The second day, woke up at 5:30am, at dawn, direction Grand Canyon, just about half an hour from the motel. Man it is chilly in the morning here, you can tell it is at a high elevation, over 6000ft.

Posted a few pictures of the Canyon here.

Quite impressive indeed! The more I thing about it though, the more I belive that Zion is nicer, less massive but nicer. Anyway, I did not have too much time so I left one hour and a half later... How to visit the Grand Canyon in 90 minutes, that will be the title of my next book!

Trading posts in Arizona:

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I-40 goes just next to the historic route 66. Small cities in Arizona and New Mexico have their downtown along the route 66, like here in New Mexico:

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Very often, you also have a railrod, with veeeeeeerrrrrry long trains, longer than in California, but they only have one layer of cargo here:

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Other train pictures:photo1, photo2, photo3, photo4. (photo4 gives a god idea of the train length.)

In New Mexico, I also cross the famous "Continental Divide"

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I have done more than half of the rockies. From this point, it should be downhill to the Mississippi river...

It is becoming flatter and flatter, even you start to see clouds which tell me the great plaines are not far:

Roads also are starting to become more and more straight:

I want to TURN somewhere!!

Finaly, a few hours later, a little East of Albuquerque (New Mexico), the great plains! Bye bye the rockies.:

Cliquez pour agrandir.

Everything is flat, you can see cattle, prairie or cultivated fields. It is still pretty high, more than 4500ft... Anyways this is starting to get boring, and since it is alread 8:30pm, I stop in Amarillo, Texas for the night.
This was a good day, changed twice of timezone, 16hour on the road, about 14 hours behind the wheel!

The movers came early in the morning, so I left Riverside at 2pm, tuesday June 22th. At the end of last summer, I made myself a promise, that my first summer in Los Angeles would also be my last one. Just a few hours earlier and I would have kept it... Packed and Loaded:

I start on I-15, about 40miles, half of it up hill to pass on the other side of the San Gabriel Mountains.
Here you go, in the Mohave desert about 3000ft elevation. I look behind me one last time, mount Baldy which was part of my everyday life for 1 year 1/2. I used to see it from my balcony (like (here).

Bye bye Southern California, I am leaving with no regrets...

I-15, always in repair and with a lot of Las Vegas traffic. Half an hour later, Barstow, in the Mohave, very dry desert, almost no vegetation, color in the gray, brown and beige.

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Switching to I-40 that should lead me almost to Atlanta. Barstow, famous mainly for its solar power generator:

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After that, it is 4 to 5 more hours in the desert, going downhill untill Neeles where I cross the Colorado River and pass to Arizona. Weatherwise, this was also the hottest part of the trip, 108°F (42°C).

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In Arizona, the desert starts to change, higher elevation, more vegetation, even a forest near grand canyon. It also becomes more and more red. The plan was to see Grand Canyon early tomorrow, so I drive as close as I can and find a motel at around 9pm there..

In the motel/gas station souvenir shop, I finally found "Cactus Candy", which I wanted to try for a long time but I could not find any in California:-)

Unless you are a dentist looking for new customers, nothing to be too excited about;-)

I made it, 2250 miles (3600km), 3 days driving, 109 gallons (412 litres) og gas burnt!

I arrived in Atlanta friday afternoon, I still don't have any internet connetion in my place so I am going to post the road trip pictures little by little, starting by day 1 (the next post).

I am starting to work tomorrow monday, in Augusta Georgia, about 2hours and a half east of atlanta, where most of the engineering of my comany is located. They booked me a hotel room for the night and I could connect my laptop there.

Getting ready for "Road trip part deux", starting either tomorrow evening or wednesday at dawn...

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The red one is the one I did in January 2003, full south to avoid the midwest snow, in green is what I plan for this year, as direct as possible, mostly on interstate 40, and a small 4-hour stop to Grand Canyon. According to Yahoo Map, the total comes to 2200 miles or 33hours driving...

I'm gonna cross California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, un little bit of Tenessee, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia.
Cities: Flagstaff, Santa Fe, Amarillo, Oklahoma City, Little Rock, Memphis and Birmingham...

This blog already moved, did not wait for me. The small weather box on the side colum now indicates the current weather in Roswell, GA.

