Today was the last of the week's 10 hour days, so I'm starting to get used to it, but I'm still doing simple things, and trying to absorb as much as I can. There were two meetings, a project orientation, and a developer checkpoint. We were supposed to compare progress, but me and one other were done (I had easy ones), and I got enough answers to tweak my deliverables. Should work. Monday, I'll get access to the baseline code, which will open things up.
I also heard back from the apartment. They came to the conclusion that I had no American credit, and would need to pay an extra deposit. However, I was expecting it to be like 500-600, not a full month's rent, so that ate the rest of my pre-first pay budget, and into my safety net. I mean, I kept a generous I-have-no-idea-what-I'm-doing fund, but this was almost a grand, and wiped out my safety net.
I had to do some financial acrobatics, but I have the funds. It does mean I can't look at the car until that paycheque comes in. That's also where my moving expenses will be paid, so that deposit will fix all of my money issues, non outright-buy-a-car department. They also insisted on getting a cashier's cheque, or money order, which is difficult when your bank is thousands of miles away. I did hear that Walmart has money orders, so huh.
Speaking of which, I went back to Mazda's site, and not only do they advertise the foreign resident program, they also have a first owners program. There's also a dealership right next to where I live (which seems to be in Orange County), and I'll go there with the printout. So, we'll see tomorrow, when I have time. If I do go with them, it'll be despite that guy from yesterday.
So, yesterday, I tried setting up the phone on the, uh, phone, and I was expecting a response, which I never got. So, I went to the T-Mobile place first, because it closes at 7. I have no idea what they did on the phone, but at the store, we got it running. But, I couldn't port the number, so I have a new number. The old one will work until the burner runs out.
So, next step is the Walmart. However, driving back, I keep spotting this Vietnamese place that has pho, and today, I managed to turn somewhere in the vicinity of it, and getting some. I know I missed the spirit of it, but when I paid at the end, it was technically Friday back home. Either way, I took the 'authentic' version, which contained tripe. I always thought that was dog food, and I expected to taste offal, but it was... weird. It wasn't bad, but it was pretty tasteless. Like chewy cartilage. Either way, I couldn't spice it to my liking, but it was really good. Also, I did my first legal U-turn on the road to get out. So, that's something.
So, Walmart. I went there and noticed they had a money center near the service center, so I went there. I told the girl I needed a four-digit money order. Turns out, they can only do $1000 at a time, so we'd need four. Thankfully, it's only 70 cents an order. So, she rung them up and tried charging me the full amount. That didn't work. So we tried paying $1000 at a time, which did work, until the third time. I thought I set up with the bank for a large withdrawal!
Either way, she cancelled it so we could start over, and it took 5 minutes, and possibly manager intervention. So, we decided we'd just do one money order at a time, so we can claim partial victory if something goes wrong. We get the first one out, and celebrate with a high five! Then we tried getting the second one out, and the card refused to work. Screw that, I'll finish tomorrow. One down, three to go!
Again, this country is not making things easy for me!
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