My Blog

New Gear

Adam — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 22:40:07 +0000

Now that things have been settling down, I have been getting back into photography and I’ve ordered some near gear to help me out. I’ve ordered a new tripod, light stand, umbrella, and backdrops to help me take some portraits. Hopefully my loving girlfriend will indulge me and will play model so that I can work on my craft. I also have a new lens that comes in the mail on Friday. I’m pretty excited about this lens as it is my first foray into “next-level” optics. I am hoping that it will really increase the image quality of some of my shots vs. the lenses that I am using now. I’ll be taking the lens out this weekend while we have the wonderful Claire Greenwell and Megha Madan visiting from Atlanta!

Parents Weekend

Adam — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 22:20:55 +0000

My parents came to visit over the October 9th weekend and it was definitely a blast. We went to Alcatraz on Friday night for a tour of the prison, Napa Valley for some wine tastings on Saturday, all over the city and over to Sausalito on Sunday! It was definitely an action packed weekend and they were nice enough to drive my car 2500 miles to me from Georgia. Check out some of the pictures from the weekend in the Flickr sets. Now if they’d just come back for Harry Potter… Love you guys!

Tandem Water Skiing

Adam — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 23:20:58 +0000

We we went out to the lake for Labor Day, Josh and I went out water skiing and were able to both get up and cruise around the lake. Water skiing is most definitely awesome and works a muscle set you probably didn’t know existed. Check out the video below.

Starting to Settle Down

Adam — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 23:11:39 +0000

As you can see from some of the new pictures that are up on the site, we have been getting everything in its proper place since it was delivered a little over a week ago. The delivery process apparently went a lot smoother for Ellen which is great because I didn’t want her to have to deal with the craziness that we had to in Atlanta.

This weekend was fun. We went out with some of Ellen’s Google friends on Friday and they all seem like really nice people. Saturday we got in a workout and waited for the DirecTV guy to show up and install our satellite. We finally have TV again! Saturday evening I was able to rent a car so on Sunday we used it as much as we could to run errands all over. We found a lot of items down at IKEA that we really like and want to purchase. Some of the items weren’t in stock though so we are going to wait until we can buy everything at once to benefit from the one-time flat shipping rate of $79 no matter how many items you have.

Things are finally starting to settle down a bit for us. There is still plenty to do and explore but it is starting to feel a little bit more like home!

Labor Day Lake House

Adam — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 19:40:30 +0000

This weekend was good times. We all went out to my friend Josh’s lake house on Oconee and spent the weekend cruisin’ the lake, water skiing, playing tennis, and sharing some brews with friends. I’ll definitely miss hanging out at the lake because we always have a great time. I’m going to post up some videos when I get them but Josh and I did some tandem water skiing and then we upped the ante and had myself, Josh, AND Stephen all out on skis at the same time riding around the lake. I’m not going to lie, it was pretty awesome. Thanks to Josh for making it all possible, I’m going to miss ya bud.

My Stuff is Gone

Adam — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 15:54:07 +0000

The movers came yesterday and finally got all of mine and Ellen’s stuff taken away. We ended up having a lot of trouble with the movers and I subsequently am going to have to make a call and try and figure out what can be done to compensate. The movers originally said that they would arrive on Sunday between 7am and 1pm. Well 12:30 rolls around and I still havent heard anything from the movers. I finally am able to get in touch with the driver and he says “Oh yeah, we’ll be there between 4:30-6:30pm.” Awesome. 6:15 rolls around, no word from the movers. I call them again: “Oh yeah, we’ll be there 6:30:-8:00pm.” Awesome. 8:15 rolls around, no word from the movers and I decide to call again. “Oh yeah, we’ll be there a little after 9:00pm”. Awesome. The movers finally show up around 9:15 and I get a call and he says, “Is there another entrance to your place? We can’t get our truck inside.” For a month now I have worked with the contractors at The Moving Experts to detail out the move and have explicitly stated that a smaller truck will need to be used in order to gain access to the condo complex. I am even paying a $200 shuttle fee for this service. The movers show up in a 53 foot semi truck that has no chance at all making it into the complex.

As this point I am just ready to give up for the night and go home. The movers asked if they could come the following day between noon and 2:00pm and pick up my items. Note that this would be Monday and I guess I am just expected to take off work so that I can be there for the movers. I was able to work it out with my parents that they would be able to be there for the movers but at this point, I think I’m ready to let the moving company have it. The movers showed up at 2:30pm and didn’t finish moving the items into the truck until after 7:30pm. Needless to say I owe my parents a nice dinner out.

On Tuesday we were able to get the whole apartment cleaned up and ready to be looked at by the Landlord in order to get my deposit back so things are looking better now. Hopefully the moving company will cut me a deal on the move and make a lot of concessions to make me happy again. 12 days until I am off to San Francisco.

The Movers are Finalized

Adam — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 23:56:23 +0000

I was able to finalize everything with the movers today. We are scheduled to have our stuff picked up sometime this weekend. They apparently call you the night before and tell you when they are going to show up the next day. I still have a couple items left to pack up but nothing that shouldn’t take more than a night. We also got the OK for the condo we are renting as well so everything is really starting to shape up.

In other news, I went for a run for the first time in awhile. I’ve been biking and doing other workouts with less impact to my knees but I think that it was also due to me having really old running shoes. I bought a new pair and took them on a 4 mile journey tonight and they did pretty well. I jogged up to Lenox mall and stopped in the Nike store to get one of the Nike+ sensors. Now my new iPhone records and tracks all of my running stats like distance, calories burned, and time per mile.

It’s going to be weird having all my stuff shipped away but hopefully if the movers do what they’re suppose to, I’ll see it again.

Packing Up

Adam — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 02:36:54 +0000

I just got through with another long day of packing up after work and man is this is a lot of work. It’s not so much the big items that are hard but packing up and finding a place for all the little stuff. The condo has turned into a complete wreck despite being overall more clean but I’m sure it will look better after tomorrow is done. Tomorrow should be an interesting day. I am going to pick up my new iPhone, grab my contacts, and then spend the rest of the day trying to pack up so I have a estimate to give the movers on Monday. One week to go; let the count down begin!

A Place to Live

Adam — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 17:04:26 +0000

Elle and I got some great news yesterday. We have signed a contract on a place in San Francisco! It’s a 1200 sq ft loft in the Soma area and has a Trader Joe’s a half mile away. We should be just fine. I’ll throw up some pics on Flickr later and they will show up on the photo stream on the right. With all that open space there will be plenty of room for people to come out and visit and start planning your trips.

On a side note, it will be nice to move out to San Francisco where you don’t have to worry about air conditioning systems as mine is currently broken in the 87 degree heat. Hopefully the repair people will show up soon!

Shipping My Car

Adam — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 18:59:16 +0000

Well it’s official. I am moving to San Francisco probably at the end of the second week in September and there are a ton of things to get done. On the top of my priority list right now is finding a company that will ship my car across the country and not cost me a small fortune. If anyone knows of a reliable and cheap option, let me know.

Today is also Ellen’s first day at Google. Unfortunately she had to be up at the crack of dawn this morning in order to catch her Google bus at 6:45am. I have been getting messages from her throughout the day that include “Having fun!” and “My mac is pretty”. Yes, they are giving her a free Macbook Pro to use. How awesome is that?