Our vacation from our vacation

The lovely view from an airport restaurant

Our vacation from our vacation started with a short, 20-hour trip to San Francisco. The Wifer and I were flying on special passes which meant standby all the way. While we are veterans at this way of flying, we didn't expect that we would be holed up at Liberty Intl (Newark) for nearly as long as we were. Originally, we were supposed to leave at 11am or so. We ended up leaving 8pm (and still had a 5hr plane ride to go, no less). Despite the long wait at Newark, we were in high spirits.

"Hello, Hayward? I'm looking for an apt."

The Wifer and I decided to use the wireless at the airport to call apartments in Hayward and surrounding areas so that when we got there, we would know where we wanted to visit. It was quite fun to tell the person on the other end of the line that we were from Indiana, currently in Newark, and would be in Hayward in a few hours. At least, when you are stuck in an airport with nothing to do it is fun. Here are some highlights of our day at Liberty:

- Discovering the Port Authority WiFi ($6 for 24hrs ended up being a steal)

- Breakfast at the Portugese place (yummy sausages)

- Talking with the apt people about housing

- Dealing with "Danita the Denier" (actually, this wasn't fun at all)

- Watching "Hip Hop Boy" (who was in the same standby situation as us the whole day) try to con the Continental folks with lies and deception in order to get on an overbooked flight ("that man over there told me that there were seats on this fight, yo"

- Seeing all the little cyborgs scuttle along to gates and flights (people with Blackberry/Treos and wireless earpieces)

- Dinner at the steakhouse with a real-life member of the Sopranos. The guy was incredibly pissed that he couldn't change his British Airways reservation and was bitching out (at 110dB) the British Airways folks because he bought a 'changeable' ticket. Keep in mind that the terror bombings had just happened earlier that day and that he was flying to London.

The pic doesn't do the view justice, but it is a start

We finally got to SFO at 11pm PST (meaning we had been up for 22 hours straight). We rented a car and drove across the Bay to the Hayward hills to stay with the coolest FERP'er you've ever met. His house has an amazing view of Castro Valley, the Hayward flatlands, and the Penninsula and each night we were there, the Wifer and I would marinate in his hot tub and enjoy the view.

Our host - dressed to the 9's.

In the morning, our host took us around the area to give us a nice lay-of-the-land tour so that we could make our housing choice wisely. His tour was incredibly amusing and extremely helpful. The Wifer and I were laggin' hard but we soldiered on. Knowing that the hot tub and the view awaited us at home, we put extra energy into finding a place to live.
After calling/looking at at least 15 different places to live, we finally came across a nice little building directly across from campus that had everything we wanted for just the right price. We got to meet Marshall, our new protector and neighbor and we finally were at ease about moving to the EB area. Now, we just have to save up $100k to put 20% down on a house (no problem on my salary - yea right!). I will begin to play the lottery soon so that I can pay the rent with the jackpot (a MegaMillons jackpot pays about 3 mos. rent). All kidding aside, the Wifer and I are super excited to move and look forward to becoming northern Californians. We actually did get some respite from the home search and met up with a long-time friend who joined us on an excursion into exotic Pleasanton. I will say that the town lives up to its name - it was quite pleasant.

A pleasant picture from Pleasanton

Finally, the Wifer and I caught a red-eye 'back East' (as they say) and thankfully we weren't stuck in Newark waiting to go to VA Beach. All in all, it was a fantastic time and I can't wait to move out there in 2.5 weeks.

Future casa de Cheeto