First Day

From March 08. The Catalinas, but on another planet.

A similar shot, virtually unedited.

Your mileage may vary, of course, but I've noticed in recent years that the first day at a new job can set the tone for one's overall experience with the company. They are always stressful, but I've had a few good first days over the years, and a a few really bad ones, with the rest falling somewhere in between. The jobs themselves corresponded pretty closely to those initial experiences. Case in point: my previous job started badly, and though it's not the fault of that particular company, I was never really happy there.

Today was a really good first day.

Unless something changes, I'll only be with Interesting Manufacturer for 90 days or so, but I think those 90 days will be pleasant ones. The people are nice, the atmosphere is reasonably laid back, and the building is even closer to where John works than I'd realized. The work is very much my kind of thing, and has a relatively mild learning curve. And when I step outside to wait for John's car, oh! How beautiful it all is! It's just a modern but unexceptional office park, but it's surrounded by plants and flowers even I can't fail to notice. And behind it is one of the most dramatic mountain views in Southern Arizona. I mean, how does a mere office park rate a view like that?

I forgot to bring my camera this morning, so for now you'll have to make so with two shots I took between there and here on Maundy Thursday in March 2008, when John's car broke down at Oracle and Ina. Both pictures were taken along the Ina Road / Skyline Drive corridor between Oracle and Sunrise. For the top one I had the camera accidentally set on manual, and it was ridiculously overexposed. When darkened, it had interesting bits of unrealistic color; so I boosted the saturation, make it a little redder, applied both the negative and solarization commands, and autoenhanced. Voila! Alien mountains, perhaps designed by Slartibartfast of Magrathea.

Tomorrow night, you'll get to see the real view.

Karen