The plan was, this move was fundamentally the same as Toronto, and I could basically do the same thing as there. However, there were a few changes that made things trickier:
- Hotel near work. In Toronto, this was in the middle of nowhere and it was a very short walk to work. Here, the first day is close to LAX, and the hotel was close to LAX. This means it's harder to get cars in, and parking is hell.
- Having a car. When I went to Toronto, my father insisted on driving me, so we had the car to be able to get things done. Here, I have no car, and no immediate place to put one (I'll need to check with the lobby to see if it's included.) This hotel might be nice, but the fancy places don't nickel and dime you, they five and ten-dollar bill you.
- If you want to do anything remotely permanent in the US, you need a social security number (SSN), and a phone number.
- To get a phone number, you need a SSN.
- It's hard to get government things done on the weekend, and I arrived Friday night.
So, I spent the start of the day basically stuck at the hotel, because I had no obvious way to get anywhere. The LAX region is geared to tourists, not residents, so unless I want car rentals, or cheap thrills, there's not much nearby for me. I wouldn't be surprised if the booby bars would require SSN either. So, I'm on foot or on transit.
However, I do have internet at the hotel, so I did as much as I did there. The key priorities are:
- Get phone
- Get SSN
- Get accommodations
- Get transportation
As you can tell, there are a lot of dependencies in there which you could call circular. So, it looks like I need temporary solutions to most of these. I've got a burner phone charging, I'll arrange for extended stay hotels until I find a real residence, and I'll try to rent a car before I lease one for good.
However, I'm not alone in this, and I had a lot of help from some 'friends of the family'...
A friend who we'll name Bads agreed to meet up with me and help me out, so this afternoon, we met and got a few things done.
We went to Best Buy, and tried to get the phone, but that's where we learned you need a SSN to get a contract, so we tried getting a prepaid SIM card. Thankfully, Mrs. Bads didn't let us leave until it worked, which proved fruitful, because turns out all the cards on the shelf expired 4 months ago. So, I picked up a burner which I am still trying to charge. I might need to visit the customer support aisle again.
We then took a bit of a tour of the city, going down most of the famous roads downtown, Sunset Strip, Beverly Hills, Tommy's Famous Burgers, and ending at the Santa Monica Pier. And I remembered the time where we left it all behind. Either way, we got some good culture exchange going, as I scared them with stories of winter while we needed jackets for 55F weather.
But it was a great evening, spending time with them and the kids. It's good to know we already have friends down there, looking out for us. I'll also use the intel to make sure I end up in the right parts of town, but it turns out that my hours are pretty favourable, given that I'm almost always avoiding rush hour.
We'll see what happens, but seems I've hit my quota on things I can do today.
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