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| Woodland Hills, California |
As most have you have probably already heard, my long search for a post-MBA job has finally come to an end. It was a journey that essentially began when I first started at Anderson almost two full years ago, and that finally culminated in an offer in late July. I'm just over one full week into the new job, and although I think it's a little too early to give a fair evaluation I think it'll be interesting and a good situation for me. The quick summary is that I will be working as a Financial Analyst for a real estate investment firm called Alliant Asset Management, working on financial models to evaluate their prospective investments. It's a bit of a shift from the stock market-focused jobs that I had mainly been recruiting for, but its still investment related, and with my rising interest in real estate over the past few months, I'm happy with my last minute industry change. Since I was out of town for the last couple weeks of July, I didn't officially accept the offer until early August, but my transition since that point has been very abrupt. In just a span of a couple days, I changed my apartment, city, car, and employment status.
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| My new cube is in one of those buildings |
Keeping consistent with my past efforts to minimize commute time (I walked to the office for much of my tenure at Cambridge), I decided to move from the consistently beautiful weather of West LA to the more desert-like life in the Valley. In the midst of a heat wave, the temperatures have been between 100-110 almost every day I've been in Woodland Hills so far. However, aside from the summer heat, it seems to be a lovely place to live. The weather starting in the fall should be really nice, and I'm looking forward to exploring the many hiking trails in the nearby mountains. Despite being "in the Valley", it doesn't feel any less like a city than the sprawled out Los Angeles, and the building I work in would actually be among the tallest buildings in LA. All types of shopping needs are a short walk or drive away from my apartment and office, and most areas of LA itself can be reached in a 30-45 minute drive.
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| Living room of my new apartment |
After visiting numerous properties, I ended up signing a lease at the Archstone Warner Center, about a mile and a half north of my office. Needless to say, my new apartment is a major upgrade over my previous one. My old home was falling apart from age, was noisy, with painfully inadequate temperature control, and lots of Mexican neighbors. My new apartment was constructed only a couple years ago, is almost eerily quiet, with central air, and lots of Mexican neighbors. There is also an awesome pool area with a hot tub and fire pit, a well equipped gym, gated parking, plus my very own balcony and washer/drier/dishwasher. And making it even better, my new rent is lower than the current rate of my old apartment.
The final major change this month was when I finally said goodbye to the 97 Civic that has served the Schaaf family so well for over 15 years. Although it was a bittersweet moment, I am certainly happy with the exchange. I decided to go with a 2011 Infiniti G37, and among its many features, my favorite is that the back bumper and right mirror are still attached. (I have a few more pictures of the apartment, office, and car on my
Picasa album)
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| The final picture ever taken of the car that helped Eric Move To LA |
With so many sudden changes I briefly considered starting up a new website,
eric-moves-to-woodland-hills.blogspot.com, to chronicle the start of this next chapter in my life, but quickly dismissed that as silly talk caused by heat exhaustion. As I settle into a regular work schedule, with a long time to go before I accrue any serious vacation time, I know I won't have enough writing material to compare with my MBA journey or some of the more exotic trips I took over the past two years. Although I'm excited about all these new changes, that does necessarily make for an overly interesting read. I will probably still make an occasional update if something warrants it, but let's consider this the unofficial end to my blog. I would now like to take a minute to thank all five of my readers for their continued support, the heavy use of the comments section of my website, and the home cooked meals when I came back east to visit. I couldn't have done it without you all. Hugs and kisses.
