It has been 2 weeks since moving to Davis, and time has quickly flown by. Even before my stuff arrived, settling into the new house has been a massive project unto itself. I spent the first few days fiddling with the network wiring, mapping the light switches, replacing the bulbs with energy-saving ones, programming the thermostat, and installing new shelves for kitchen cabinets. I also learned many new things – like how to program the backyard lights, how to rekey a lock, and how to use a multimeter to test the limits of my electrician skills. Meanwhile, we had meetings lined up for a gardener, a pet sitter, a cleaning service, an interior designer, and a number of flooring contractors. We had not realized that replacing the entire house with hardwood floors would involve so many choices to make: the color and type of wood, solid vs. engineered materials, glued vs. floating installation. Ultimately, we chose Blue Valley Remodeling to install a Brazilian Cherry engineered wood from Kahrs, which including material and labor made for a nice dent in our already suffering bank account. Between frequent visits to Home Depot and Lowe’s, we took a few trips to downtown Davis to check out the food scene. The house-special tonkatsu ramen at Zen Toro was respectable, but the Korean tacos at Tako and beef noodle soup from Hometown Chinese Restaurant were uninspiring. To keep things interesting, my movers managed to lose a desk leg and the futon hardware in transit, adding to the chaos as we shifted all the furniture around in preparation for the flooring project. I did manage to escape day one of the demolition by braving the rush hour traffic into San Francisco to attend the 2014 ISER meeting. Unaware that the audience was primarily scientists (not clinicians) I was embarrassed to arrive in a suit, but quickly forgot about it when I smugly told everyone about my $16/day parking deal from ParkWhiz. The Embarcadero location of the hotel did make for an easy getaway to the Ferry Building for lunch with a collaborator. Now with our floors gone and the place a mess, I hope I can stay sane long enough to prepare for our trip!