I’m in Los Angeles today. It smells like an airport runway.
I am a part of the 405 South. Man’s largest parking lot, slowly inches forward in the midday Sunday traffic. Stopping. Waiting. Inching. My fingers tap tap tap on the steering wheel, my eyes they peer into the nearby vehicles. An old black woman in a white mercedes rolling her head slowly from side to side– perhaps slowly dancing, perhaps stretching, perhaps trying to snap her own neck. We sit alone in our cars and wait for the brake lights to desist.
I’m reminded of the night before. Wildcat– the club in Santa Barbara where the bass rattles already overworked kidneys, the young adults raise their hands, bodies slippery with sweat. The movement, of two hundred people packed shoulder to shoulder, front to back– grinding. Packed so tight but still able to move, a liquid form of movement. A knee interlocking with the back of a thigh, the curve of a spine perfectly fit to the belly of another. Stacked like chairs, writhing like snakes.
And I’m back in traffic, there is no moving. Just waiting. So the black woman tries to dance alone in her car but glass, steel, and chrome–they only stack. They do not snake. She dances alone. To the left a twenty something angel of a woman sighs a long sigh. She drives something old, very old. Rust and chrome. She glows, her car sags on its wheels, she closes her eyes.
I’m reminded once again of the night before. The girl who danced without opening her eyes. Navigating by touch, by taste, by smell. Illuminated by the frantic lights she moves and I just can’t help but smile and close my eyes– pretending I’m dancing with her.
We lurch forward and the traffic quickens its pace, I drive on.
I’m on my way to the city. Los Angeles, a place that I will soon call home in a few short weeks. As soon as the freeway ends the traffic lights begin. Street after street after street. I’ve got a big job now, and I’m no one in a big city full of everyone. I’m looking for an apartment. I drive through Compton– just to see where I don’t want to live. I decide Compton would be a great place to take a girl with an adventurous spirit for a date.
I go to richer places. Socioeconomic lines have been drawn across the pavement here with bulldozers. East to West–the poor are afraid of water and the rich own boats. I settle on Playa Del Ray and choke to death on the rich cake that is the cost of rent. A stones throw from the beach and what a beautiful view of the Los Angeles Airport. I’m still looking.
I can’t see why you’d want to live here.
I’m reminded of the night before. Waiting in line, the bouncer fingering my ID and looking me in the eye with an accusatory stare. Walking through the front entrance only to be blown back out by decibel upon decibel of chest pounding music. Stinking of alcohol the writhing snake of people are stacked with precision, no room for me– not an inch to even breath.
And I can’t see why you’d want to dance here.
But then both the bar and the dance floor open up and I find myself invited in to writhe among the masses. So I do, and its different, but I enjoy it. I close my eyes and dance with the girl who has closed hers. Our bodies intertwined on the dance floor, moving, breathing, touching, feeling. Loving. We ebb and flow with the tide of bodies. The beat of the music reverberates through our skin and we lose ourselves entirely in the moment.
LA. I will lose myself in you, to emerge a new found man.
SpaceX is a GO!
Last week I woke up tremendously early, donned a nice jacket and slacks, and proceeded to hit the worst traffic I have ever encountered on the 405. I was on my way to SpaceX the company started in 2002 to create an inexpensive and reliable way to get cargo into space, and I was running ten minutes late.
I was there for an interview for the position of Systems Engineer. In fact I was there for 6 interviews that lasted a total of 5 hours.
The people I met, the mentality, the energy. It was quite an experience. The company has dotcom roots, meaning that Elon Musk the CEO/CTO was the former owner of such renowned internet startups as PayPal and Zip2. That unique energy of a startup company was there vibrating throughout the 5 buildings that are home to SpaceX– even though the company is now over five years old. People were cheerful and seemed to be enjoying themselves as they worked– I was even greeted by a friendly individual as I used the restroom. The kitchen was stocked with all sorts of goodies to munch on, and the cubicles were home to everyone– from vice presidents all the way down the ladder. The machine shop– at least the one I saw, seemed to be quite close to other offices. Hopefully that means that engineers worked very closely with machinists, which is fantastic because it’s a great dynamic.
The machine shop that I toured had giant mills and lathes shaping rocket nozzles out of huge pieces of copper. The scale of work being done there is gigantic in comparison to the minuscule parts the Balloon Project required. I got to see the full scale mock up of the Dragon capsule– which will be used to send people and cargo into space.
To make a long story short though, I had a great time there, and I’m proud to announce that a few days ago I was informed of some great news.
The company and I are working out a job offer right now, and it’s almost a done deal: Kosta Grammatis is going to be a Systems Engineer for SpaceX. What more could a boy of 21 fresh out of college ask for? Nothing else. This is a dream come true.
So what’s next you might ask? I will be packing my things, acquiring some sort of living accommodations, and moving off to El Segundo (close to the Los Angeles Airport). So much for the trip of destiny… I didn’t need to go very far for destiny to do its thing. There’s a bit of an irony here though, I was holding off on the trip of destiny because I was waiting for my personal business cards to arrive that I could use to give to potential employers. I guess you don’t need business cards.
