Having been a city boy all my life (Hong Kong, NYC, Boston), my transition to living in Togus got off to a rocky start. I was nearly stranded on my first grocery run to the Hannaford in Augusta when I learned that GPS navigation on my smartphone does not work without data access while roaming. My usual sources of multimedia and entertainment were also lacking, although the availability of MiFi in the house allowed me to catch up on season 3 of Lost via Netflix streaming. Fortunately, I found reprieve from the cold and solitude after returning from my interview at Duke and catching an earlier flight back to Portland to meet Melody for dinner at Fore Street. It was well worth the extra $50 airline fee for tasty wood-grilled mussels and a few extra hours with my wife. We spent Sunday exploring nearby Augusta and China (the town in Maine, not the country), shopping in strip malls and dining at the China Dine-Ah. After hearing the catchy jingle on the radio all weekend long, we could not resist the quality homestyle cooking like meatloaf and sheperd’s pie. When I finally returned home to Boston to cover call this weekend, I had tons of emails and receipts to file away, but fortunately, no ruptured globes to repair. Although the Togus rotation has been laid back so far, I’ll be looking forward to our upcoming vacation with Melody’s family over Thanksgiving.

This is the story of my mind-numbing trip aboard buses, planes, and cars across 3 time zones and 5 interviews in 6 days. Possible? Yes. Insane? Absolutely. It began last Wednesday after work with a mad dash to South Station to catch my bus down to New York, which due to rush hour traffic, got me late to the Columbia pre-interview dinner. The interview itself on Thursday lasted an epic 11 hours (thanks to my last name), which of course made me late for my next dinner with the Cornell faculty. By the time I finished my third NYC interview at NYEE, I was completely drained, although thankful to still have some time to spend with family before flying out to Chicago. Arriving early in the Windy City on Sunday, I revisited the bean at Millenium Park and had a table for one at nearby Park Grill for lunch. I spent the afternoon reading at the Harold Washington Library, supposedly the largest circulating library in the world, before the UIC dinner. I took off for San Francisco right after my interview there, which gave me a chance to check out my friend’s fancy new house as well as my first taste of Indian pizza before my UCSF interview on Tuesday. From there, I took the red-eye flight home, arriving bright and early to rendevous with my wife to pick up my luggage, groceries, and rental car for the 3-hour move up to the Togus VA medical center in Maine. After orientation (ID badge, house keys, parking permit, computer login, etc.), I settled into my new home for the next 7 weeks amidst the cold, bleak landscape. This is probably my first time living alone in such a large house in the middle of nowhere, reminding me of such horror films as The Shining (big house, isolation, cold winter) and The Amityville Horror (scary house, winter, flies). So if you start seeing some “all work and no play makes Glenn a dull boy” emails in your inbox, you may want to call and check up on me.