Road trip

I'm currently enjoying a short layover in Portland, Oregon, before I make my major foray southward. Here's a quick review of how things have gone thus far:

Day one
From: Chicago, IL (departed 11:30 am)
To: Minneapolis, MN (arrived 9 pm)
Distance: 400 miles

Stops:
1- Went to the bathroom and picked up some Red Bull (just over the Illinois-Wisconsin border)
2- Visited with my former penpal in Madison, WI for awhile, walking over to the terrace on the lake and enjoying gorgeous weather (she had beer, I had an iced mocha).
2.5- Less than an hour out of Madison, pulled over by a cop for going 81 in a 65. I was cooperative, apologetic, and--the key--a bit tearful, and he had a change of heart and gave me a warning instead. Score.
3- Another pit stop to get some gas. Seems my truck's gas tank holds quite a bit more than does the one in my Jeep.

Lessons learned:
1. Tears work
2. So does espresso (for staying alert, not for getting out of tickets... well, that's an experiment I have yet to try, anyway)
3. Trucker's arm is tres sexy (but wear sunscreen next time, just for the hell of it)
4. Can drive and look at maps at the same time

Day two
From: Minneapolis, MN (departed 1:30 pm)
To: Dickinson, ND (arrived 11:30 pm)
Distance: 550 miles

Stops:
1- Suddenly looked down and noticed the fuel indicator pointing at E. Oh shit. Filled up the tank and almost fell over when I saw the price. (eastern Minnesota)
2- Fargo, ND: just thought I'd have a look around. It's a cute town. Favorite part: the six protesters in front of the courthouse protesting the filibuster (realized I haven't really been paying attention to the news recently, as I had no idea what they were referring to)
3- Somewhere west of Fargo, ND: stopped for gas and food. Noticed as I went to remove the gas cap that it wasn't there: I'd left it on the ground at the last gas station (it's not attached to the truck the way it should be, that little rubber string is just hanging there). Had to hunt around for 45 minutes to find a replacement: was forced to make a purchase at Walmart. It doesn't really fit, but at least it stays on.

Lessons learned:
1. Always remember the gas cap (but if you forget and drive 250 miles without it, you'll probably be ok)
2. My truck should have a gas light
3. Somehow taught foot to act as substitute cruise control
4. North Dakota's a lot prettier than I'd expected, all rolling green hills. Also I saw one of the most beautiful sunsets, and there was light in the sky until close to midnight. Sure, complain about the flatness of the landscape, but you don't get sunsets like that in the mountains
5. Forgot to wear sunscreen again

Day three
From: Dickinson, ND (departed 10 am)
To: Missoula, MT (arrived 9 pm)
Distance: 650 miles

Stops:
1- Painted Valley lookout in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, on the western side of North Dakota. Talk about unexpected after 800 miles of farmland.
2- Billings, MT: it's amazing how much you can see of a town while you're looking around for a Taco Bell.
3- Livingston, MT: cute little town at the northern entrance to Yellowstone. One movie theater that shows one movie at 7 pm every night. Made me wish I had the time to stop there and hang around for the night.

Lessons learned:
1. After driving 650 miles, you need a beer.
2. Or two.
3. I had one of the best burgers I've ever had at a bar in Missoula: my theory is that it's because they'd killed the cow that morning (I passed a few cows during my drive through Montana).

Day four
From: Missoula, MT (departed 9:30 am after a stop at the first Starbucks I'd seen in awhile)
To: Portland, OR (arrived 7:30 pm)
Distance: 550 miles

Stops:
1- Took a picture of the Welcome to Idaho sign, because I've never seen one so dramatic. Most such signs are on a bit of straight road and look pretty unimpressive, but this one was next to a road that curves away along the side of a mountain, so behind the sign there's a steep drop-off and then trees and mountains on the far side of the canyon. You feel like entering Idaho actually means you'll be in a different place, not just ten feet away from where you are.
2- Wallace, ID: Another cute little mountain town.
3- Spokane, WA: stopped at Gonzaga to buy Brendan and Becky's wedding present (just kidding, Becky), then hunted around for another Taco Bell (bonus #1 of driving alone: there's no one around to get pissed off when I go out of my way to find Taco Bell... two days in a row) and then another Starbucks (I need that caffeine, and soda just isn't a reliable source).
4- Connell, WA: Now that's a one-horse town. The supermarket was slightly larger than a 7-Eleven.

