"They're out there having fun, in the warm california sun."

Hanna and I are slowly getting settled in our new home in California. The stresses of the move, and all of the associated sundry, attention-demanding details that went along with it, have been beaten down for the moment. I have no doubt that it will return in a few months with the birth of our children. For now, however, we are living in the calm.

Of course, we didn't accomplish this by ourselves; at every turn, we had help. Friends helped us carry all of our worldly possessions out of our former house, and fed us while we did so. Friends helped us clean our house, going so far as to scrub the years of grease and grime that had built up in our oven. I received tons of encouragement and support before my 3rd dan test from the family of fellow Taekwon-Do students. Even when we arrived in California, we had help. Family gave us a place to stay and good meals during our journey. Hanna's mother flew out for the express purpose of helping us move in, and performed some of her famed alchemy by managing to fit all of our living room furniture through the front door, with under 1/8" to spare. An off-hand comment I posted online about the distance our furniture needed to be carried even produced a friend in the area who was a huge help in doing just that. The Italian author Pietro Aretino had it right: "I keep my friends as misers do their treasures, because, of all things granted us by wisdom, none is greater or better than friendship."

Hanna has now completed two weeks of work at her new fellowship at NASA-Ames, and I am doing my best to take care of everything else; that way, she can rest and relax as much as possible when she's not banging her head against equations or reading planetary science papers. Gestation, despite looking passive, seems to be an extremely energy-intensive occupation. She's had her ups and downs over the last couple of weeks, and of course her reactive hypoglycemia hasn't made pregnancy any easier. Thankfully, now that we've settled into a fairly regular routine, she's doing much better than during the move. It's amazing how much difference regular, home-cooked meals and daily walks in the park can make.

In addition to taking care of the house and cooking for my lovely bride, I've been continuing my search for new employment here in Silicon Valley. I've sent my resume to several contacts already, and continue to look for firms in the area that are advertising for someone with my skill set. Hopefully, I'll find something soon. I admit, however, that it has been an enjoyable change of pace not to have to go to work every day; it does give one much more time to read.

Overall, Hanna and I are enjoying ourselves in our new locale. We both miss friends and family, but we're enjoying being in a new setting and marking the differences between where we are and from whence we came. Some are fun and interesting; on our daily walks in the nearby park, we can hear at least four different languages being spoken by other people enjoying the evening air. (This also bodes well for the quality and diversity of restaurants in the area.) Some changes, however, I could do without. For example, instead of the weather forecast for the mountains, foothills, and western slope that I grew accustomed to hearing during the news breaks on the radio in Boulder, the local NPR station here in Mountain View instead provides me with traffic reports.