Baltimore, so far

I arrived in Baltimore last Wednesday evening. As I approached the city, I played "Good Morning Baltimore" and sang along. The next song that came up on my iPod was "Come Back to Texas" (by Bowling for Soup). I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I laughed.

Okay, so I moved to Baltimore. And I took a few pictures to give you a small taste about my life here.

First of all, I started my job at Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) on Monday. STScI is located on the campus of Johns Hopkins University, though it's not technically affiliated with it. I am living in a brownstone-type row house a few blocks south of campus. It takes me 20-25 minutes to walk to work. I hope to buy a bike in the next week or two and start biking in. The weather outside if fantastic now, so I'm happy to be outside.

Here is a shot of the outside of my house:


It's kind of fun, actually, I feel like I'm living such an urban lifestyle!

I have four roommates, who I found through church. They are all students (two are grad students -- one at JHU and one at Towson -- and two are undergrads -- again, one at JHU and one at Towson). They are really great and a lot of fun so far.

There are five rooms in our house (so we all have our own). I was the last roommate to sign a lease in the house, so naturally I got the smallest room that doesn't have any windows. (But hey, that also means I'm paying the least in rent, and cheap rent equals more money to be put in savings. And I already know how to live in a windowless room.) But surprisingly, it doesn't bother me too much. My stuff is still in boxes....I don't quite know what to do with everything, so unpacking is going very slowly.

STScI is so far a great place to work. Everyone seems really friendly and helpful. My boss is great and there are other people here that I'm looking forward to working with. Here's a shot of my building. (You can see the STScI logo just to the right of the door.)

The JHU campus is beautiful. Here's a picture, that I took on my way to the gym.

Apparently I'm destined to live a window-less existence in Baltimore this year. My office, like my bedroom, doesn't have any windows. I think this is actually worse than my room at home not having windows. I'll hopefully get some posters or something up soon so it's not so drab and depressing.

Also note the shiny new MacBook Pro on my desk. My boss bought it for me, and so far it's great. I'm slowly getting used to using a Mac. It'll be my main work computer, and I plug it into that monitor while I'm working at my desk.

There is a joke that this area of the building is more like a prison than a hallway of offices. Just because it seems so far away and doesn't have windows. This explains the signs on the door leading toward the exit.

Work is slow right now because the data for the project I was hired to work on haven't been taken yet. But it's good because it gives me a chance to get ramped up and familiarized with software, the Mac, and Baltimore life in general. But I'm not at lack of things to do. My boss is really on top of things and has a whole slew of data he's ready to hand off to me to work on from previous projects. And some of it is really interesting, so I'm looking forward to delving in.

So far life is good. I hope it continues to be so!