Lessons learned:
1. Idaho is freaking spectacular up there: Coeur d'Alene was so beautiful I don't think I shut my mouth the entire time I was driving around it.
2. And then I entered Washington. The only dull stretch of my entire trip.
3. Thankfully, as soon as I got to Oregon I was driving along the Columbia River, which eventually became gorgeous (there were even waterfalls, and I loves me a good waterfall).
4. Beer is really good after only 550 miles of driving, too.

Tomorrow I head out for San Francisco, which will be another long day, Santa Cruz the day after that (kind of an easy day, that one), and then home to Los Angeles and my new apartment on Sunday. Where I'll have to say goodbye to Patty "The Badass" Penske truck. But not yet.

Everything is falling into place

So, I'm about to take another week and a half hiatus from blogging, as I leave tomorrow for Chicago and my last chance at travel for awhile. It's gonna be awesome. I'm flying to Chicago via Southwest, after which flight I will definitely need a friggin' drink (long Southwest flights make me want to claw my eyes out... I was totally spoiled by all those recent international flights). Thankfully, as soon as I get in, I'm going straight to a bar to meet a few friends. Thursday and Friday will be more of the same, plus breaking into my old apartment to take inventory of what's still in a condition to be worth bringing back to LA and hopefully packing said items. And when I say 'breaking in,' I mean 'walking through the unlocked back door'--it was locked maybe twice the entire time I lived in that apartment and both times I was blamed for the fact that my roommate had to crawl in through the window next to the door. Saturday I pick up the truck I rented from Penske (my ultra-cool yellow 'Ske and me are going to take this country by storm) and load it up with the help of whatever poor soul I conned into agreeing to do this for free. Saturday night, more alcohol-aided meet-and-greet, and then Sunday morning I head out going north. Hopefully I won't be too hung over.

First stop: Madison, Wisconsin, and lunch with the girl who was my pen pal growing up who I haven't seen since the last time I was in Madison, about two years ago. After lunch it's off to St. Paul, Minnesota, where I'm staying with a girl I knew in grad school and her husband: very much looking forward to seeing them as well, as they have the distinction of being two of the most cheerful people I've ever met.

And after I leave St. Paul: I drive for three days straight across Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, and Washington to Portland, Oregon. I hear it's beautiful country, and hopefully I'll find a couple of cute podunk towns in which to spend the night (unlikely off an interstate highway... will I get up the courage to leave the certainty of Taco Bell behind? All this and more in my next post!). It's going to be a long three days, though. Then visiting friends and family in Portland for a day or two, then down to San Francisco (another long drive) to visit more friends that I haven't and won't see for awhile, and finally home to Los Angeles a week after I left Chicago. And once I get there, I...

...wait for it...

...am moving into my new apartment! That's right, ladies and gentlemen, I will be living in an apartment reasonably close to civilization, rather than at the end of a mile of winding road. When I give people directions, it will take less than 30 seconds! And I won't be giving up any of the comforts of home: free parking, check. Hot tub, check. Balcony, check. Deck to lie out on, check check (this place has a rooftop deck, so it's possible to get sun for more than an hour and a half each day). Own bathroom, check. Dishwasher, check. Close to a decent route to the valley (so I can commute to work without too much hassle), check. All for a very reasonable rent in West Hollywood, between Sunset and Santa Monica. And I'll have all my things back from Chicago: my clothes, my DVD's (I've really missed my DVD's), my duvet, my couch, my papasan chair. I feel a sigh of contentment coming on just thinking about it.

So where did I find this gem of an apartment? How? Who was I sleeping with? By complete coincidence, I was talking about my new job and the start date (June 1) while I was at work at Starbucks a week ago, and one of the people I was working with asked if I had a place to live, as she was going to have a half-empty apartment on her hand starting June 1. (I wasn't sleeping with her, as it happens.) It started off as a joke, but the more we talked about it, the more we liked the idea of me moving in. I came by and had a look, loved it, did a few financial calculations to determine if I could actually afford it, and we shook on it a couple days later. Bonus: I have all this friggin' furniture and she has none, so as soon as I arrive in LA, I have somewhere to put everything.

So now I have the job, the apartment... all I need is a new car to complete the material trifecta. Y'know, I was approached recently by someone who wanted to buy mine...

Happy (Belated) Cinco de Mayo

I'm not sure I've ever paid any attention to this particular reason to drink, as school generally prevented it, but it didn't this year, by God, and so I had big plans involving lots of margaritas and nachos.

And then there's what I actually did: saw Better Than Ezra perform (that's number four) at the Roxy on Sunset, and as expected, they totally rocked. You know it's been a good concert when you're hoarse and dripping sweat 3 feet from a stage where an audience member is up there with the band banging the shit out of a cowbell (and totally kicking ass, too). And the opening band, Ingram Hill, was damn good as well. And then I went home and watched the O.C. episodes that I'd taped. With a few snacks from Taco Bell. Mmm.

