Unpacking Begins
We have Dish Network showing up today to hook up our TV signal. I had to unpack the TVs, and minimal cables, so that the Dish Network installer could test the signal. That went pretty quickly. The next step was to move the end tables for the bedroom into the bedroom. This is where I ran into a snag. The end tables were buried behind boxes, printers, printer stands, and other stuff. I decided that I didn’t want to pick up those heavy printers more than once. I figured I would move them into my office where their final destination is going to be.
This meant that I had to organize my office. I put my corner desk together, moved my bookshelves around (twice, I didn’t like the first place that I put them,) moved some smaller table around, moved one of the smaller tables to Kiara’s office because I ran out of room, and put my mini-fridge into place. Once all of that was done, I moved the printer tables into my office, then moved the printers into place. The office is mostly done. I just have to put some shelves into the bookshelves, then start moving about a dozen boxes of books into the shelves. It’s going to be back-breaking work, but I’m looking forward to getting all of my books back out of their boxes.
By the time I was done with my office, it was late, and I was beat. I tried to move the end tables, but it required more effort to move them by myself than I was willing to put out. Kiara and I will double-team the end tables tonight and get them into place. Once we get the Dish Network setup, we’ll know where the TVs will go, so we’ll know where to point our furniture. Tonight will be putting the bedroom together for sure. We both agree on where all of the bedroom stuff goes, so it should go smoothly. Then I want to do the upstairs living room. That will probably be the end of the day, but I may try to unpack a box or three of books.
Moving Adventures
I haven’t posted (as you were warned) since Wednesday of last week because we moved to a new house. Here’s a breakdown of what happened while I was away from the Internet:
Thursday
We got up at our usual time, and headed to the new house for a final inspection. When we got there, the old owners were still moving out. I was concerned that they wouldn’t be out of the house by the time we were ready to move in later that day. My fears weren’t unfounded, but they were close enough to being out that I didn’t make an issue of it. During the inspection, we found that one of the light sensors on one of the garage doors wasn’t working. That meant that you had to hold down the button to get the door to close. Not a big deal. There were also five sets of metal and wood shelves in the garage that it was obvious that the old owners would not be able to fit in their truck. The wife offered to trade the shelves in exchange for us overlooking the broken sensor. We need the shelves, so I was happy to make the trade. (As it turns out, the sensor was dirty, and Kiara was able to clean it to get it to work. Go Kiara!)
We left the house, stopped by the bank to get a cashier’s check for our part of the closing, and made it to the closing with a few minutes to spare. I won’t bore you with the details of the closing. If you’ve bought a house, you know what it’s like. If you’ve never bought a house, imagine signing your name about 50 times on different sheets of paper. Yeah. It’s that fun!
After the closing, Kiara was getting the shakes because of low blood sugar, so we went to our favorite diner King’s Chef DIner that was only a few blocks away. The food was good, but the diner was packed. They also had a new chef on his first day of flying solo. Instead of our usual in-and-out-in-thirty-minutes, we were there for about an hour. No biggie.
We headed to the u-haul store to get a 26′ truck. That was another disaster. Someone had siphoned all of the gas out of the truck, so the truck was on ‘E’, and they wanted me to return the truck with at least 1/4 tank of gas. I told them that I would return it with as much gas as I got the truck. The lady told me that she would knock off the price of a 1/4 tank of gas. I was agreeable to that since it was $45 off of the price of the truck if we went that route. Kiara went to the house to begin packing while I drove to the nearest gas station to fill up the truck. I put in 1/2 tank of gas since the prices were so high, and it was damn hot out.
I finally got home with the truck to find Craing there waiting for me to help me start packing the truck. We immediately went to the storage unit. Craing is a moving machine! What took me and Thanatos about 3 hours to pack up, and put in the storage unit took Craing and I about an hour to load into the truck. We then headed to the house where Kiara had packed up the garage. It took another hour to load the garage into the truck. There was still room in the truck, so we loaded up the guest bedroom. That filled up the truck quite well, so we headed to the new house with the load.
