New Teams, Dog Park and Traffic

First of all, a complaint we forgot: sales tax out here is 8.625%. That hurts. They also just raised some other tax (didn't catch which) that has people considering moving to nearby no tax states.

Another little side note, we picked up our car from the shop yesterday, and took it right back because it wasn't fixed. Went back today to get it and it felt like the problem was fixed, until we got all the way back home (35 minutes away) when it did it again. So we are "enjoying" owning a newer car by taking it back to San Jose AGAIN tomorrow. Luckily, they are being very nice, and we haven't paid anything for this. Good thing I opted for the extra warranty when I bought the car!!

Ok, New Teams! Nick and I went to the mall to get San Francisco sports team apparel. Nick got a really nice SF 49ers jacket, and I got a 49ers T-shirt and a Giants T-shirt. (I don't want to brag, but at the mall Nick and I spent about the same amount of money. I spent $10 more than he did. He got a jacket. I got 2 T-shirts, a pair of boots AND a jacket.)

 We're all ready for Saturday's game in San Francisco against the Packers with our new gear!! We'll cheer really loud from our couch. I'm sure we'll excite the puppies with that. A sad thought I had today: The next 2 weeks will be the saddest weeks because we will be puppy-less. Yikes.


Earlier today we took the dogs to the beach dog park again. We weren't going to take them in our new, really clean car, but since we were in a rental still, we took them. It is heaven for both the dogs and for me. It's amazing to see sooo many dogs in one place. Here is a picture of the park itself, dogs in foreground, ocean in background:

The park is huge. It has plenty of dry trails that appear to double as horse trails, and the beach part. Today it was windy, which made it feel pretty chilly so we stayed up on top of the hill and didn't go down to the water. There is an area for hang gliders too, but we haven't seen anyone doing it.

 I asked Nick if we could be dog walkers. He said I'd need a bigger vehicle. There are dozens of dog walkers that bring 10+ dogs to this park. It's an off leash park, so it's a puppy-palooza. You hear walkers screaming "ok, here we go so-and-so" and masses of dogs walk off. I don't know how the dogs know which group to stay with. I kept feeling like we were going to lose track of just our 2.

This morning I took some advice from my mom, and did a test drive to work to see how long it took in rush hour traffic. It will be a little bit off because I went from the house we were staying in, which is farther away than our apartment will be by 15 minutes, but I got the gist. The 45 minute drive took 1hr 10 min. It was about what I was expecting. That was to the actual office. It should be considerably shorter from apartment to jobsite. I think I only have to go to the office the first day (Monday). Nick has learned what carpool lanes and express lanes are since moving here. He wasn't convinced they were necessary because all of our driving had been midday on weekdays so far, but he got to see how convenient they are tonight when we caught a little bit of after work traffic.