I've had birthdays that weren't half as good.

Sunday night TV rocks

Family Guy:
I had to bottle up the laughter so I could hear what came next. I think there were tears.

American Dad:
Also damn funny, but would be better if it wasn't, like, right after Family Guy. Drawing comparisons is inevitable and it was distracting.

"Now THAT guy got canned!"

So now that I have an actual small salary to complain about coming my way, I can turn my attention to making the most of my final days in food service. Having decided that giving notice is for pussies, I've begun brainstorming ways to piss off some of my favorite categories of customers:

To the groups of kids that order 8 different kinds of frappucinos so that we have to actually make them all separately:
Tell them we're out, and give them directions to Coffee Bean down the street. (Actually that'll just piss off the people in Coffee Bean, but at least it'll get rid of the kids.)

To the people who ask for a particular piece of cake or something out of the pastry case:
Try it. Announce loudly that it's kind of stale.

To the people who pay for a small cup of coffee with a fifty:
Start counting out change from smallest to largest, using lots of painstaking mental arithmetic. "Let's see, that's... thirty-three ones, plus three fives is... 37, 42, 47... wait, um, like... ok, 48. Let's see, I think I'm out of quarters, but I should have enough nickels and dimes... would you like a bag for all this?"
(Bonus: remarkably efficient way to piss off large numbers of people behind them in line, too)

To the people on their cell phones:
Zone out until they're waving their arms to get attention. Say wasn't sure they were talking to me.

To the people who ask for a cup of ice water:
Hand them mine. Tell them it tastes funny.

To the asshole who thought I was gypping him on his coffee purchase:
Fill the cup all the way up to the top. Don't snap the lid on. Be all "I told you so" when he finds out the burned way why we don't do that.

To the low talkers:
Yell. Someone has to lead by example.

To the parents who subject us to their indecisive children:
Constantly question the child on whether or not they're sure they want a piece of cake. Once a definitive choice has been made, tell their parent about its nutritional content.

To the grown adults who can't make up their minds either:
Ignore them entirely and start taking orders from the people behind them in line. Try to insert a lot of playful banter so can look irritated when the person skipped interrupts to try to get served. (Hmm, may also work for cell phone talkers...)

To the grown adults who only have their minds made up until right after they've paid for their order (what did you think that process meant?!) and then decide they're not in a latte mood and would rather go for a frappucino:
One word: firebomb.

Update

I realize I've been pretty quiet of late: a friend I'd met in Hong Kong was staying with me a few days and we kept ourselves pretty busy getting out and seeing the sights. I love having guests, it gives you permission to do all your favorite things in a city. In my case, that meant going to In N Out, CPK and BJ's, going out on the Sunset Strip (that was my first time, too), generally just going out a lot in general. She left this morning for San Francisco, and life seems really dull right about now (also the local Fox affiliate fucked up and The O.C. wasn't on and there's no point in even having Thursdays if The O.C. isn't on).

But while she was here, I had another interview--I was finally able to get in touch with the woman from the direct marketing and set up an interview for Monday afternoon after work. And as I was driving out there, I got a call from a recruiter asking for a phone interview on Friday. This was a company to which I'd sent my resume several weeks ago, and had kind of given up because I hadn't heard anything. I think my new motto is going to be "try not to look surprised," because that's become a rather consistent problem these days.

I'm looking forward to the phone interview tomorrow, because it would probably involve a job in Chicago, but I'm not ridiculously psyched about it. Because...

...I got a job.

I found out on Tuesday night that I'd been sent an offer letter by the direct marketing agency. The job is entry-level--account coordinator--paying a reasonable salary plus full benefits. I start June 1st.

Initially I hadn't been all that excited about a job there, but the more I think about it the more perfect I think this is for me. It's a direct marketing agency, so I'll learn how the business works. I'll be entry-level, but that's appropriate given my lack of experience: I have a lot to learn when it comes to project management and client interfacing, and this will let me get in slowly. It's a smaller company, which means I'll have more opportunities for filling different roles with respect to project execution. If the salary isn't exactly as high as I'd like, it's higher than it would be at an ad agency, and it'll go up pretty fast. One of my interviewers said that I could expect to be promoted after 6 months (I'll be I can do it in 4) to assistant account executive, and then full ae a year after that, and salary goes up every time. And at the end of the day, if I don't like it, employment is at will and I can leave to go somewhere else.

