Tag moving (13)
moved in, such as it is
Mood: bouncy
Music: "Lost" music
Posted on 2008-03-16 16:32:00
Tags: moving
Words: 342
8:30 AM - we get up, quickly move the computers electronics down to the cars so the movers don't take them.
9 AM - Movers are scheduled to arrive. No movers appear, so we take care of taking things down from the walls, etc.
10 AM - Still no movers. djedi calls, and the truck they sent has a flat tire, but they're just fixing it now. Should be another half an hour to an hour. We clean the bathrooms, etc.
11 AM - Big surprise, no movers. We're about out of things to do so I take my car with stuff over to the house, unload it, stop by Lowe's for some spackle and grab some drinks at Sonic.
11:45 PM - Alas, no movers. I take more stuff to the house and grab Chick-Fil-A for lunch on the way back.
12:30 PM - I call the movers and am like "what's up, fools?" The supervisor is very apologetic and says the first truck had a flat tire and then "personnel issues", whatever that means. They're sending a second truck soon and offer us a 20% discount if we want to move tomorrow (we have dinner plans so as long as we can finish before then we'd rather do it today) or a 10% discount today. I take yet another load to the house.
2 PM - The movers arrive! (it's a different crew, they came in on their day off) They start loading stuff into the truck while djedi and I mostly sit around since we're pretty much done with everything, which really isn't so bad.
4 PM - Done loading stuff, we head over to the house.
5 PM - The movers finish unloading the last of our stuff. Yay!
So after all was said and done, it was all fine. We had dinner with djedi's brother and wife and friends, set up the living room, unpacked some odds and ends. Today we hooked up the washer and dryer before djedi left for Houston. Now I'm watching Lost online, although I'm kinda lonely here in the big house.
I still dislike moving
Mood: cheerful
Posted on 2008-03-13 13:12:00
Tags: moving smashbros food
Words: 135
but we knocked out packing in basically two hours with literally one box still open. Thanks a ton, helpers! That was way less painful than I had expected. Then we played Smash Bros. and somehow unlocked (not a spoiler) Sonic, although I'm still not sure how.
Lowe's called and the carpet will come in next Wednesday, which means installation hopefully the week after that and then we can finally move in for real. Although before that we'll have the TV/computers, kitchen stuff, and a hot tub - what more could one really ask for?
I realized this weekend that I don't know any good local Italian places (preferably close to us) - anyone have suggestions? The only Italian I can think of is Olive Garden, which is fine but it would be nice to try somewhere else.
this is the beginning of the end (of moving)
Mood: worried
Posted on 2008-03-12 09:53:00
Tags: moving rant smashbros wii
Words: 423
Last night we got our stuff ready to pack, which means the whole moving thing is happening soon. People are coming over tonight to help us pack (thanks, people!) and we'll be living out of boxes for a while...the movers come for real on Saturday. Until we get settled in at the house we may be somewhat incommunicado, so call me on my cell phone (or better yet, call djedi on his since mine seems a bit unreliable). Moving brings out the worst in me, so I will likely be crabby and irritable and unhelpful for a while, so being incommunicado isn't the worst thing in the world. (sorry, people around me!)
Played a little Smash Bros last night - did the easy job of unlocking (spoiler alert: highlight to read) Snake , and then djedi got up to 29% in Subspace Emissary (the adventure mode). Next up to unlock I think will be (spoiler) Captain Falcon , so I might do that tonight. (Just kidding! Tonight is packing)
We've been trying to get cable/internet set up at the new place for a while now. We scheduled Time Warner to come out February 29 to hook it up, and the contractor guy said that the signal coming into the house was too weak and a supervisor would have to come out and look at it. Last Friday I called Time Warner to see what the deal was (the contractor said someone would call me to schedule an appointment), and luckily the woman was able to schedule an appointment for that day. So someone did come out to the house, did the same stuff as the contractor, and verified that that was indeed the problem. (not sure what the deal was there) He said engineers (I'm an engineer!) would have to work on the problem outside but I didn't need to be there or set up an appointment or anything.
So yesterday I call Time Warner to see if they know if the work's been done or when the work will be done, since we're getting awfully close to moving in. Using their nifty callback feature, I get a call 10 minutes later, and the woman said that in fact the last guy hadn't scheduled anything to be done and that someone did need to be at the house. Le sigh. So that's scheduled for Friday along with hot tub stuff.
