I'm a 23 year old adventurer who moved from New Jersey/Pennsylvania to sunny California to pursue my dream job! Writing about life and all my adventures. And ice cream. Mostly ice cream.
Today was a loooooong day. I got into work at 7:30am, had a 10 minute lunch, and only left work at 7pm. The combination of my first trial and a visit from the boss's boss's boss (complete with a presentation by yours truly), this week is a little nuts. But two things cheered me up when I got to my apartment as the sun set... First was a package from my aunt. It had jars of jersey shore and shells, two bracelets, some Penn State stickers, Ocean City Coasters, and some New York goodies. It was an awesome taste of home for my apartment and desk!
The second thing was bacon...
Though it doesn't feel like fall here, I made an yummy fall dinner. Butternut squash soup (which I made during my lazy sunday) with applewood smoked bacon and green apples from the farmer's market. It was delicious and made me feel better while I was working from home. Also, one of my favorite movies, The Blind Side, was on. So overall all, a really bad day turned into a really great evening! This week is going to be a very long one, but I am going to Hollywood this weekend so at least I get rewarded for all my work!
I listen to a lot of music at work. Since I am new I spend about 7 of my 8 hours at my desk, so finding new music is important for my sanity. A mixture of iHeart Radio (104.5 Philly forever) and Pandora gets me through my day.
1. I'm Only Joking - Kongos
Kongos are my new obsession. They are so different then everything else on the radio right now. I mean, Come With Me Now has an accordion in it and is on the Top 40 station. Weird. I'm Only Joking has a great beat to run to at the gym (which I can't currently do because I pulled my quad muscle playing soccer.) and is motivating at work. I love the drum beat. I have kongos full album on my iPhone to listen to tomorrow.
2. Beware the Dog - The Griswolds
The song is perfect for my new sunny California life! It's super happy and upbeat, even though the lyrics don't match it. I like the clapping and the "woo!" parts. I always get a smile on my face when this comes up on my playlist. I just have to remember not to dance at my desk...
3. Take Me to Church - Hozier
This is one of those songs that came up on my Pandora and I had to stop what I was doing to look at what it was. His voice is so perfect and deep throughout the whole song. I am also a sucker for a song with a piano. I usually hate really slow ballads, but something about this song just works. And I am obsessed with his voice. His music is loaded up on my playlist for this week.
4. Honey, I'm Good - Andy Grammar
I almost fell asleep at work today. I was reading a super boring report and suddenly this song hit my eardrums like a cup of coffee to wake me up. I've already covered how I like clapping, and thats how it starts off with a fast pace and great beat. This song is going straight on my work out playlist.
That's it for this monday. At the rate I am listening to new music these posts might have a lot more coming up!
Sunday was a road trip day! My co-worker and I hopped in the car and drove up to Sequioa National Park!
We saw some pretty awesome giant trees. The weather was a sunny 75 and perfect hiking weather. We hiked for about 4 hours. At an elevation of 7000+ feet, the air was clean (for once) but a little thin
It was crazy how much all of the trees were burned and still standing. Several of the trees had been struck by lightning in the past few months and fires are a constant problem.
We saw a few critters a long the way. Including deer, chipmunks, squirrels, and two baby black bears.
We were able to see the biggest tree in the world by volume, the General Sherman tree. We were not that impressed by it actually.
But those trees were pretty tall.
Overall we had a lot of fun playing in the big forest!
Last night four of my co-workers and I decided to take a trip out to East Bako and go to the Kern County Fair, supposedly the best county fair in California. I've never seen more cowboy hats and pick-up trucks in my life.
The evening started off exciting with me locking my keys in my car and having to call AAA. After that was taken care of, we got down to what we really wanted which was fair food.
Some highlights included fried pork chops on a stick, alligator on a stick, pizza on a stick, and other things on sticks. I had crab fries (fries with crab on it....not Chickie and Pete's version sadly) But we found the best food at the funnel cake stand.
Including: BACON maple funnel cake:
And turtle funnel cake with caramel, chocolate sauce, whipped cream and pecans.
None of these were as good as Fried Oreos, which we could not find anywhere.
