Across the US: Our Great Adventure: Part 1

 

This is a shot from my window on the final plane to Monterey.

Last Monday I graduated, Tuesday I flew home (and arrived super late), and Wednesday the movers came. The truck was packed Thursday and we left Monterey, CA early Friday morning headed for Arizona where I am now typing this. As you can see, life has been very hectic for the last few weeks.

 

We are currently shopping around for a vehicle to replace our junky Kia Rio (the one that died a while back). We are looking for something big, but our budget is telling us we will probably end up with another car (rather than a minivan). We’ve found a few prospective transportation devices, but none of them have excited us.

Once we’ve got something with four wheels and an engine secured, we’ll be setting out across the rest of the country headed for our final destination in Maryland. Along the way we are planning a few stops, but nothing special. The main goal is to take it easy, enjoy the journey, and keep stress levels low. Obviously, a faulty mechanical performance on the part of our car would detract from our goal, so the quality of our new purchase is paramount.

The up side to everything is that I am finaly able to relax with my family here in Arizona. My parents were kind enough to put us up in a hotel (a fairly nice one too) and we have been enjoying being together. My daughter is uber cute, my son is still working on being more obedient (and I can see some improvement) and my wife and I are still in love.

Of course, not everything is peachy. My poor baby girl got pink eye somehow. We got her into a clinic yesterday though and she is doing much better today. Oh, and we would love to take photos for everyone, but our camera mysteriously died shortly after Easter and all we’ve got to take photos are our cell phones. So, you’ll get an occasional cell phone shot, but nothing spectacular. Perhaps if we’ve still got some money in savings after buying a car we’ll find an inexpensive camera to take some pictures of our journey. Really though, we can’t afford to squander money on anything that isn’t absolutely necessary at this point. Frankly, a camera is not on the “absolutely necessary” list right now.

In the “interesting but useless” news section, I’ve burned a couple of “live CDs” to test Linux on my laptop. One of the “distros” I’ve downloaded is not intended for general use – it has a very specific purpose in life (a secret one, so don’t ask). The other Linux distribution that I will be testing is Ubuntu. Ubuntu is widely considered one of the best all-around versions of the Linux operating system (a healthy alternative to Windows and Macintosh). Linux’s roots lie in the Unix operating system of old (a trait shared by Macintosh computers) and it is known for being favored by geeks. Ubuntu has been trying to appeal to a wider market by being easy to switch to (like Firefox) and easy to use.

My main reason for trying it is that it may be able to salvage my old laptop. I have a laptop with 512 MB of RAM. Today, if you have less than 2 GB of RAM, most software will laugh at you and fail to run. I am running Windows XP, but sometimes things don’t go so smoothly. By installing a Linux operating system I immediately gain a kind of stability that Windows has never offered me, and Ubuntu requires far fewer system resources than Windows does so I may be able to do more with less.

So, wish me luck with that. I’ll keep you posted on how I like it.

That’s all I’ve got for you today. Keep watching for updates on our trip as we meander across the United States.