But it's annoying to have to always call after anyone does anything to confirm what they said/actually get the next step of the process to happen.
makin' progress!
Mood: happy
Posted on 2006-09-01 20:18:00
Tags: moving
Words: 333
Yay unpacking boxes! There are still plenty of them around to be unpacked, but we've set up the computers, the entertainment center (TV, dvd player, etc.), a lot of pots and pans and silverware, and some clothes, which is pretty good progress. The funniest part so far has been when I was trying to get the TiVo to work - the video from the cable box wasn't showing up and I couldn't figure out why, so I went to the TiVo setup help. I was fooling around with the remote while David was working on some other things, like lamp placement. We knew that there were some switches in the main room that controlled a plug (for a lamp), so he switched one of them...and my computer turned off and went silent. I might have been irritated at the situation, had it not been so funny :-)
Slowly trying to get into a sort of routine - I'm trying to convince myself that it's...what's the opposite of "vacation"? Yeah, that. So hopefully I'll make it to the gym tomorrow and establish a good habit. We'll see...
We got hit by what was left of now-Tropical Depression Ernesto today - rain and wind but nothing terrible. Also went back to IKEA for the 3rd time to get some more stuff and tried to get my car Maryland-safety-inspected (try again Monday!) Were going to eat at the Cheesecake Factory but the wait was so long so we went back to formerly Pizzeria Uno (now just Uno), which was OK. (their pizza is good but I had a burger which was kinda meh)
I crunched the numbers today from the ridiculous amounts of money we've been spending (to be fair, the travel expenses will be reimbursed, hopefully by the end of 2006!) - we're a little tight on money but we'll make it until we start getting paid, which is nice to officially know.
Happy Labor Day weekend to those of you who it means something! One week until work starts!
world o' stuff
Mood: excited
Posted on 2006-08-31 21:21:00
Tags: moving pictures
Words: 103
As djedi mentioned, our stuff is here! I'm sitting in a chair now, which is very exciting!
Anyway, I took some time while the movers were hauling in our stuff to put up pictures from our move.
We bought an S-Video cable today. On the package, it says
For hook-up of a DVD player with an S-Video connection; carries video signal over two discreet paths
Home, sweet home(?)
Mood: confused
Posted on 2006-08-28 21:37:00
Tags: moving
Words: 374
So, we're in our apartment here! There's very little stuff, but we do at least have official internet (and not just unreliable mooching wireless), so gregstoll.com is up. It'll be down tomorrow when they give us new carpets (yay!), but back up for-goodish after that. I'll put pictures up...erm, sometime this week.
Last night we stayed in the guest suite, which was nicely furnished (including TV), so being in a nearly empty apartment is a bit of a step down. (but I do like having my computer up!) The drive Sunday went fine and we arrived here around 3:00, got the key to the guest suite and moved some stuff up, then mostly chilled out the rest of the evening. Checked in today and did our inspection and moved all the stuff up from the car, then papered shelves while waiting for the cable/internet guy to come. There are tons of cabinets and drawers, so we didn't finish, but it's a good start :-)
Finally found a Safeway and went grocery shopping (there's supposedly a Food Lion here that we want to see as well, but apparently went the wrong way and didn't find it yesterday) - got mostly just bare essentials that we should have in the pantry, and it cost $200! It seemed more expensive than HEB; I'm hoping Food Lion will be cheaper. Got a little lost on the way back when I realized I had passed the same landmark twice, but managed to find my way back :-) Then went out for dinner and stopped by IKEA to look at coffee tables (although we only had 20 mins before the store closed).
Tomorrow we're going down to DC to presumably see the National Zoo (pandas!) and International Spy Museum, and hopefully stop by IKEA on the way back.
I'm feeling kinda weird about the whole move - it doesn't help that my allergies/cold is mostly better, but my throat is still pretty consistently raw and dry. It's lonely being here - I'm trolling craigslist looking for...I don't know what. People or game nights or something. Anyway, I'm sure it'll pass. I wish I had work starting sooner and, after a month or so, two weeks off.
Bruce Schneier on what the terrorists want
Greetings from the most anti-gay state in the nation!
