Today was my first official day at my new job. I picked out my cube which is actually quite a spacious area. I have one full wall on one side of me which makes it slightly less cube-like. The desk itself is enormous! I have more than enough room to work in.

The equipment is awesome also. I was presented with a brand-new 15″ MacBook Pro which is faster and has a bigger hard drive than my own. They also put 4GB of RAM in it which is what I put in my own. The importance is having lots and RAM can not be overstated. Along with the laptop came an Apple keyboard, Apple bluetooth mouse, and 24 inch Dell monitor. These are exactly the things I would buy for myself. Actually, I’ve never used an Apple mouse but the bluetooth mouse looks promising which is good since my existing bluetooth mouse stopped working for me yesterday. The Apple mouse *does* support right-clicking despite the single shell. The mouse can detect if you’re pressing down on either the left or right side. There’s also a couple of buttons on the sides you can squeeze to make something happen. The default is for activate Expose’s show-all-windows view but this can be configured to anything. The size and weight of the mouse feels good. After some time I’m sure I’ll get used to the single-shell with two “buttons” idea.

Much of the day was spent getting software installed and configured. I also spent a good deal of time talking with my boss about the project and different ideas about how to approach it. Since there’s no source control management in place yet I knew this would be one of the first things we’d need to put in place. Much to my surprise my boss was very open to the idea of using Git for source control management. I thought for sure he would push hard for Subversion since it’s so well known and would be considered less risky. This guy is amazingly open to trying things that he hasn’t personally used. He’s actually in touch with current practices and takes input from the developers he works with seriously. This is the exact opposite of my last job.

I’m really looking forward to working on this project with these people. This is going to be unlike anything I’ve done before.

I didn’t get to watch any movies today but I did watch most of Reclaiming the Blade last night on Netflix streaming. However, this particular title could only be played from the web client. I couldn’t add it to my Instant Queue for playback on other devices. I was getting sleepy and had to turn it off about 75% of the way though and didn’t feel like going back and finishing it today. Anyway, it’s a documentary on the history of swords an sword fighting and the role swords have had in our culture over the years. Very interesting.

Emily and the kids come back in a couple of days. I can’t wait for everyone to be back in the house again. I miss my family.