When we got there, we found that the old owners were still loading their truck. When we left them that morning, they only had about 4 feet of space left in the truck. Now they were down to 2 feet of space left. The time that it had taken Craing and I to fill 26 feet of truck and transport it, the old owners had only gotten a tiny little bit of packing done. Two of their children were old enough to help, and the third child was old enough to keep their youngest child out of the way. Their truck was in the way of the driveway, so I decided to pitch in and help them get out of my way. After about 30 minutes, we had them packed. While they worked on getting their Jeep loaded on to a trailer, I backed my truck into place.
Craing and I got started on unloading the truck. We were making pretty good progress when Savarros showed up and started helping. It was nice to have three of us making the rounds. In no time flat, we had the truck unloaded. Craing and I were beat, so we decided to call it a night after unloading the final thing from the truck.
Friday
It didn’t feel like we got lots done Friday, but we were working all day. Kiara and some friends were at the new house while our main electrical juncture box got rewired due to some code violations that were found during inspection. They were unpacking what Craing and I had delivered on Thursday. Craing, Fred, and I spent the day packing books, bookshelves, and pretty much everything else we could pack into a box. Not much was actually moved but we made good progress.
Near the end of the day, I was beat. I couldn’t move another thing. I was complaining to Craing that I was going to have to shell out some serious money for a shelf that would hold our huge 36″ TV. In the old house it was on a corner shelf above the built-in fireplace. We had no such place at the new house. Craing is a carpentry whiz, and he loves to do it. He said that we could get the parts for a new table with shelves at Home Depot on the cheap and build it ourselves. I took him up on his offer. We hit Home Depot, got the wood, screws, and brackets that we would need. We had the wood cut to size, and then headed to his place to get his tools since mine were all packed. We hit the new house with our parts, and started building.
Part way through the build process, my mom called, so while talking to her, Craing continued to work on the table. He was trying to pick it up to flip it over when it slipped from his fingers. He fell backwards, and managed to catch himself before hitting the ground. However, he twisted his knee very badly, and ended up on his ass. While I was talking to my mom, he limped into the house. I quickly got off of the phone with my mom, and asked Craing what was wrong. He told me the story, and I ask him if we needed to head to the ER. He said that he didn’t think so, but wanted to walk on it a bit more. We headed back out to work on the table some more. At one point, we both needed to squat next to it to make some measurements. Craing could barely do it. It was at this point that I told him that we were going to the ER to have his knee checked out. He didn’t argue, so we closed up the house, and headed to the ER.
The ER experience went oddly smoothly. It was a Friday night, so I expected tons of business there. If you’ve ever been to an ER, then you know how it goes: check in, wait, vitals check, wait, insurance and billing, wait, go to this department, wait, get an xray, wait, get results of xray wait, get instructions from doctor for care, wait, get prescription for pain meds, go home. All told, we were there for about an hour.
I asked Craing if we could go back to the new house to finish off the table since I needed his expertise to get it done right. He agreed, so we drove back to the house. We propped the table up on two shelves that were already moved so that we wouldn’t have to squat to do what we needed to do. We spent the next hour screwing brackets into the legs, setting up shelves, and finishing off the bottom of the unit. We got done, and left it where it was because Craing was in no shape to be hauling about 40 pounds of lumber down a flight of stairs.
Craing said that he would love to help on Saturday, but his knee was in no shape to really be of any use. I told him that he was free to come and hang out with us, but I wouldn’t let him carry a damn thing because of his knee. He said that he can’t be around physical labor without the urge to join in, so he would just stay home and take care of his injury.
Saturday
This was the big move day. We split our forces. A few people would help at the new house while the rest of them would help with the packing and moving of the old house. We had 4 people at the new house, and 8 people at the old house. The day started with some more packing of boxes and the moving of furniture. The 4 at the old house finished long before we did, so we ended up with around a dozen people moving stuff out of the new house. It all went smoothly. Nothing got broken. There were a few scratches on the walls from the washer and the freezer (more on that later.)
