I occasionally feel that I spend so much time with my friends so I can be distracted from what's missing.

So the big question, obviously, is: Is what's missing that I'm still single, I don't have a girlfriend, and don't have any apparent prospects of getting one in the foreseeable future? And, it doesn't help that this morning the radio reported that Santa Clara County (a.k.a. Silicon Valley) has the largest number of single males between the ages of 21 and 40 of any county in the nation (or something resembling that concept).

I've never felt comfortable with the whole formal 'dating' thing, and my last experience with it certainly soured me on it in a big way. So I've very cautious and passive about the whole thing, and pretty much not willing to ask someone out unless I feel pretty confident that there's a match there. I feel rather insecure in myself when it comes to dating, basically feeling that I'm a weirdo in my habits and interests and that there are few women out there who would be a reasonable match for me. I had rather thought and hoped that being out in The Land of the Nerds would change the odds somewhat, but apparently that's not going to happen. No matter where you are, there are way more male nerds than female nerds.

So, California hasn't been a big win there, though arguably it hasn't been a loss, either.

I guess on balance I feel that my social life is better here than it was in Madison. But it's still somehow not quite what I want it to be. Problem is, I'm not sure how I'd like it to be different. It does bum me out that I have very few visitors at my home. Moving to the peninsula might help with that, though I'm trying hard not to view moving up there as a panacea for any mental/emotional problems I perceive in myself. I'm trying only to look at it in practical terms, like driving distance from my friends. And, realistically, two of my friends have serious animal allergies, and so would be unlikely to visit much - if at all - anyway, due to my cats. Which is quite disappointing, but that's life. (That makes it hard for me to host gaming or Bridge events, since the two in question are cornerstones of those groups.)

And I think it'll take me quite a while to get over that.

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Michael Rawdon (Contact)