The end is near...!

Or rather, the end is here. Okay, I realize that probably makes me sound crazy. So please allow me to clarify, the end of my month long (give or take a week) hiatus is over. For those that aren't aware, we recently moved. Not down the street from our apartment. No, not a city over, or closer to my work. We move out of state... and way over on the other side of the country! We took a 6 day road trip from West Bloomfield, MI to San Jose, CA. And boy, let me tell you, San Jose, Palo Alto (where I work now), and heck California as a whole just blows Michigan out of the universe. We love it here! That is honestly putting it mildly. We've lived in 4 states now (UT, PA, MI, and now CA), and visited (for at least one day) 9 states (WA, VI, DC, OH, NE, WY, IN, IL, IA) within the last year (give or take a few weeks). From the moment we arrived in CA and started interacting with people we realized we had found our home.

Seriously. If you have never been to CA, do it! Now. Like, right now. As in, stop reading this post, book a flight or hop in your car and head to CA. This weekend would actually be an interesting time to visit, as Pride is this weekend, and I hear that the San Francisco Pride Festival is one of, if not the, biggest in the world. Unfortunately, we most likely wont be going this year due to other things that have come up. :/

I have several posts I'm working on (including the next few installments of the "Digital vs Physical" series). As well as a few videos. Here's what to look forward to in the next few posts:

• Digital vs Physical (Should be wrapped up by the end of July)
• New series: Long-Haul Reviews (these are reviews I'll be posting about products I've "put through their paces" for at least 3 months, as I feel this helps give more accurate depictions of how well things really hold up, such as laptops and TV's)
• Posts about our trip with loads of pictures
• Posts about video's I'll be releasing on YouTube: "Is it worth it?" (Junes LootCrate recently arrived and the video is in the works), videos from the trip, Aldingbrooke apartments review (where we live in MI for 5 months), a quick tour of our new apartment in San Jose, and a few other ideas I'm working on 
• Pictures. An INSANE number of pictures from the trip (~1500). I'm trying to dwindle the pile down to the gyms. 
• I'm also working on a post (that may become a mini series) about CA!

Thoughts? Ideas? Complaints? Something else? Leave it in the comments! :) 

The final count-down: MI to CA

We've known since February 4th, that we will be moving to CA this summer. As we have gotten closer to the summer months, my transfer from one of my employers divisions in MI to another division in CA has been finalized. I've begun training for the projects I will be working on/overseeing/taking over once I start at the other office. Our last day in MI is June 6th. After work, we'll hop in the car with our two faithful companions (the kittens Linux & Nibbler), and start our week long adventure! We are quite excited. While we are excited to leave MI, and be in a state neither of us have lived in, I am most excited about working in Silicon Valley. I feel that most engineers in the tech industry would be excited about living and working in one of (if not the) biggest tech hubs in the world.

All of that being said, we're looking for tips and recommendations from those the internet. Please feel free in the comments to respond to any or all of the following:

• What are the best sites to see and places to visit in CA? 
• If you were taking a roadtrip and had up-to a week to travel, what route from MI to CA would you take? What sites would you see? 
• In general, what recommendations do you have?  (This will be our second cross-country roadtrip in the last year). 
• What's your stance on tinting windows? Would you/have you done it, and is it worth it? 
• If you've traveled long distance with pets, especially cats (ours are about 9 months old), what recommendations do you have?
• We will be taking videos of the trip, as well as TONS of pictures (last time we took around 600, we plan to beat that). What cameras/camcorders do you guys recommend? (We have two Nokia Lumia 920's (which we love!)  and are trying to decide if it's worth upgrading to 1020's/1520's or just picking up a camera/camcorder (especially since new devices are on the horizon)). 
• Anything else you'd recommend? 

Soapbox: Why I hate apartment hunting in Silicon Valley

We are moving to Silicon Valley in the summer. This may sound exciting at first... but not everything in CA is "sunshine and lollipops". As we will only be in California for 6 months, we are looking for an apartment. The apartment hunting process is typically unpleasant, but rarely takes all that long (in my experience). When we moved to PA, we called 5 apartment complex's before we found one that met our needs. When we moved to MI, we called 11 apartment complex's. Over the last 3 months we have called 127 apartment complex's. We have recalled every single one of them within the last week.
When apartment hunting in UT, PA, or MI, apartments required a 60-day notice, so finding something well in advance of moving wasn't an issue. However, in CA I have yet to find a single apartment that requires longer than 30 days notice. Which means most complex's do not know what they will have available mid-June until mid-May. To make matters worse, very few complex's offer a 6 month lease. Most of the ones that do charge $100 ~ $300 a month more. Several complex's are willing to offer a 6 month lease only if you move in during December/January. I had more than a few leasing agents inform me that they increase the lease terms to 12 months and the cost of rent during the summer, as the market is "so hot" at that time. So essentially, they want to really stick it to the customers. Of course, there are also some complex's that do not offer a lease, but rather you rent month-to-month. The irony of course, is that almost all for them still require a guarantee that you will be leasing for a minimum of 12 months.
It has not been uncommon for us to call an apartment one a week, leave a message, and never get a response. Often times, we find that the leasing agents are very rude, almost as if we are wasting their time. Let me get this straight, I am potentially willing to pay you what is already an insane monthly rent, for a most likely sub-par apartment, and you have the gull to talk down to us or act like we are wasting your time?

Dear Leasing Agents,

When you spend 9 hours a day at work, and then spend 4 or 5 hours a night researching and calling one complex after the next, then and ONLY then do you have the slightest bit of right to act like I am wasting your time. The person wasting time, is the leasing agent that decides to list every single feature and aspect about the complex and area before either answering my questions or even allowing me to ask them. Our phone call would only be 5 minutes, tops, if you allowed me to ask all my questions at the start, and dropped the d*mn attitude. Oh, and if your complex is so nice, why the f***k does it lack a website? Seriously, why in this day-and-age would you decide not to have a website? Or at the very least, display info on sites like "ForRent.com".

There's an old joke about how men are inaccurate about size. But i have found that female leasing agents in CA are worse. In what world is a 400sq/ft 1 bed - 1 bath apartment "huge"? I currently pay $900 a month for a 1000sq/ft apartment, where I actually have my own washer and dryer, instead of sharing a laundry facility. That is huge, and a great rate. $2000+ for a 517sq/ft 1b-1b, without a washer and dryer, is NOT a great deal!
My final complaint, pets... We have two cats. In PA and MI, this didn't make that big of a difference in rent or the security deposit. In CA, we are finding that most complex's really want to milk you for every last penny. Charging a $500 deposit per cat (in one case, $1000 per cat), plus an additional $50 - $100 per month, and one months rent for the base deposit, is pretty much highway robbery. I could understand this if we were looking at high-class apartments. But we are mostly looking at complex's that were built in the '80's, and have not been improved/remodeled since being built. Let me be as blunt and honest as possible: if you charge a monthly fee on-top of a pet deposit, and are not doing anything special for my pets, you are NOT in any way whatsoever a pet-friendly complex. To the two complex's I have found that charge a very minimal pet deposit, and do not charge a monthly pet fee, thank you!
We may have finally found an apartment, which is great.. but this whole process has been stressful and incredibly unpleasant. Regardless, I am ecstatic to leave MI.