We had a team packing stuff that needed to be packed. I always hate asking other people to pack my stuff because I feel like I should have that done before anyone shows up. However, we were trying to live in and sell the old house, so it had to stay in “showing condition”. That meant no boxes of packed goods lying around the house. The packers went through the house room-by-room, and did a great job. When they got done with a room, they would track me down, and have me point them to the next thing to be packed. They packed closets, the kitchen, tons of computer stuff, and stuff out of our storage area.
While the packers were getting us stuff to move, we did the furniture. That all went well. We had enough people to keep everyone busy without people stepping on each others’ toes. I spent a considerable amount of time directing traffic and supervising. I wasn’t being lazy at all, but I had been packing and moving for two straight days at this point. My energy reserves were almost tapped, and I knew it. I had to ration out my strength to be able to last until the end without collapsing (which I almost did on a few occasions.)
We finally filled up the truck, so we all hopped in our cars (and me in the truck.) We headed to the new house to unload. That went well. All of the furniture got into the right rooms, and the boxes made their way into the garage. Our DVD shelf that we got at Wal-Mart suffered a catastrophic implosion during the trip, but I think I can fix it. If I can’t, I’ll go buy another one for about $30. While unloading the truck, Thanatos suffered a crushed foot from a falling shelf. It bruised him pretty badly, but nothing was broken. He sucked it up, and continued to work with the bruised foot. I’m just glad we didn’t have another hospital trip on our hands.
Once we were done emptying the truck, there remained the big items back at the house: the 36″ TV, the freezer, and the air hockey table. I got two guys working on taking the table apart while I emptied the freezer as much as I could, and the rest worked on carrying the smaller items to the truck that wouldn’t fit in the first trip. We got most of the smaller items. On Shinto’s advice, I called a stop to carrying the smaller items, so that we could focus our waning energy on the larger items. First went the air hockey table. While heavy, it was easy to carry with the legs taken off. Next went the TV, and that went smoothly because I had wisely kept the box for the thing.(I think I’m going to trash the box this time around, though. It won’t fit in the attic at the new place.)
The last thing we moved was the heaviest out of everything that we own: the freezer. We got it strapped into the dolly, out the door, down the hall, and at the base of the stairs. There is a support post near the base of the stairs that makes maneuvering difficult. While Bobo was swinging the freezer around the pole, the corner of the freezer clipped a wall. It gouged the wall a bit, and paint chips went flying. Not a big deal. A little putty, some paint, and about 10 minutes, and the wall will be as good as new. We finally got the freezer lined up on the stairs, and we stood there for about 5 minutes wishing that it was already at the top of the stairs. Thanatos finally volunteered to grab the dolly and lead the way up. Shinto, Bobo, and I pushed from below. It took a few false starts to get the angle, leverage, and willpower right to get the thing going. We took it one stair at a time with Thanatos adjusting his legs and grip each time. We finally got it to the top of the stairs, and the angle of the dolly changed. We were no longer on the tires of the dolly, but on the slider rails. Thanatos asked if we needed to change the angle. Someone (I think it was me, but I’m not sure) yelled out, “Go! Just go!” and we did. The three of us on the bottom pushed, shoved, and heaved. The freezer was at the top of the stairs!
The last load of the day was the large items. We set some people to grabbing the smaller items from the truck while two people moved the air hockey table. Some people grabbed the TV, and got it downstairs next to the table that Craing and I had built. We finally got the freezer out of the truck. It was just going into the garage, so we didn’t have far to go. It slid into place, and will remain there until the end of time. I’m not moving that damn thing again!
With that done, we called it a day. I rounded everyone up, and took them to dinner at Village Inn. I would have rather gone to someplace nicer, but it was close, we were tired, and it was about all Kiara and I could afford on our new budget. We had some good talk, had some good food, relaxed, and enjoyed each others’ company. It was the end of a long, hard day, and we were grateful that we survived. After dinner, we called it a night, and went our separate ways.
