Friday, September 28, 2007

Working instead of blogging

There are still more vacation updates to be posted, but I just haven’t gotten around to it.  Believe it or not, I actually enjoy my new job more than blogging! *gasp* It’s kind of a weird feeling really. It’s been an awesome Friday.  I got my first paycheck, the company provided lunch to everyone along with some birthday cake, I got my parking pass, and I got to blow up some coworkers playing Halo 3 in the Xbox lounge. Okay I’m not really any good. They blew me up more than anything else, but it was still fun. If you’re going to get blown to bits, it might as well be on an HD plasma big-screen!

Monday, September 24, 2007

First Day at the new job!

We interrupt my day-by-day how-my-vacation-went report to bring you this piece of current news!

Friday was my last day at the old job, and today is the first day at my new job! Very exciting let me tell you. I like first days at new jobs. Even though I’m meeting all sorts of people I’ll never remember, I get to see what kind of computer I’ll be using, I get to customize my desktop and shortcuts, find out what programs they use, and best of all, there’s never any actual work that needs to be done.

There are already some improvements over the previous job—the computer is much faster and not bogged down with so many security measures, slow network connections and other limitations caused by overly bloated IT management. They gave me a 19” LCD monitor too. My last job I had to get a freaking doctor’s note to make them order me an LCD monitor to replace the aging and massive CRT monitor, and even then they only gave me a 17” because it was cheaper. I hate working with tightwad management.

As they were giving me a tour of the place, they showed me a brand new lounge that they built this year… it’s got a massive plasma screen TV in there connected to an Xbox 360 and wireless controllers. Imagine how big my eyes got when I saw it. Now that’s a lounge!

I’m still getting to know the people here.  So far everyone is friendly, but we’ll see if they stay that way later as their true spots start to show. I still have a nice window seat, although the view has changed quite a bit. I used to have a 13th floor view facing the ocean:

No really, it is facing the ocean. Look carefully (click for bigger view)... see that slight shine at the horizon just above the industrial sprawl of the oil refinery? That’s the ocean! Beautiful huh? Okay, so I couldn’t really claim “ocean views”. At least the park was nice to look at. Now I’m down on the 2nd floor with a fantastic view of… the parking garage. Oh well, who cares. It’s not like I live here.

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Friday, September 21, 2007

Cancun Day 5: Adventure in Xcaret

Up until now the vacation had been fairly low-key. All that changed on Tuesday when we scheduled the first (and most expensive) of the free trips that we’d earned from listening to the timeshare thing.  Xcaret (I hear the locals pronounce it “esh-caRET") is a theme park of sorts—not the kind with rides and roller-coasters. The best way I can describe it is that it is part zoo and part water park, with some Mayan cultural flair.

The part I was most excited about was snorkeling through some underground caves.

The brochures made it sound like it would be amazing. It was very disappointing actually. These weren’t actual caves. They were man-made tunnels and there was barely anything at all to look at. Just a lot of rough-textured concrete trying to look like a cave wall. Towards the end where the ocean fed into the stream there a few fish here and there, but that was it. The worst part was we had to rent the mask, snorkel and towel! You’d think they would be included in the cost of entry.

All the neat stuff cost extra, like swimming with dolphins or a snorkel tour that actually included things to look at. One thing we did decide to pay extra for was called Sea Trek. You wear one of these helmet things that sits on your shoulders. A tube runs from it up to a floating air compressor to keep it pressurized and full of air. It’s a little freaky and so completely cool I can’t seem to get over it. The weight of it sinks you to the bottom, allowing you to walk across the ocean floor. I totally felt like a spaceman walking on the moon. It was $45 extra per person (ouch!) but worth it, at least once. There were guys in scuba gear to guide everyone and make sure no one was freaking out. There were handrails down there that we held onto as we walked along their designated path, and at one point one of the scuba guys opened up some fish food and attracted huge smarms of tropical fish. It was awesome. Had I known it was this awesome I would have bought an underwater camera, if only just to capture ourselves on film looking like aquanauts. So unfortunately there’s no photo of this slice of awesomeness.