Mood: excited
Posted on 2006-08-26 21:13:00
Tags: moving travel
Words: 650
Ah, Roanoke, Virginia. So nice to end up in such a nice nice hotel as this. There's a nice whirpool with rotating lights (and two mirrors), big flat screen tv, and the place is huge. Will put up pictures when we get there :-)
So, the first two days: fairly successful in terms of driving. Today, not so much. Since things had gone well we decided to stick with the plan of the Blue Ridge Parkway. First problem - I-40 near the North Carolina border was down to 45 mph (fairly curvy road - it was in a national park, so makes sense). But we stuck with it and took it over to the parkway. Now, the speed limit on the parkway is 45 mph the whole way, which we hadn't realized. Also, the drive is kinda scary if you go 45 mph - there are tight turns, especially with changing altitude (think roller coaster!) Finally, for some reason they let bikers go on the road (it's one lane both directions with absolutely no shoulder, and usually the trees are very close to the road). Now I'm sure it's an awesome (but tough!) ride with the scenery, but this is seriously dangerous because you have to either slow to a low speed to stay behind them or try to pass them quickly, which is scary because the road is fairly narrow and on a lot of the turns you're lucky if you can see a second in front of you. So that was scary.
Having said that, the view was absolutely gorgeous - we switched off drivers so we could both see the scenery. There are lots of overlooks where you can stop and take pictures, which I did :-)
So originally in my mind we were going to take the Blue Ridge Parkway the whole way to Roanoke, then spend the night in Charlottesville (another 120 miles). This was right out, because the 45 mph speed limit meant we would get there at like, oh, 3 am or something. (don't forget, we changed timezones which cost an hour as well) So we took the first "exit" off of the parkway (which were few and far between - I was a bit worried about running out of gas!) and decided to take some roads to get back to I-81. Apparently "state road" in North Carolina means "nice mountainous road where speed limits are 35 mph for long stretches of time", so this took for freakin' ever. Finally we were going to stop before Roanoke in Wytheville, but the hotels I called were all full up, so we bit the bullet and drove to Roanoke, where we are now. Yesterday we averaged 58 mph for the day, including stops (500 miles in 8.5 hours) - today it was 45 mph (500 miles in 11 hours) which makes a huuuge difference.
Luckily tomorrow's drive will only be around 300 miles so we don't have to get up early or anything.
Last night we watched The Break-Up while in the whirlpool. The movie ordering system was weird - you had to tune the TV to channel 2, then pick up the phone and press the "movie" button (which was on a box also tapped in to the phone line), then use the remote to select the movie, then swipe a credit card through the box to pay for it. Seems unnecessarily complicated...
Random bits:
- This morning right before we checked out, a guy in the hall said "so, you're from Texas" (I was wearing my Texas ARML shirt). I said yeah and he asked where my Kinky for Governor bumper sticker was. I was surprised to hear this in Tennessee :-)
- At lunch today (Subway for the third lunch in a row!) the girl making my sandwich said I looked like George from Grey's Anatomy (which I haven't seen). After looking at the picture, I guess I can see a resemblance...
Columbia tomorrow!
Tennessee, our Tennessee
Mood: sick--
Location: Cookesville, TN
Posted on 2006-08-25 19:34:00
Tags: moving travel
Words: 277
Howdy! We've stopped for the night in Cookesville, TN. Had a good trip today - went just under 500 miles, so we're doing well enough. The only traffic we hit was in Nashville which probably cost us 20 minutes or so...
In terms of sickness, I'm probably a little better than yesterday, but I feel kinda feverish right now. Hopefully a stint in the whirlpool will at least clear up my sinuses. Speaking of which, do most hotels have rooms with whirlpools/jacuzzis nowadays? Because most of the ones here do, like the ones in Hot Springs. Maybe we've just never looked for that before, but we're totally doing so in the future :-)
Cookesville is a weird place - we've only seen the part right near I-40, but there are tooooons of hotels and restaurants (Jack in the Box, Wendy's, Chili's, IHOP, Ryan's, Steak and Shake, Starbucks, Subway, Outback are all within 3 blocks...and there are more I'm forgetting) right near our hotel. It seems like there may be a college right around here, based on the age of people at Wal-Mart and the conversation I overheard at IHOP, which might explain some of this...