I had a very hard time to find a mover. Monday, I gave phone calls after phone calls and I pretty much got always the same answer: we are booked up till mid July :-( It seems this is a busy period for them, most people prefer to move in summer...
I was starting to worry until the 10th mover I called, after telling me the usual "booked up till July" had the good idea to propose me to put my stuff into storage until there is room in a truck to deliver it to Atlanta! Delivery should be in mid july but they would be able to pick up my stuff this week... That's sound perfect except it is more expensive.

An agent (named Pat) was assigned to my move. He came tuesday in my apartment to make an estimate of the move. Basically he wrote down every peace of furniture I had and how many boxes they would need to load (32). That's seem to go pretty well and he told me he would fax me an etimate with price and exact delivery date tomorrow (wednesday).

I am starting to be pretty happy about how things are going. I would be able to take the road on saturday, arrive in Atlanta wednesday and it will leave enough time to take care of all the stuff you need to setup when you move to a new place (cable, phone installation, car registration, etc...) since I start my new job the next monday.

On wednesday, instead of a fax, I received a phone call and Pat tells me the pickup date will be friday (perfect) and he checks the price with me over the phone. OK deal. The only thing left for him is to fax me the estimate so that I can sign it and he will be able to enter the data in the system...

Two hours later, he phones me again, telling me his supervisor just audited my estimate and he is sorry but he had to add $500 to it because he forgot a few stuff like the gas surcharge fee...
Now this is getting a little above my budget so I ask him to cut on some expenses, basically I had planned to let them pack the dishes, to save money I will now do it myself. No problem, it will cut the price about $400, he says, but he needs to make a new estimate to take that into account.

One hour later, he calls again saying he is sorry but he made a miscalculation, the $400 cut becomes a $200 cut. OK, I can live with that, please fax me the damn paperwork! This was wednesday 4:30pm, since then I have not heard of him :-(

I am waiting for the fax for the remaining of the afternoon wednesday. On thursday, I try to reach him to know what is going on. I called him every half an hour all day long, on his regular phone, cell phone, I keep having answering machines. I left messages as well...
Now it is thursday evening, I still don't know the exact time of the pickup date on friday, have not signed any paperwork yet... I start to worry but I prepare everything as if the movers were going to come tomorrow, first thing in the morning, you never know...

Friday, of course nobody comes. I try to call Pat a few more times. Still no sign of life. I then decide to call the moving company directly, explain the situation and ask to talk to Pat's manager. I manage finally to talk to his manager and she told me "Pat does not work for us anymore". What the f...? He managed to get fired before he had the time to fax me the estimate!!!!!!!!! :-(
I explained I was supposed to move today but I never received fax from Pat. She looked at my file and tells me that since I never signed and approve the estimate, my move never got into the system and she is sorry but it is too late, she cannot do anything before mid July, they are completly overbooked!!!!!!!

I really starts to be upset, tell her it is not a way to treat customers, I have to drive to Georgia next week and they just made me lose 1 week! OK, hold on, let me see what I can do, she says. She looks at my estimate, which btw was finished, just not faxed, and she tells me, "OK you don't have too many stuff so I thing I can squeeze you tuesday next week but I really can't do anything earlier than that, sorry you got caught into all this..."

That sucks, I have to stay 4 more days in Riverside, and I won't have a lot of time to drive to Atlanta! But anyways it is either that or driving to Atlanta right away, fly back to California in mid July just to move, and that will also include one more month of rent to pay here... So I am not doing so bad in the end.

I am sorry for Pat, but he did not look very efficient indeed, and I guess the mistake he did with my estimate (forgetting $500) upset his managers which was probably already unhappy with him that's why he was reviewing his estimates closely...

Earthquake near San Diego yesterday, magnitude 5.1. So please Mister San Andreas, please hold your fault a few more days. After you can destroy the whole California if you like, don't care, but please, wait till I'm gone! What's 3 or 4 more days???
I am still waiting for a confirmation from my mover but it looks like I will be able to take the road on saturday.

Before I leave Southern California for good, I made a last visit to the Pacific Ocean. In my case, it was almost a first visit too;-) I am not a beach person, I've been there just about 5 times in one year and a half! Never posted picture of the beach. So here you go in Santa Monica.

One thing I like about Santa Monica is the bike trail is actually on the beach, not between the parking lot or the street and the beach like at other places, it makes biking or skating much more enjoyable.

It's too bad I already packed my rollerblades, I would have liked to skate here one last time...