We were trying really hard to win a giant cow stuffed animal to hide in the office. There are a lot of empty desks that could have housed it. Instead we won a giant banana (which we are hiding in our conference room on Monday) and this giant hello kitty.
The fair continues for two more weeks so we will probably go back since we only saw about half of it. Plus Joan Jett and Kansas are preforming next weekend!
So I am now working in my third group of food scientists, and I have noticed while the people change, the personalities don't. Food Science attracts lots of characters for sure. But I think I have generalized it into some categories: 1. The old guy with all the fun projects He has been at the company minimum 30 years and has all the strange, fun projects. Currently the old guy I work with is doing all the Wonka Ice Cream work. He is making some crazy things and I want to try them all!! But they are very complex, so a newbie like me can't get such projects. 2. The person who doesn't eat ANYTHING This one always baffles me. This person skips lunch, spits out everything we taste, and isn't interested in sampling what anyone is making. Why did you become a food scientist if you aren't interested in food??? It makes me so confused. 3. The overly serious person This is especially hilarious to me now. We are working on ice cream for crying out loud. Today we had a crisis involving cookies and this person made it seem like the world was ending. I know you should take your job seriously, but its food. 4. The marketing person who doesn't understand the food industry No, we can't do a full scale trial this week. No, we can't just create a new line for your extremely stupid product. No, you can't just take stabilizer out and that's it, they have a function. Yes, we have to use cream to make ice CREAM. 5. The ultimate foodie This person is BEGGING you to ask them what they have for lunch, because they spent all of last night making it from scratch. They know every farmer's market, new restaurant, weird ingredient, and can't wait to act really really really smug about it. 6. The person who doesn't seem to do anything This person is probably in every industry. They don't seem to have an projects. They are never on a call, or arranging a tasting. They are usually walking around talking to every one. What do they do?? 7. The person who eats all the time Oh wait, that's me.
The benefit of waking up really early is I was able to hit the bike path this morning before it got ungodly amounts of hot. Here is the view once you get about 5 miles out of town. Just straight desert.
There were toooooons of people of the bike path. I was amazed. Serious bikers training, bikers just going for a nice Sunday ride, runners, walkers, people with dogs, etc.
Once I got off the main trail out into the desert there were less people, which is a little scary because even around 9am it was hot and I had to stop every 3 miles or so for water.
I did see some interesting animals. There was a pack of coyotes way out sitting under a tree. I couldn't get a good picture of them. I might need to bring my good camera next time.
I'm sad because I really wanted to see a roadrunner but didn't find any. My coworker who bikes the trail daily sees them all the time, but so far no luck for me!
I'll be biking the trail more as it's really nice. But my front tire of my bike popped at some point so I'll have to wait until I get it fixed.
Spending the rest of the day running errands. Still not used to that.
I have been teased for my "jersey" accent before, but here on the west coast some things I say are completely foreign phrases. For example: 1. Down the Shore I have said this to multiple people. All strange looks and "you mean...the beach...?" 2. Mischief Night Apparently they don't celebrate October 30th... 3. Hoagie Got a weird look for saying this at Jersey Mikes, where they should know better 4. "The City" "Which city?" It's always New York 5. Wooder Ice I said it once. Coworker from Pittsburgh laughed hysterically and everyone else looked concerned. 6. Caramel We had quite a discussion today. Me and the other east coasters say "car-mel" while the more west coast people say "car-a-mel" 7. Liquor Stores They don't have liquor stores in Cali because all stores sell alcohol, from Target to CVS. Lots of fascination as I described liquor stores in NJ/PA These are the first ones to come up as I moved here. Its funny that we live in the same country but we all talk differently. Luckily I don't have a true Jersey Shore accent or I might have really scared people when I was talking to them.
I had a lot of free time over this 3 day weekend since everyone left town and left me behind (boo). So I decided to use this time to get my apartment a little less white wally. A lot of my friends know I love spray paint. You can create such cool art with spray paint and its fairly easy. I decided I wanted a NYC cityscape in my dining room so that's what I set out to do!
It made my fingers pretty paint covered:
Here is the final product! Still have some touch ups to do but I am working on it!
It is looking good in my dining room:
I also made these cool little fake polaroids of my favorite pictures to go with it.
It was quite an art project and watching movies weekend but my apartment is looking nearly perfect now!