Sunday
Kiara and I spent all day Sunday loading up our cars with smal stuff that was left behind, and cleaning the old house. It took all day long, but we got it done. At the end of the day, I was spent. I had a hard time taking off my shoes, and it looked like Kiara was in the same boat. We showered, crawled into bed, and zonked out.
It’s said that it takes a village to raise a child. That may be true, but it takes a great collection of friends to move a house. With that being said, I would like to thank (in no particular order): Craing, Thanatos, Savarros, Jhianna, Spice, Cameron, Fred, Rhianni, Bobo, Jasmine, Spud, and Shinto. You guys are the greatest!
Preteen Sex Symbols?
I went to a nearby mall for lunch. I had time to kill, so I walked around the mall for a bit before heading back to work. While there I saw dozens of preteen girls in pairs and groups. For a short bit, I was behind two girls that must have been between 10 and 12 years old. Each of them had a small pink bag with gold lettering on the bags that proclaimed “Victoria’s Secret”. I was wondering what kind of items they would buy at such a store at their age. I was hoping for skin cream, maybe lip stick, or a gift for their mothers. I wasn’t sure until one of them dug her hand into her bag and pulled out a skimpy thong. I thought, “No way that’s for her.” as she proclaimed, “Look what I bought! Do you think my boyfriend will like it?”
YIKES!!!
Boyfriend at 10? Ok. I can handle that. Showing your underwear to your boyfriend at 10? That’s just plain wrong. Showing your thong to another guy at 10 years old is probably criminal in most states. I was so amazed that I missed a few steps and almost ran into an old lady with a walker. I recovered in time, apologized to the lady for cutting in her path, and stepped aside.
I lost the girls in the crowd, but I’m glad. I didn’t want to know what else they had bought. Knowing that one of them owned a thong was bad. Knowing that one of them was going to wear it worse. Knowing that she planning on showing it to her boyfriend was downright repulsive!
After that little experience, I took the eye candy that was around the mall in a different light. If I saw a good looking woman, I’d double-check to make sure she wasn’t a preteen sex symbol that I was ogling before continueing to admire the show. I’ve always wanted a son so that we could do Little League, Boy Scouts, hockey, camping, etc. together. After today, I’ve decided that I really want a boy, not a girl. At least my son (hopefully) won’t be showing his thong off to his boyfriend when he’s 10. If he does… well… let’s hope that doesn’t happen… or if it does, let’s hope that I don’t find out.
Pseudo-Friday
Today is my last day of “work” for this week. I’m taking the next two days off to start moving into a new house. This means that I probably won’t be blogging Thursday or Friday. I’ll see what I can do in the evenings, but no promises. You’ll live without me for a few days.
I’m mentally and emotionally drained right now. I keep imagining all of the things that could possibly go wrong with the closing of the house, getting the loan finalized, the condition of the house when we close, and all that good stuff. I’m really looking forward to picking up heavy things and moving them from one place to another. The physical exertion and exhaustion that comes with moving will be a pleasant release for all of the pent up tension that I’m feeling right now. I really need a massage, but I can’t afford that right now. Not to mention that all of the efforts of the masseuse would just go to waste since I’m going to be moving all weekend.
I’m just glad that I’m going to have lots of friends showing up to help me move. There may be a few too many people showing up. I’m afraid that we’ll have so many people moving that they will all get in each others’ way while we’re doing the dance steps that come with moving large items. I think we’ll all do ok, though. It shouldn’t be a big deal. I’d rather have too much help than not enough.
One of the problems that I forsee is not having enough stuff packed up and ready to go. We haven’t packed anything yet because we’re trying to keep the house in “showing condition.” That will all change tomorrow as we pack, move, and shuffle things around. We won’t turn anyone away from looking at the house, but they’ll have to ignore the mess that always comes with packing and moving.
