New job, new home & Bonnie Raitt

Started the new job and I am busy...busier and more challenged than I have been for a long time! I am the Communications Lead for a global program focused on having partners and customers adopt a new contract management system........they have to actually, we are about to retire the old system!!! My job is to co-ordinate the various communications folks to make sure we are aligned and do the right things in the right way. So far that involves lots and lots of meetings, putting in place some processes so that we work as a team and trying to figure out if we are actually doing the right things. Its fantastic to be in a global program and work with different parts of the world. My team are great, very professional, capable people who all want to do well. My saving grace is that this program is a sister program to the one I have left so I at least understand some of the technical content and the context in which we are trying to do this. My boss is grand - we have never met, she lives in Southern California and only comes here once every 4 or 6 weeks.....her boss is in Texas and runs the same gig. This really is virtual working and amazing to get a job on the back of telephone interviews.
Come July by roomie finishes her Masters so I have had to think about where I am going to live. I had thought I would leave Santa Cruz but now that I only have to work in the office a minimum of one day a week (I choose 3) I have decided to rent Michelles beach cottage when her lease is up (1 August) and stay here. It has surprised me as I did seriously look at Mountain View (home of Google). The Cottage is fully furnished, two bedrooms, one block from where I live and one block from the beach. I know the landlords well having negotiated Michelle renting it in the first place. And it comes with a weekday boarder (Prof from the University who lives in SF but works down here during the week). I am not keen on a full time roomie so this is a nice compromise. My biggest delimma is whether I buy the three for one package and get TV, Internet and a landline!!!! Since I have started watching programmes/movies online I don't much care about TV. I think I will give that a miss and just get a large monitor to hook to my computer to (nice for work as well).

This weekend Michelle and I headed off to the Santa Cruz Blues Festival to watch Bonnie Raitt. It was a great day. Arrived about midday and the place was packed. We did manage to find a very nice place on the lawn and proceeded to sit back and relax for the day. The show was in a natural amphitheatre so we were surrounded by trees. Bonnie was the last act (and by then we had found some of Michelle'sfriends) so we all got up and danced and laughed. The crowd was interesting. Mostly white, middle class to very wealthy, with a heavy sprinkling of hippies. I am pretty confident the average age would have hung in the 40s somewhere. While it looked very conservative it was quite clear that, despite the "no smoking" by-laws there was smoking of all kinds going on. Alcohol was also available and what made the whole thing nice was that I never saw anybody behaving badly. Just a mellow, happy crowd.

It's Memorial Day weekend (I think this is kind of like our ANZAC Day) so there is a general air of relaxed. Next weekend I am off to a dance fundraiser for the National Center for Lesbian Rights (they are leading much of the work around trying to have gay marriage legalized). Anyway it's part of a much bigger weekend event. It's in SF so I have booked a hotel and I am going with a friend, Dee, who I met quite a few months back and her friend.......who I haven't yet met. Dee lives in Berkley but used to live in Santa Cruz so anytime she is down this way we try to catch up for a walk, drink or dinner. I am looking forward to the dance - it's a formal affair so I am very intrigued to see how people dress (SF Californians don't really do "formal"). Anyway I am assured there will be lots of girls in frocks (no I won't be one of them!).