The notorious "Santa Monica Peer":

The pacific ocean:

One other good thing about Santa Monica is that smoking is forbiden on the beach there, so you will not find any cigarette butt in the sand.

Every 500feet, a lifeguard cabin. Where is Pamela Anderson dressed with her red swimming suit???

Malibu on the other side of the bay:

Well normally you could see Malibu in front of the mountain in the background, today it is hidden by the haze. Yes, 6 months a year, smog is always here to remind you that no matter what you are still in LA.....

One more thing I don't have to worry about, I found myself an apartment in Atlanta. I still can't believe how cheap housing is over there. My soon-to-be apartment is a standard 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 1,218 square foot apartment (I know, pretty comfortable:-) ). The rent is only $830!!! And it is in a very good neighboorhoud, in Roswell, GA. The apartment I am renting right now in Riverside is sligthy smaller and does not have 2 tennis court, and the rent is sill $1,100 a month. In Maryland, an apartment like this one would cost around $1,400-1,500 a month. I don't understand why it is so cheap!

The only thing I am a little concerned about is that I did not really visit it, only "virtually" on their website (http://www.grandeoaksapts.com/live/site/trlm.rz), and all was arranged by phone and fax. I may have a bad surprise once I arrive there! Anyways, all those apartment complex are built following almost the same plans and from the pictures, that looks a lot like the last apartment I had in Maryland...

And Georgia it is...
Everything went pretty quickly the last couple of weeks:
About, two weeks ago, I was contacted by a company (let's call it company B) in the Atlanta area to whom I had sent my resume earlier in May. We organized a phone interview the week before memorial day. It went fine :-)
Very luckilly, I had planned vacation in the Atlanta area for an extended memorial day week-end weeks before company B contacted me and I already had a plane ticket to Atlanta. I immediately thought, that's a good sign. Do you believe in signs? I am actually starting to... The week before I sent them my resume, I stopped at a redlight while driving and the car in front of me had Georgia plates (with the Peach). I remembered it because that is not current at all, Georgia plates in California. It was actually the first one I saw since I live here. Troubling isn't it?
Even better, last week-end as I was driving to the grocery store (the Stater Bros on Iowa Avenue in Riverside, CA to be precise), they were doing road construction and the regular road to get there was closed. I more or less followed the detour signs, left, right, left, etc.. starting to be a little lost until I make a right and realize I am on "Atlanta Avenue". Wouaw, I did not know there were an Atlanta Avenue in Riverside before. OK, I stop because I am sure you are completly freaking out right now (please stop the Twilight zone music in the background), but I guarantee you I am not making that up! Or maybe I never noticed Atlanta Avenue before cos Georgia was not on my mind at this time :-). Or more possibly, it could just be a bug in the matrix!
Anyways, I proposed them (company B) to stop by for an interview on thursday 27th. They accepted and it went well too :-)
Finally, yesterday, they gave me a very good offer that I happily accepted :-)))))!!!

Company B is truely great, very interesting work, a great working environment. In the Atlanta office, it is a small team of only engineers, about 10 people. The company is overall about 150 people. The work is also going to be more in touch with current technologies, a lot of object programming (C++), a lot of multithreading, and I am even going to do some IPv6 work. I was starting to be a little concerned to do so much traditional programming in C and sometimes I felt I am in the same situation as a Cobol or Fortran programmer 15 years ago. In this industry, everything moves so fast, you have to be constently careful not to get yourself distanced... IMO, if you don't have object programming experience nowadays, you are going to be in trouble within 5 years or it is going to be much more difficult to find a job if you want to move on.
The company is small but profitable and it seems very well managed. The people I met there were very nice and laid-back. You can tell right away that this is a company that treats well its employees. For instance, in this company you have 4 weeks vacation the first year of employment, 5 weeks a year from the second to the fifth year of employment and 6 weeks after that! Do you know anyone in this country that has 6 weeks vacation a year (except George W. Bush of course) ;-) ? Pretty unusual.
Actually, I found people in this area (Roswell, Georgia, about 20 miles north of Downtown Atlanta, in the heart of high-tech area of Atlanta) in general a lot more friendly and more relaxed than in Southern California.
It is true it is very nice. I used to love living in Maryland (Montgomery county) before I went to southern California and I found in Roswell everything I liked about Maryland, the green, friendly people, the green, sometimes the feeling you live in a forest, the green, this almost "country side" feeling you can get at some places even though you are 30 minutes from downtown Washington DC and still have all the convenience of a major city, and also did I mention it is very green? Well, Roswell is like that, only better, greener, much more affordable (you can get a pretty decent house in the 200K-250K range there), and I would also guess that winter does not suck as much as in Maryland which is 600 miles up north ;-)