There were a lot of free things to look at, like tapirs, spider monkeys, and these jaguars:

There was also a butterfly farm. The big ones were everywhere and would often land on you. Here’s one next to a dead leaf. This particular one has camoflage with eye-spots that make it look like an owl when its weings are spread:

Inside the butterfly enclosure was this beautiful waterfall:

There were also a few wild things running loose in the park. We saw lots of birds, a couple of feral cats and this guy:

The park also had a few Mayan ruins laying around. Here’s me pretending to be a rabbit coming out of its Mayan ruin hole:

And if you aren’t water-logged yet, you can always spend some time in their lagoon:

By the end of the day we were exhausted, from both the heat and the physical activity. All we could do was sit back and enjoy the scenery…

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Cancun Day 4: Checking out the locals

Actually we were checking out their wares, not them. Heh. Big difference. There’s a huge club scene at Cancun, but we were totally not interested in getting drunk, dancing with strangers, or getting hit on by gross people. We’re more about browsing through shops, seeing sights, and eating authentic food.

There wasn’t a whole lot I needed for myself, just a nice souvanir tank top to remember the trip. Oh, and sunglasses to replace the ones I misplaced somewhere in Mexico. But there were a bunch of people we wanted to buy gifts for. My mom, a couple coworkers, my sweety’s nephews. My sister and her two babies are visiting my mom this week from Houston, so I got something for them too, for when I drive down to see them this weekend.

There are a lot of things we discovered about these shops. They may be in a flea market environment, but damn do they charge a lot of money for their wares! Cancun is expensive, very much a tourist trap. After all, that is their entire industry. Luckily we went during one of their slow seasons, so the shopkeepers were much more willing to bargain down their prices. If you can go with a charismatic people-person like my sweety, then you let them do the talking. Another thing about these shops is they all pretty much have the same inventory. You’ll see the same cowboy hats, shot glasses, blankets and jewelery everywhere. There is some variation, but chances are good if you can’t find a good price for the thing you want in one place, you will someplace else.

One of the weirder things I saw for sale were aprons with some penis-related phrase on the front. You lift up the top layer of cloth and there’s a big ol’ stuffed johnson hanging under there. I actually saw a topless lady wearing it at the hotel, out by the “sexy pool”, showing it off to people. I guess there is a market for it!  Sorry, forgot to take a picture.

One place had a cart full of what looked like little dolls. You look closer and they’re actually hot sauce cozies.

Although the buffet restaurant at our hotel was okay, it wasn’t great. It’s typical buffet food prepared en masse. You can’t go on a trip to Mexico and not have at least one meal with some authentic Mexican cuisine! That would just be wrong. So we found this place where the food looked yummy and chowed down like a couple of starving tourists (well we were).

And finally, the towel art of the day:

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Cancun Day 3: Getting to know the place

Since Day 2 was spent mostly getting to know some other place (so we could get free stuff!), the third day was a leisurely unplanned day where we wandered around the resort to see what they had available to us. Most of the time was spent in the pool and on the beach. I had no interest in getting a tan by baking under the sun like drying laundry. People who do that habitually will eventually have a lot of sun damage on their skin and look 10 years older. Everywhere we went we carried our bottle of tropical-scented SPF 70 sunblock.

Could I use some color? Sure, but I figure I’ll eventually get a bit of a tint from just wandering around. Here’s one picture my sweety took while I went to go see how warm the water was on the beach.

Note the vampirically pale white legs.

The sand is amazing. I’m told that it’s made of white coral so it never gets hot. It’s an incredibly fine powder, nothing like the coarse rock-based sand along the California coast. Even in the middle of the day, with the sun at full strength, the sand is still cool to the touch. I want to insulate my house with this stuff.

We discovered that housekeeping likes to leave behind cute “towel art” pieces on the bed after they tidy up the room. They take your used towels and replace them with clean towels, but instead of putting them in the bathroom, they twist them into adorable little shapes. We didn’t get any the day before because we had the Do Not Disturb sign out, but when they finally did make up our room the first time, we got a swan:

Towel oragami is so cool, and soooo much harder than paper oragami. I unraveled one and attempted to put it back into its original form, only to fail miserably.  You have to be able to roll the towel tight and neat enough for it to retain its shape. Bravo to the housekeepers!

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Cancun Day 2: Visiting a timeshare to get free stuff

While we were at the airport, there were tons of timeshare reprentatives trying to get you to go visit their properties. I’m not sure if they were from different resorts or all from the same one. They were all dressed alike, so it seemed like the same one. We decided to listen to one of these smooth-talkers, not because we were interested or anything, but because they were giving away free tours if you go visit them. These trips easily cost $100 or so per person for the high end ones, or $50 for the cheaper ones. We managed to wangle the most expensive trip out of them plus a less expensive one in return for visiting the Mayan Palace. They would pick us up from our hotel, drive us to their resort, give us free buffet breakfast, a tour of the place, and then talk our ears off in an attempt to sell us something. They promised it would take about 90 minutes of our time, not including the shuttle ride.

