Working on Settling In

This week completed my 2nd week at work here. The first week I felt completely useless. By the end of this 2nd week I’m beginning to feel useful.

Solid restful sleep continues to elude me. I think I should be over the 12-hour time change by now, but relocation is a major event and I guess I'm expecting too much of myself. What is so special about 03:46 on the clock? That is the time I keep waking up, and then I have trouble getting back to sleep.

The home purchase is moving along well. Closing/recording is scheduled for 19 August.

• I met with the mortgage loan officer, locked in the interest rate for the 30-year fixed rate loan and pre-signed all the loan paperwork. Interest rates are at a 30-year low still, so I have a decent rate at 5.625%.
• The home inspection was on the 27th, and it went well. This 12-year old house has been very well maintained and everything is in excellent condition. One of the requirements of our purchase offer was that the sellers have the furnace inspected by a licensed heating contractor and if the heating unit was cracked, the entire furnace would be replaced. The home inspectors are not licensed heating contractors so the inspection they do is basic, and the home inspection would not catch anything this detailed. My Realtor had something like this occur once before, and he always writes this requirement in his offers. Bless him. The furnace was inspected today. The sellers are having a brand new high efficiency furnace put in at their cost. I will have a brand new furnace with a warranty.
• This week I obtained insurance quotes and made decisions on all the insurances. I still need earthquake insurance up here. Alaska is just as active, if not more so, than California. Earthquakes here are typically deeper in the earth than in California so they are not often felt as strongly even if they are rather large. There is also so much wilderness in Alaska that earthquakes often occur in areas where only Bambi and Yogi and Bullwinkle are upset by them.
• The appraisal on the house is scheduled for next week, and once that is done then everything is good to go. Everyone expects the house to appraise at the sale price or higher, but of course you can never be sure until the appraisal is done.
• Today I went to Sears and looked at washers and dryers. I chose a couple of possibilities and will go to Sears online and check out the detailed information about my choices. There is plenty of time to decide and buy them and have them delivered and installed right after closing.
  The stove in the kitchen is electric, and I want gas. There is a gas line already in place behind the existing stove so no additional plumbing is required. I looked at gas stoves at Sears as well, but I have to confirm with the sellers whether or not the stove they have is a ‘free standing’ or a ‘slide in’ type. Until I get confirmation, I can’t make a decision about the stove.
  
  I e-mailed most of my women friends last weekend lamenting that I had a terrible shopping experience my first time out last weekend. All I currently have are polo shirts and 3 pair of pants (2 tan and 1 navy blue) and one pair of blue jeans. We can dress casually at work, but I need something besides polos and khakis and one pair of blue jeans. First of all, I do not like to shop. Last weekend I went to Nordstrom’s and Penney’s at the downtown mall. The Nordstrom’s here has no personal shopper, and I typically used the Nordstrom’s free personal shopper in the past since I don’t like to shop, I haven’t the patience for it and I’m not good at it. During this week I went to Gottschalk’s one night after work. If you are not familiar, it’s similar to a Mervyn’s or a Penney’s. I found nothing at Gottschalk’s either. When I was driving in mid-town this week, I noticed a sign for a women’s clothing store and today I stopped in. It is not a big store, but they have “Jeanne” clothes! They actually have women working there who help you shop. I bought some clothes. When I was at Sear’s today I also checked out the Lands End section in the women’s clothing department and I bought a few things there as well. Most things were on sale too. So I now have enough clothes to wear until it gets cold and I need warmer clothes. The first snow may occur sometime in October, so I have some time.
  
  My household effects that have been in storage in California are scheduled to arrive here around 21 August. Since my home closing is scheduled for 19 August, the furniture should be able to be moved right into the house once it gets here. My car is being shipped separately and is on its way. I don’t know when it will arrive, but Veco is providing me a rental car until it gets here so there’s no urgency for my car.
  
  So now that my first 2 weeks here have been filled with things that I needed to do, and everything is coming together well, I am going to begin focusing on enjoying summer and having some fun. http://www.alaska.org/
  
  Summer is the time for fishing, but I’m staying in a hotel and I have nowhere to freeze the salmon and halibut that I would catch. So I will hold off on fishing until next summer. But I want to do some “flightseesing.” There are various companies that offer seaplane flights over the glaciers of Prince William Sound, Knik, Denali and some land on McKinley. And I want to take a glacier and wildlife cruise to Kenai Fjords. I can drive to Seward in about 2.5 hours, or take the train to Seward, and catch the Kenai Fjords cruise from there.
  
  The Alaska State Fair opens on 25 August and continues through 5 September. I can take the train from Anchorage right to the State Fairgrounds and avoid the drive and the parking, so that's my plan. There are vegetables that are grown here in Alaska during summer when the sun hardly ever sets, and the vegetables grow to be huge. They have contests at the State Fair for the biggest vegetables. The record for a pumpkin is 707 pounds! Here is the State Fair website if you are interested: http://www.alaskastatefair.org/2004/aboutus/index.html
  And here’s another website that has a history of growing huge vegetables for the State Fair. http://www.alaskagiant.com/
  
  The Alaskan bears have been having a good summer this year eating hikers and campers, so I’m going to learn a bit more about the safety practices required for hiking in Alaska before I explore and hike by myself. Besides the bears, the moose are very dangerous as well. There are a lot of hiking groups listed in the newspaper, so I’m going to get in touch and do some walking/hiking with groups who know what the heck they are doing.
  
  This next week I’m going to join a health club. There are several here, so I need to finish visiting them and decide which one to join.
  
  Learning to Speak “Alaskan”
  Cheechako: Describes a newcomer, generally someone who hasn’t spent a winter in Alaska. (This would be me!)