I really was tired of living in the trashy hellhole that Riverside, California is. After 18 months living there I came to this conclusion: living in the desert is not nice. Duh?
And I never really connected with people there, mostly a mix of:

• southern California trailer trash kind
• superficial, turn the head on the side when crossing someone that does not look like a hollywood star or that is not rich enough (or even both)
• stressed people commuting everyday to LA on those rotten freeways (1 hour 15 minutes one way, god bless them)
• Junkies
• tramps
• etc...

Where are the normal people there?

So needless to say, I did not hesitate for long before accepting the offer. I will not miss my current company either for sure (let's call it company A). I must find the motivation to hold till the end of next week! Well I will miss my work buddies B.... and J...., but that is pretty much it!
Now I can say that going there was the biggest mistake I made in my whole life. At least I learned to make the difference between a good company and a bad one, a good manager and a bad one, etc... Sometimes, you see what you have only when you lose it!
The problem with people my age (28), is that we started in the golden age of the industry and thought that all the crazy stuff that was happening at this time was normal... I started in the beginning of 2000 at Ericsson in Maryland, when everything was great. All the high-tech companies were just throwing away loads of money to their employees, desperatly trying to keep them on board, doing anything and what not to make them happy: company week-end gateways fully paid by the company for its employees and their family, flexible work hours "come to work at noon if it pleases you", some companies even allowing their employees to bring their dog at work (this is still the case for google btw), etc...
When things progressively started to suck, of course there were a big setback, project cancelation, layoffs and other cost cutting measures implemented very fast, not to mention the big confusion (almost panic) in the highest level of the management at Ericsson in Stockohlm about what exactly do to survive. All that made me (and many others too) very unhappy. But what I learned the hard way, and I actually realized it only three months after I joined company A, is that it could be even worse! I don't regret to have left Ericsson though, I was not too interested anymore in the work there and I may have been laid off anyways, but I really regret to have ever joined company A and I could not be happier to leave it. To be fair, I have to admit that I added a few good stuffs to my skillset in company A but it was everything but fun.

I have not felt more confident about my future and more relaxed for a long time. Now I just have to find an apartment and a mover. Stay tuned.

Since my printer is dead and I am going to replace it soon, I was investigating about buying one of those all in one printers that can send and receive faxes as well. I kind of need to be able to receive faxes in a more confidential way that by using the fax at the office...

A guy at work told me to try efax and I am happy he did! You sign up for an account, give them your email address and they give you a personnal fax number. Each time a fax is sent to this number, they automatically send you an email with the received fax as an attachement!!! Isn't that great? The trick with efax is not to sign up on efax.com because you have to pay around $10 a month I believe but to go to monster.com which gives efax service for free...
The thing is that with the free service, the fax number may be in any area code, depends where they have numbers available. My new fax number is in the 928 area code which is in Yuma, Arizona:-). For a local or a toll free fax number, you must pay. Anyway I find surprising already they can survive by not making people pay for the basic service, a personnal phone number, it is not cheap?!?!?!?!

A short note since I just got the news. For people who know what I am talking about:
For A......, it is OK:-)
For the other ones, the explanation will come in 2 or 3 days, sorry!

The National register of big trees 2004/2005 was just released: http://www.americanforests.org/resources/bigtrees/register.php.
The 889 "champion trees" in the US, classified by specy. You can get size and location, some of them have their pictures available on the site too.

The biggest tree in the US (as a matter of fact in the world) is still "General Sherman", a Giant Sequoia in California Sequoia National Park: Circumference: 1020 inches (25.9m), Height: 274 feet (83.5m), Spread: 107 feet (32.6m). No doubt very impressive, the largest living thing on earth. My favorite tree though is still the Live Oak (Quercus Virginiana), and the biggest one is located in Louisiana, here is its picture:

Circumference: 439 inches (11.15m), Height: 55 feet (16.7m), Spread: 132 feet (40.2m). Almost three times as wide as high!