California Dreaming

On June 27, 2008, I will be leaving Ohio.

For my entire life, I have lived in Ohio. I was born in Dayton. I grew up in the house my parents bought when they got married. College was a big step for me; moving to Cleveland was the furthest I had ever been from home, and I stayed here after graduation--and for most of the summers before graduation. Even then, my parents were less than four hours by car, and I would certainly never think of flying to go see them. I have family all over the state, too: Cleveland, Akron, and Dayton. Such has been my life for the past twenty-four years.

As my regular readers know, I vacationed in SoCal at the beginning of April. While I was there I realized what I had been missing. This is a place where I could train year round, outside. I would have, at my fingertips, all manner of parks, forests, and wilderness in which to pass the time. When I tired of living deliberately, I could return to a bustling metropolis with many highly regarded medical centers, all of whom demonstrated a need for nursing staff. As I returned to Cleveland, I vowed to explore this opportunity more.

And so I did. Thanks to several weeks of phone tag, faxing documents, writing large checks to government agencies, and playing the waiting game, I will be starting work in the Liver Transplant Surgical Sub-specialty Intensive Care Unit at the University of California Los Angeles Medical Center, Westwood Campus, on July 7. Since the commute would be prohibitive otherwise, I will be moving to Los Angeles on July 3. Since I'm driving out, I leave Cleveland on June 27, with plans to visit several national parks, Boulder, CO, and Las Vegas on the way out. The next several weeks will be a whirlwind of planning, finalizing a few things on the LA end, and compressing my life into a 2003 Honda Civic Sedan with an extra eleven cubic feet of space, courtesy of the fine folks at Yakima and Bike Authority. So if you're in need/want of some furniture drop me a line; I'm looking to be rid of most of what I have here, and most of it can be yours for the cost of coming to get it. I have bookshelves, a couch, chairs, dining room stuff, you name it. Please come get it. Please...