Getting settled.

Alright, so since I've gotten here I've been pretty rotten at keeping up on the whole blog thing...
The long and short of it is that I'm getting settled, know my way around a little better, love the area I live in, but hate my apartment complex.
I'm actually making quite the attempt to get out of my lease, but all of my attempts so far have been thwarted by evil management. I've now enlisted professional help from the lovely people at Arizona Tenant Advocates. Basically, the maintenance is a joke around here and hooligans are making this place worse than it was before... Graffiti, beer cans, cigarette butts... Gross. And management pretty much does nothing about it.
My sweet Noah is on his way down to Arizona now as well. He picked up his trailer today, will be taking off from Oregon on Wednesday, and I'm expecting he'll be in the state Friday morning. He's moving to a place in Mesa, and once I get finished taking a machete to my lease, that is where I will join him. His brother Joey is also making the move, along with Noah's 2 dogs. A 2 bedroom, 2 bath duplex with 3 adults and 3 dogs. This might get interesting... At least the male/female ratio is good. 2 male, 1 female for the adults; 1 male, 2 female for the pups...
As far as my job goes, I like it just fine, but I'm eager to move upward. There are six Sr. Analyst positions coming up in December it sounds like, which is a brand new position within our 1 year old department. I'm really hoping to be a shoe-in, and not be getting fake encouragement from the management staff up to this point. I really like my supervisor, and the team lead - we all seem to have fun joking around with each other, often at one another's expense, but all in good fun.
Billy has adapted to the heat very well - in most cases, he's wanting to stay outside in it longer than me, and he's wearing a fur coat! I've found a great groomer/doggy daycare/boarder that he seems to enjoy spending time at if he can't be with me, and a really nice vet down the street too, which I will likely take him to even after the move 1/2 hour away to Mesa.
I've made some friends through work, as well as a couple outside of work, but mostly enjoy my solitude. I have people to hang out with if I need some socialization, a sports bar down the street if I just want to have a brew and get out of the apartment, but mostly I like being at home. As it cools down there are a few things I want to do, like hiking around South Mountain, camping, checking out the Grand Canyon (maybe on a camping weekend?), revisit Sedona, and check out some of the sites around Phoenix, like Tempe Town Lake (once it's finished getting refilled), there's another lake about 1/2 hour North of Phoenix, there's a farm with a few restaurants that closed over the summer since it's outdoor seating, and check out our ONLY local brewery, Four Peaks Brewery in Tempe.
Overall, it's been a great Summer, and I'm looking forward to getting visitors sick of the NW rain over the Winter.

P.S. - Thank you UO and OSU for beating ASU in college football these last 2 weekends. It's been nice to cheer on Oregon teams and watch them beat the local team.