first days at work

OK, I will provide some media so that you get a better impression of our new life in Seattle. First of all the twins want to show the house, all the rooms upstairs atleast. The basement will be shown once we occupied that and made it worth living. (and as soon as I managed to win the war against these evil creatures and made their territory ours .... ! Give me the flea gun, I have an appointment downstairs!! Am I getting carried away? I don't think so, I am getting serious. Well MAYBE I am a bit overanxious, I must admit. - to be honest, as soon as the construction work is finished downstaris we plan to make a kids-play and office room downstairs, as well as a little guest appartment. Downstairs is a bathroom and kitchen, so any of our guests can have their own retreat zone.)



After the twins gave a tour through the house they had their own go at the camera and did two more videos of the house - actually very amusing! I will try to post them somehow within the next days. Narne as you will see in the pictures below is no longer satisfied with being "just" with us, he wants to take part in every activity - his own way!






We even manged to harvest the apple tree in our back yard.


Katrin did write most of the news so I will stick with the photos and the first work report. I got an inside office with no windows what I have to get used to, but it is a nice size and I got extremely good new computer equipment to work with. I share the office with another postdoc so I hope that will be quite productive. So no longer looking out of the window, dreaming more important things than work. Many older scientists told me lately that the postdoc was the most productive phase, ... before you have to deal with all this administrative and managing stuff - let's hope it is the same for me. I am motivated, I just have to use this motivation and get going!
Talking about administration - it is quite a task to be hosted as a foreign national at a US government department - NOAA officially belongs to the department of commerce. I don't want to know what would be necessary for a normal position. Well in the end my social security number was issued and mailed to me faster than expected and arrived only 4 days after applying for it together with my Washington state drivers license - that made it possible to get a temporary key for the doors. Up to that time I officially had to be escorted through the building and was not allowed to walk around by myself. The whole story I will be willing to tell over a nice wine or two.

The working atmosphere is extremely nice, relaxed! Only one thing is surprinsing - for research there is extremly low concentration of coffee in the air. I got told that this is due to the fact that it is a goverment place, but nothing sure yet. I got my instant coffee for the first weeks and will keep my eyes open for a possible improvement on that - I am not allowed to forget to take milk with me in the morning; otherwise I have to drink black coffee all day ... which I prefer not to.
The morning bicycle commute to work is FUN, the afternoon ride home is challenging. Why? Well steep downhill in the morning, opposite after work. What is steep? Once I get out my racing bike and the cyclometer will tell us the exact values, for the moment go with these approximations: distance: 2.5 miles (~4km), a drop of 280 feet (85m) in just 0.7miles (1km). On my way to work I need 8 min from door to gate and 16-20 on the way back. I am looking foreward to the times on the racing bike. So far I had to carry quite a few things to work and back, thus the racing bike was no option, yet. But as soon as I only will have to carry my lunch there - it will be an option.

Not much news otherwise - I treated myself with a shiny new toy - an iPhone. I am quite happy and very satisfied. Except some start up problems - AT&T made it possible that I was incapable of sending and receiving any text messages!! Wow did not know it is possible to switch messaging off, well it was for AT&T ... but they realized after a while. The only hassle was that they made me come into the shop to change that - because on the phone I cannot identify myself without a Social Security Number!?!?!! ... Why SSN in the first place and why in the world is it necessary to identify myself if there is something WRONG with an item they sold? Well, customer phone service much below average on AT&T concerning my point of view! The same day I had those "issues" the first electricity bill came in ... shock.. we are supposed to have used 600kWh in 6 days. In Kiel we reduced our electricity consumption to 2000kWh a YEAR. It took a bit longer to solve that and in the end was my fault .... here in seattle the currentmeters installed have 5 dials. Well as person dealing with research instruments of all ages I read them and send in my readings. I did not realize that every 2nd dial turns into a different direction, not all clock wise.
Luckily they were able to sort out that problem after two days.

As you can read, some hick ups at the start, but it is going already quite smooth. We feel like home already - and I start to think 1 liter milk packages are ridicoulous small - how did we cope without the gallon package? ;o) !