Sorry about rambling on about moving and stuff, but that’s what’s on my mind lately. Maybe after we get the move done, my blogs will turn to other topics. I don’t know what just yet, but we’ll see.
Moving With Pipe Cleaners
Another strange dream for you guys… Several things from my conscious world invaded my dreams last night. As I was falling asleep our kitten decided to run around the bedroom playing with these two pipe cleaners that are twisted together to make a cat toy. I know. It’s a simple little thing, but our cats love them. We’re also prepping to move on Thursday, so that is forefront in my mind right now. Anyway… on to the dream.
In my dream I woke up to my alarm, got up, got dressed, did the usual morning stuff, and walked out into my living room. Waiting for me were hundreds of boxes. There were big ones, huge ones, medium-sized ones, and even a smattering of tiny little ones. I sighed with exhaustion even at the thought of moving all of these boxes, but I knew they had to be moved.
I reached down for the first box, and realized that my arms were missing! Not really missing, mind you. They had been replaced with red and white pipe cleaners that were the same length as my arms.They were all bendy, twistable, and stretchy. My concern about my pipe cleaner arms was quickly replaced by joy as I realized that I could stretch out my new arms to wrap around the boxes,and pick them up with ease. I quickly moved through the living room picking up boxes and moving them out to the truck that had been pulled up to the garage. I enjoyed using my arms to stretch around multiple boxes, pick them up, and haul them out to the truck. I found myself standing in place a few times waving my “arms” around in the air experimenting with how I could move them, stretch them, and intertwine them. It was amazing! I was making great progress through the boxes when I banged my leg against something. It made me jump enough that I woke up from my dream.
I looked down at my leg to find my kitten latched on to my calf, and he was happily chewing away on my ankle. The little bugger had attacked me in my sleep! I smoffed him on the head and chased him away. I was intent on getting back to sleep when the alarm went off. I was already awake, so I crawled out of bed, went through my morning ritual, and headed out into the living room. I was dismayed to find that nothing had been packed or moved. It was all a dream after all, but at least I have my normal arms today. I’m not sure I could type with pipe cleaner arms.
Belated Birthday Gifts
My wife amazed me with some very cool birthday gifts. She doesn’t like George Carlin. I do. She hates Kevin Smith. I love Kevin Smith. She went to Best Buy and got me three DVDs worth of George Carlin stuff and the 10th anniversary Clerks DVD set. I was astounded that she would get me something that I really love, and something that she hates. It shows how much she loves me.
Unfortunately, I already had the Clerks DVD set, so I took it back to Best Buy and traded it in for Kingdom of Heaven and King Arthur. I love movies with big battle scenes. I think I have them all, except for a few. I still need to pick up Troy and Alexander. I’ve heard that Alexander sucks, but it has swords and blood and stuff in it, so I need to add it to my collection.
My battle scene collection includes: Excalibur, Gladiator, King Arthur, Kingdom of Heaven, Braveheart, and probably a few others that I can’t remember off the top of my head. If you know of any other battle movies that I may be missing, please leave some feedback and let me know. I’d appreciate it!
PS: The only time I exchange gifts is if I already have something. I cherish and love everything that I get from friends and family, so don’t feel hurt if I exchange something. It’s not because I don’t love it. It’s because I already have one.
D&D Game
I joined a Thursday night group a few months back in the middle of an adventure. The premise was that a demon summoned up a black rain to pound the Prime Material Plane. We had to hunt her down in her home plane to kill her off to stop the black rain. We finally cleared out her home tower on her home plane only to find that she had taken a few thousand bladelings, a pit fiend, and a fallen angel to the Prime Material Plane to assault key locations. We gated her back to her home plane, dimensional anchored her there, and started beefing on her. She almost killed my mage twice, but the cleric came to the rescue. The cleric wasn’t so lucky. He got blasted by her, and died a horrible death. Don’t worry though… We’ll get him back.