After an uneventful 45-minute drive, we arrived at the impressive grand entrance to the Mayan Palace. They aren’t actually in Cancun, it was in the Mayan Riviera farther south. They were still building it out, but it was still very pretty. The tour started with a questionnaire where the resort representative tries to get information out of you about your vacationing habits, expectations, and other things to use against you later. Then we were led to the buffet breakfast hut. I use the term “hut” loosely only because it looked like a straw-covered roof, but it was huge. Just look at it from our table:

Here’s the view we enjoyed while we were eating:

Afterwards they took us on a physical tour of the property where we got to see many of the beautiful things they have to offer, like their expansive pool:

We got to see their VIP suites and all the things we would get if we were to buy from them. The view from the balcony looked like this:

Everything was very pleasant, but then came the dreaded sales pitch. They sat us down in an air-conditioned room full of other potential victims and started their shpiel. They were amicable, but extremely persistent. The rep was friendly enough, but then he called one of his comrades over after he couldn’t get a yes out of us. This guy was pushy with a capital P. He tried to get us to admit the real reasons why we wouldn’t buy, then tried to reason why were being idiots for passing up their offer. When we finally convinced him that he had no chance with us, he actually got mad! We said sorry, to which he replied, “Don’t feel sorry for me, I just live here.” I’m not sure exactly what he meant by that, but he was extremely rude.

We don’t care though, because him being an asshole didn’t change the fact that they still owed us four tickets to some very nice attractions. More on those later!

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Cancun you believe it?

I am back from vacation! (I left on Friday 9/7 and came back on Friday 9/14.) The most surprising part, other than how clean the city was, was the leisurely pace that time went by while we were there. Most of my weekends whiz past in a blink and I’m back to work again, but this past week seemed to drift by like a meandering brook. There was a lot to see and a lot to talk about, so rather than trying to squeeze a condensed recap into one post, I’m going to stretch it out and describe each day we were there. These sorts of vacations don’t happen often for folks like you and me, so I’m going to help you experience it vicariously here.

DAY 1
The flight is approximately 5 hours. We were on Alaskan Airlines. What a huge disappointment. At my last job I had a coworker who was somewhat fanatical about Alaskan Airlines, so we decided to give it a try and see how great it was. It wasn’t. The seats were totally the wrong shape for my back, you had to buy lunch from them, and their version of in-flight entertainment were portable digital movie players you had to rent for $10! Very lame. It made me wonder how dated the airplane was. The important thing was we arrived safely and our luggage did too.

I was surprised that the tube walkway thing they use to connect the plane’s exit to the gate was air conditioned. It was a nice welcome because I was expecting a blast of heat. The Cancun airport was pristine. We learned later that they built out two new terminals after hurricane Wilma in order to accommodate any need for mass evacuations. We got the expected blast of heat as soon as we went outside. It was late afternoon so the sun was a little weaker, but it was still fairly hot. Lots of humidity too. We took a shuttle to the Blue Bay Getaway resort (you share it with others, but it’s cheaper than a taxi).

Check-in was easy. The lobby was all shiny and pretty. The room was slightly disappointing. A little plain, but definitely clean. The beds were hard and the pillows felt like they were made of rolled up towels. The hotel-provided lotion left my hands feeling sticky and smelling of cheap, nasty perfume. But overall the plusses outweighed the minuses. I mean, look at the view from our balcony:

The air conditioning was very strong, which is important when you’re seeking refuge after a day frolicking in the hot sun. One of the more interesting perks was Channel 12 on the TV. Free porn all day long! I told you earlier this was an adults-only resort, so they’re able to offer stuff like this without worrying about an inappropriate audience. Awesome, yes?

We were given these fairly indestructible wristbands to wear for the duration of the trip. It served as proof that you were a hotel guest so you can wander anywhere in the hotel for unlimited food and drinks without having to flash a card or anything. This is nice when all you’re wearing is a swimsuit with no pockets.

Dinner this evening was spent in their main buffet restaurant. The variety was really good, though the quality of the food itself was often hit or miss. Anything that might be nasty after it’s been on a heating table for awhile was best left alone, unless they just set out a fresh pan. But overall the large number of food choices available won me over. You were bound to find something you liked.

That pretty much sumarrizes our first day. There wasn’t much camera activity, but I promise more photos later!

