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The background check continued today, believe it or not.

That number in the title is my Selective Service Registration ID. I'm glad I've had it memorized since 1990. For the record, I picked Coast Guard because I figured sometimes they get to wear shorts.

They also took my fingerprints. For those familiar with my strict "no stuff on my hands" issue, imagining my distress at actively inking my fingers in front of a room full of strangers might be amusing.

For the record, I did not shake uncontrollably. Instead, I focused my energy on memorizing the proper finger layout order on the card so that I could ink, press, re-ink, and press again with no interruption. In the end, the process was so smooth I got ahead of the fingerprinter and pushed the card up in the holder to make room on the next row before she could.

"I've just done this more than I care to talk about," was the explanation I chose for that. And, in truth, once is more than I care to talk about.

The orientation process at my new job is two solid days of coursework and catered meals. This is different than the orientation I'm used to which is, "Holy crap! Everything is broken! Fix it! Fix it!"

I will have no access to the interwebz while at my new job, though, so I'm looking for some kind of chemical substitute. Preferably something which won't turn up in any random screening.

The main differences I've seen between South Carolina and Houston are all about the vertical. There are hills here. I'd call them "mountainettes". They get in the way of navigating by sight, but the turnarounds are all really pretty so the stress of being lost kind of goes away.

Also, everyone is friendly. At least so far. It is the kind of friendly which makes the paranoid in me (40% by volume) avoid drinking the water and expect to find some mound of murdered drifters around every corner, but I'll take it at face value because there is a Starbucks and I like Starbucks.

So that is all the update I'm allowed to give at this point. I miss my friends and family very much and my hotel room is so small I can hardly turn my suitcase on its side, but there are trees. A lot of trees.

Someone should do something about that, in my opinion.