Well, the house rental fell through. Turns out the landlady is nuts. First she tried to insert an illegal clause into the lease regarding non-refundable fees because she didn't like cats yet advertised she accepted cats. Then she refused to put any kind of reasonable early termination clause in the lease, which was not acceptable to me because I've had to exercise such a clause twice in the past twenty years, once for the move from Houston TX to Lafayette LA, and once for the move from Wilmington NC to Phoenix AZ.
So this penguin is once more looking for a new dock for his iceberg somewhere in the South San Francisco Bay area (South Bay or Peninsula only, thank you!).
-- Badtux the Dock-less Penguin
I smell a penguin hater.
ReplyDeleteMixter
Ouch. That's irritating... or as Mixter says, "I smell a penguin hater."
ReplyDeleteBon chance, Bad Tux.
ReplyDelete--ml
Good luck with it, cool bird. Having lived in that area briefly, I know how hard it is to find an affordable, decent place to live. I had an apartment in Milpitas for a while (which was a pain, since I worked on the far south-east side of San Jose, and that traffic on I-680 and the 101 was a real pain, even 10 years ago). Depending upon where you work, you might consider places like Gilroy or Morgan Hill.
ReplyDeleteDave
Well...the iceberg should float a tad longer until you can find new digs.
ReplyDeleteI drive down to Gilroy from time to time in order to go hiking at Coe State Park down there. That's a *long* drive, in bumper-to-bumper traffic on 101 through San Jose, and it burns about $15 worth of gas nowdays, so it's not worthwhile living down there. Maybe once Caltrain gets funding enough to double-track the line down to Gilroy and can run a train every hour like they do on the rest of their lines, but local legislators want to spend billions on BART rather than millions on Caltrain.
ReplyDeleteAs for where I work, rhymes with "oogle". Except it's not, but it's close enough. Type "Googleplex" into Wikipedia and it'll take you pretty much there.
- Badtux the Shoreline Penguin
Oh, and Caltrain is a cool way of getting to work. The Shoreline Shuttle from the Mountain View Station is *free* and stops almost at my office door. And Caltrain has WIFI again! I wouldn't mind riding Caltrain to work every day. The problem is that Caltrain basically stops in downtown San Jose, because Union Pacific won't give them trackage rights to run more than four trains a day to Gilroy, and only at times that are not convenient (I checked).
ReplyDeleteMove from Houston to Lafayette? Now that is scary
ReplyDeleteTell me when you find a gym as good as Red Lerilles' in Houston, Blue.
ReplyDeleteThough I must admit the gym babes are much hotter in Houston compared to the stubby Cajun girls in Lafayette... not that there's anything wrong with stubby Cajun girls, though wooing a Cajun girl is sort of like wooing a redhead, moments of sheer joy seperated by utter terror...
Fact of the matter is that there isn't much difference between Lafayette and Houston when it comes to quality of life (they're both pretty much pestholes due to years of Republican misrule) and Lafayette has a *huge* advantage when it comes to the food and music end of things. Not to mention a much better Computer Science program (the University of Houston's program is now a lot better than it was back then, but USL's was clearly better back then). And back then Houston didn't have any computer businesses. Oh, there was this minor little company called "Compaq" that was making PC clones out of a warehouse in Westlake, but they were just one of a million other little clone shops, not a multi-billion-dollar multi-national computer company...
Have you ever considered living in, say, Virginia? Granted, your job won't pay as well as what you're getting in California, but you won't be living on a fault line, either. (Seriously, what the Christ is wrong with you people?!) Virginia is slower-paced, too. I like it here. I don't understand this "Heritage Not Hate" Confederacy nostalgia, but then again I'm from Massachusetts, where the Revolutionary War began. Can't seem to relate to those who think negating what our Founders founded is something to be proud of...
ReplyDeleteI lived in North Carolina for a while, which is Virginia with better barbecue (heh! Those of you who've never eaten North Carolina barbecue will know not what I'm talking about). You'll notice I don't live there anymore :-).
ReplyDeleteThe East Coast just has a different vibe from the West.
- Badtux the Travelin' Penguin