One of the upcoming Alamo Drafthouse events we saw at "Snakes on a Plane" was the showing Chuck Norris movies with Chuck Norris himself in person, which looks awesome. I'm really gonna miss the Drafthouse.
Tomorrow is more driving, probably around the same amount (so our Sunday drive will be easy, especially since we have to get to Columbia by 5 PM), but we're gonna take the Blue Ridge Parkway for a while tomorrow which is supposed to be very scenic. I'm excited about that :-)
LJ - Arkansas edition!
Mood: sick
Location: near a sweeeet jacuzzi!
Posted on 2006-08-24 20:17:00
Tags: moving travel
Words: 400
Howdy sports racers! This post is brought to you by the good folks at Clarion Resort who provide tasty tasty free high speed internet in every room. Not to mention the sweeeet jacuzzi in the room - we're totally going to use it again and watch TV in it after this :-)
The drive today went relatively OK. We're in Hot Springs, AK now which is right about on schedule in terms of distance (maybe a little farther than we needed to go), and the nice part is we got here around 5:30, so we got some relaxing time (sweeeet jacuzzi!) before heading out to a nice Italian place for dinner. The bad news is that my allergies are freakin' killing me. I don't know if it's a cold or not, but I was blowing my nose all day long and it's really starting to get raw from all that. I bought some of the fancy Kleenex(TM) with lotion on them which usually helps, so we'll see how that goes. Hopefully a good night's sleep tonight will help too.
Hot Springs (population 36,000) seems like a relatively nice place, although we drove through downtown to get to dinner and it looked a bit run down. Bill Clinton grew up here, and they converted his old high school into the Cultural Center of Arkansas, which is "a large complex where artists and performers may live and work". Although now that I search on that, one of the only places this shows up is in the brochure I'm currently reading. Maybe it's not finished yet?
Here's a random question - why is it standard practice to tip waiters 15% of the cost for food and drink? I can understand based on the number of drinks and entrees ordered, but is it harder to keep track of and deliver an expensive steak than a simple angel hair pasta? Or is this just an easy approximation to the number of entrees and drinks ordered? I know hosts and busboys get part of the tips - do the chefs as well? Because that would make sense, since presumably the more expensive meal is harder to cook.
Tomorrow the plan is to stop somewhere in Tennessee (we'll be spending a ridiculous amount of time in Tennessee, going from the southwest corner to the northeast corner), so hopefully I'll be able to post again if we can find another nice hotel :-)
last melodramatic post!
Mood: ready
Music: "Snakes on a Plane" music
Posted on 2006-08-23 21:33:00
Tags: moving
Words: 118
So djedi and I are officially homeless for the moment. We leave tomorrow morning for our fantastic voyage to Maryland!
Good things today:
- The moving people were very nice and professional. Did a heck of a job with all of our crap, especially the darn furniture.
- Just went and saw "Snakes on a Plane". Hee hee hee. Good stuff, although a little gruesome for my taste.
Bad things today:
- ugh, don't want to go into it. anyway, it's over
So the plan is to arrive Sunday afternoon and move into our apartment Monday morning. Everything's being hooked up on Monday, so I should be posting by then! (hmm, I think I already said this. oh well)
Au revoir!
one more milestone
Mood: anxious
Posted on 2006-08-21 23:03:00
Tags: moving
Words: 32
After this, I'm shutting my computer down, and it won't be on again until Maryland! Scary.
Also, I hate hate hate hate hate moving. Seriously. It stresses me out to no end...
leaving on a jet plane...
Mood: sad
Posted on 2006-08-21 09:53:00
Tags: moving
Words: 76
Well, actually a car. And not until Thursday. But since people come to box up our stuff tomorrow, we have to decide what we're taking in the car with us today (and make sure it fits), so it feels like the move is really imminent (which it is).
Thanks a lot to all who came to the party last night - I had a lot of fun, and then was sad afterwards. But I'm mostly better now.
last NI post
Mood: sad
Location: NI for the last time
Posted on 2006-08-16 13:20:00
Tags: moving
Words: 51
I'm about to clear my cache and uninstall Firefox. Whee!
This whole day has been a bit surreal. Had a nice lunch at Rudy's, though.
I posted about the show with zefrank a few days ago - here's a good episode with a catchy song ("where the fuck do ideas come from?").
This backup was done by LJBackup.
