Hellchick

Yesterday was a pretty important day for me: it was my last day working for Activision. (Well, technically I'm still working for them since they own Raven Software.)

I got a job at Raven Software out in Madison, Wisconsin as a GUI designer on Quake 4. I'm really excited about it. My husband Len has hated California since we got here--

(Back when I got a job offer from GameSpy, I asked him about moving to California. He said, "I hate California."

I said, "you've never been there. How could you know?"

He said, "I've never been sodomized in prison either, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't like it."

I had to admit that he had a good point.)

--so the opportunity to move somewhere else was really enticing. I wasn't looking for another job, but when the opening came up and a couple of friends at Raven suggested I apply for it, I figured I should. Not only do I love Raven's games and have been working with them as one of our developers already, but I love the people there, I have friends there, and it's in Wisconsin, which is a nice, rural farm-like area to live.

When Len came home and I wanted to ask him his thoughts on applying, I said, "what would you say if I told you that I have a possible opportunity to get us out of Califor--"

"YES."

"But you don't even know where it is or what it is."

"I don't care."

That's the effect California had on him.

So I told all the web sites I've been working with that yesterday was my last day as their contact at Activision, and this morning I woke up to find my Activision email had been turned off as planned, so I deleted it from my Outlook profile. It made me kind of sad. I'm glad that the teams I worked with at Activision are the same teams I'll still have some contact with since I'm going to be on the Quake 4 team, because I really liked the people I worked with at Activision and will miss them, even though I worked remotely and wasn't in the office more than once a week.

We ship ourselves out to Madison around 10/27, so I'll be starting on November 1st. I'm really excited to get out there. The area is really nice, and it's so much calmer than California. In fact, I thought I'd come up with a list of things about California that I won't miss:

1. Hummers crowding the roads

2. Warnings on TV and the radio about possible brownouts due to power consumption levels in SoCal

3. Ads for Botox and plastic surgery

4. People who've had Botox and plastic surgery

5. People who think that illegal immigrants have a God-given right to have a U.S. drivers license*

6. Emergency rooms closing because of the overwhelming crush of illegal immigrant patients with no health insurance who can't pay their bills*

(*Don't get me wrong. I'm all about people coming to this country if they're trying to make a better life for themselves and their family. I love the mostly Mexican neighborhood I live in. But I also don't support simply handing over the most important and common identification document to people who are here illegally, and I'm troubled by the fact that the problem of illegal immigration is causing emergency room closures all over SoCal, making it hard for anyone, legal or illegal, to get adequate emergency health care.)

7. Astronomical housing and rent prices

8. Killer bees

9. Hummers. Did I mention Hummers?

10. Highways that appear to be thrown together by engineers who don't understand that it might be a touch difficult to cross ten lanes of traffic -- two of which are exit-only lanes to a major highway -- in 1/8 of a mile in order to get out of said exit-only line as you get onto a major highway.

11. Oh yeah, the &^$*ing traffic.

And now, here's a list of things that I'll miss:

1. Allaya, Adam, and Lainey :(

2. Boba tea.

3. ...

4. I got nuthin'.

This week Len takes the truck and hits the road to drive to Florida. The reason he's driving is because he's hauling a gift for someone that I won't detail here so I don't spoil it.

What this means to me is that for about a week I'm required to cook myself, which is like asking a mentally challenged three year old to do quantum mechanics calculations. A standard conversation between Len and I when he's out of town is as follows:

Him: So'd you eat?

Me: Yeah.

Him: I mean dinner. Did you eat a real dinner?

Me: Yeah.

Him: Tonight? At dinner time? You really ate? You're not just saying that to get me to stop asking, are you?

Me: Yes! I ate.

Him: What'd you have?

Me: Oh...a bowl of cereal. And a cracker, I think I had a cracker, too.

Cooking has just never interested me, whether it's for myself or for other people. Len, however, is a master cook. He says it relaxes him, which is fortunate because when he comes home from work I'm generally not obligated to put a meal on the table -- he says he finds that after having a crappy day, cooking a good meal that someone else can enjoy and praise makes the day much better.

Of course, that works well for me. On the one day that he asked me to cook because he was too tired, I charged into the kitchen with determination in one hand and raw chicken in the other, I threw open the spice cabinet, and then I stood there. And stood there some more. And continued standing there until he came up behind me and said, "you have no idea what to do, do you?"

"Not a clue."

Thank god he's making me meals in tupperware to reheat this week as we speak...