What this means for life as I know it: now that I'll be earning an actual salary, I have a fair amount of debt to start paying off. Credit cards from my trip, school loans, all that fun stuff. Shit. Guess I'll be living at home for awhile yet. It also means that, since I think I'll be in CA for awhile, I need to go get my stuff in Chicago and bring it back. And that means: road trip! Am still in the process of planning it, but since this'll be the last time I travel for awhile, I think I'm going to take the scenic route and make a few stops along the way. Very excited about that.

Also, I think it's about time I replaced that picture of my 16 year-old self on my driver's license...

The search continues

Truth be told, I'm pretty happy at Starbucks. No, I'm not planning on staying there forever, but my job search efforts have been, admittedly, somewhat half-assed. I do it when it's convenient, or when something falls into my lap, and somehow these methods appear to have a much higher return on investment. This perception does make sense, when I think about it: you're more likely to get a response when you submit your resume through personal contacts than otherwise, and since that way also happens to be easiest (a bit of conversation and emailing your resume, no cover letter required... I can do that), that's what I do more than anything else. I also get job listings sent to me everyday by my undergraduate institution (Annenberg has a kickass career services department), and every so often something on there sparks my interest and I apply for it as well. And I tend to apply for these jobs and then forget about them, so I'm really surprised when I get a call for an interview, the way I did today. It feels like a gift, like it just came out of nowhere.

Today's call was from a direct marketing agency. The position is that of a coordinator, which is entry level, but I would be working in direct marketing. This is very exciting to me, as I haven't had too many responses from resumes sent in for such jobs (save American Express, another heartbreaker). Also it's on the agency side as opposed to the client side, which is very attractive to me. The only downside is the place is located in the Valley. The fact that I don't really know where their city is is not a good sign; I looked it up and it's at the west end of the Valley. Using the oh-so-scientific method of fixing my fingers on the map and then moving them over to compare, I determined that it's slightly closer to my house than Pasadena, where I'm used to commuting. Downside: have to pass by the 405. Yech. Also, no pretty view of downtown and the ocean over Eagle Rock from the 134. I can't think of a nicer stretch of freeway in the LA area (and we've got quite a bit).

Anyway, when I returned the call the woman who called me had already left, so I'll try again tomorrow. I got a couple of other leads today, too: the girl I know at Campbell-Ewald said one of my interviewers had recommended that I meet with the top guy there when he gets back; he's been travelling for work for the last 2 weeks. Also another local ad agency is looking for an account executive, which I heard about through a friend of a friend and she said I could use her name, which was very nice of her. So I'm drafting that cover letter now.

In marketing we talked about being reactive and proactive: in the former position, your company simply reacts to current trends, trying to get the edge on the competition and take advantage of what's going on sooner than they do. In the latter, your company shapes the trends, and is thus the first mover with product introductions and all the benefits that entails. There are lots of examples to demonstrate this: one everyone can relate to is Apple's successful introduction of the iPod, which had a major impact not only on electronics and the computer industry, but on the music business as well. And now Apple is enjoying all the benefits of that: a ridiculous market share, successful introduction of spinoff products (the Mini, the Shuffle), increased sales of other products (Macs, software, etc.), and of course, the spectacular profits being generated by iTunes. I get a newsletter on product placement marketing every week that always includes the top downloaded song on iTunes: it's that popular that it's become a source of benchmark measurement. I've gotten carried away here because I love talking about this stuff, but my point is, Apple is in the proactive company. Everyone else is now reacting to the changes they caused: Dell was next to come out with a high-capacity mp3 player (that I saw), HP, Creative Labs, Sony all jumped on board, and they're all collaborating with different sources to get their own music download services up and running. And now Napster's back with a new business model that entails "renting" music, and I'm really curious to see how that goes. I myself am too invested in my iPod to change now, and I know I'm not the only one.

The downside of being one of those proactive companies is that you assume a great deal of risk when introducing new products like that. There are lots of things that can go wrong, and suddenly your R&D, marketing, and production investments are worthless. Another much-talked about Apple example is the Newton. It never made it past that 1% of the population that buys every new gadget that comes out.

I'm getting way off-track here. My point about the proactive vs. reactive companies is that, these days, I feel like the reactor. And that's ok, that's what's easy, I'm not in any particular hurry. That's one nice thing about being young: I don't have to hurry, I already did plenty of that. (Omigod I turn 23 on Sunday though, that's gonna be weird.) My job search is going on almost in spite of myself, because it has to. And that's where the analogy ends, thankfully: I could be missing out on fantastic life-changing opportunities because I'm not being more proactive about my job search, but as long as I find a job, it's going to be life-changing no matter what. I've been excited about everything I've gotten the chance to interview for, and don't see how that's going to change.