Thursday, September 06, 2007

I can't stop grinning

My life is like the stock market, full of highs and lows. A couple weeks ago I was feeling down and unmotivated. This week… I’m all “Wooo hooooo!” like that Offspring song with guitars growling in the background and everything… or was that Green Day? Ehh… I don’t remember. *shrug*

Point is I’m walking like I’ve got industrial strength mattress coils in my shoes! I’ve faxed in my official acceptance of the job offer, turned in my letter of resignation to my bosses, and now my days at this place are finally numbered. Six working days left, including today.

Why so few? Aren’t I supposed to give two weeks notice? I did, but all next week I’m going to be in sunny (and likely rainy) Cancun! (Why do I now hear that “La Cucaracha” song in the background? I’m firing the DJ in my head if this keeps up.) Funny how the timing ended up this way. I planned this trip way back in May, and this job happens to pop up one week beforehand. Not that I’m complaining, heehee! I’m all smiles. I won’t even mind having to get up at 4am tomorrow so we have enough time to jump through all the circus hoops at the airport.

Speaking of which, I know I’ll have to take off my shoes. No liquids or gels allowed in carry-ons unless it’s tiny doses of medication. Ehh… what else? Any other tips? Laptops are still allowable, right? I better look this stuff up. Anyone have any tips? I haven’t flown in a while. Hey I’m bouncing again. There seem to be springs in this chair as well. Boing boing wheee!

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

A job offer!

Yesterday I went to an interview, not expecting a whole lot.  The job description was asking for someone with 1-2 years of experience, which told me they weren’t looking to hire someone too expensive. I’d never heard of this company, and doubted they would be willing to pay for someone with 10 years of experience.

Boy was I wrong. I talked to this salesman-like person first, who asked what I was getting at my current job and then outlined what the company could offer.  Then I talked to the Art Director and we discussed me and the job itself. He was laid back and very nice.  I found out later that the first guy was a technical recruiter who was working for them part time. No wonder. Those people are such smooth-talkers it’s creepy sometimes. Good thing I don’t have to worry about working for him.

Anyway, I finished the interview and thought it went well. How well? Get this—2.5 hours later, just as I was leaving the office, I get a call from RecruiterMan asking me if I’d like to take the job. Imagine my stunned reaction. “Wh- Whuh… Really?” I asked him how long he would give me to decide. He told me five minutes. I laughed and said I was waiting on a response from another company (the Experian-owned company I mentioned in a previous post). So then he asks me what it would take to get me to say yes.

I only see this stuff on TV, y’know? This was so surreal to me. I mean, I had to wait six freakin’ months just to get the job I have now! Now here’s this guy who wants to hire me, asking me what it would take. Leave it to a recruiter who’s chomping at the bit for his commission to make a web developer with slightly outdated skills feel like a hot commodity.

Anyway… money. It’s the first thing that pops into my head. I tell him that the high figure he quoted during the interview would probably be enough. Not only did he accept that, he tacked on an extra $3000 to it just to make sure I would be happy. This means my salary would jump up by $8000. I could definitely live with that.

I was in shock. I couldn’t stop grinning the whole drive home. I just got offered a job that pays better, on the same day I got interviewed! Is this for real? I did a little more research about the company, just to make sure that it wasn’t a little mom-n-pop shop that will fold in a few years. I found out that the company is four years old, has 75 employees, and the CEO/Chairman is the son of a billionaire. Funding is no problem at all, so that bit of worry is lifted.

The following morning I was emailed the official offer letter, stating everything that was verbally agreed upon. It was official. They wanted me. As far as this company is concerned, I am a hot commodity. Touch me and you might hear some sizzling noises. TSSSSSS!

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Ready to vacate

Remember way back when I mentioned we had planned a trip to Cancun? Well it’s this week!  This Friday actually.  So I’ve got a three day work week (the best kind of work week, don’t you think?) Friday we have an early non-stop flight down to vacationland and we’ll be there a full week, woohoo!

We’re a bit concerned about hurricanes because, when we had made the reservations, we weren’t aware that it was hurricane season. I had read information on it, but there were conflicting reports. Most of them said it was over by end of August, but I guess they were wrong. It’s $100 extra per ticket to change the flight (that’s seriously messed up, I could buy a whole other ticket almost!) so we’re not changing the plans. Hurricane Felix is the latest one that might affect us, but predictions are saying it’ll weaken significantly once it hits land, and it shouldn’t reach Cancun at all. Rain we don’t mind. It’s been so damn dry around here. The weather report was showing rain across most of the U.S., and we’re sitting here staring at the little pink patch of 100-degree temperatures in Southern California. Gah. We’ve been huddled around the AC for most of the weekend.

Anyway, it’ll be weird to be out of the country for an entire week. I haven’t been on a real vacation in years!

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