The fight was rough because of all of her spells, spell-like abilities, fire breath, elemental immunity, high AC, and lots of HP. Turns out the the fallen angel had cast shield other on her, so half of the damage that we were doing to her, was affecting the angel. The angel finally showed up on the scene beaten and battered. The thief in the group caught him flat-footed, and ran him through for tons of damage. This did the angel in, and nullified the shield other spell. It was quick work after that to get rid of the demon bitch.
We stopped the game shortly before 1 AM at the end of the fight. We’ll have to rest for a while, so that my mage can re-memorize gate. This will allow us to head back home to take care of the remaining troops of the demon bitch. I can’t wait until this story arc is finished. Should be a nice homecoming for all of us.
Happy Birthday To Me!
It’s my birthday today. I’ve had enough of them (this is my 33rd so far), so it’s not as special as they used to be. My in-laws sent me a card last week. My mom sent me one yesterday. I’m not expecting one from my brothers or father. That’s just the way they are. I’ve gotten a few automated emails from some forums that I’m part of, and I really liked them. Even though I know they came from a machine, they made me feel special. One of my favorites came from Steve Jackson Games:
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to you
The Illuminati are watching
Everything that you do
Fnord!
Fourth of July
Like most Americans, I didn’t have to work yesterday. It was a nice day off. I got to sleep in a little, so it was a good start to the day. I ended up going to a friend’s house to hang out with a small group. We had some good snacks, a great dinner, some good beer, and fun conversation. It was nice to get together and do lots of nothing. We did play a game of Trivial Pursuit. We played gals vs. guys. The gals took a quick lead of two pie pieces, but we quickly came back and got all six pie pieces. We had a hard time landing on the center part, and when we did the question was so hard that we didn’t manage to get the question right. The gals ended up landing on the center piece, got a moderately hard question, and got it right. Congrats to the gals!
We thought about playing Taboo, but Savarros wasn’t interested in the game, so we scrapped that idea. Instead, we hung out on the front porch and watched a nasty storm roll in. The clouds were moving fast, had a rolling leading edge, and brought some nasty rain. The storm looked like the rolling clouds that were in the movie Independence Day. It was appropriate timing, I thought. We kept looking for the spaceship to roll out of the clouds and obliterate Denver like it did in the movie. I didn’t happen, which is a good thing.
We decided to get on the road and head home before the heart of the storm really caught up to us. We had to drive into the storm for a few miles to get to the closest gas station to fill up. The wind was blowing the rain so hard that it stung when it hit. Fortunately, the pump was fast, and I didn’t have to stand out in it for very long. We saw some great fireworks displays in the mountains on the way home. I only caught glimpses because I was driving in the rain, and I didn’t want to get too distracted from the road.
The day ended with me reading another dozen or so pages of a book that I borrowed from a friend. It was a nice wind-down before going to bed.
Slacking Off
Wow. It’s been over a week since I’ve last posted. So sorry about that. Here are some things that are going on in my life.
Selling a house: We’ve had quite a few people look at the house. Some complained that it was a ranch, and they didn’t want a ranch. My question to them is this: Why the fuck did you look at a ranch if you don’t want one? Morons. Quit wasting everyone’s time. There have been some people that complained about the dog smell. We’ve taken steps to alleviate that problem, so it shouldn’t be an issue moving forward. We’ve had a few promising lookers. One said that it was up in the air between our house and another house. We hope they choose our house. We’ll see how things go.
Buying a house: Things are moving forward well on the new house. The radon test came back with a level of 21.3. The EPA suggests living in nothing more than 4. We’ll need to get a radon mitigator to take care of the problem. We tried to get the sellers to do this for us, but they said that “according to our research radon is not a health hazard.” Morons. I’m not sure which “research” they used, but it’s not the right kind, I’m certain. There was also some electrical work that needs to be done in the main junction box. They refused to fix that as well. However, their counter offer for the radon mitigation, and electrical work was that they would include their garden tractor with the house. They claimed that the tractor cost them $3500 last year. We went to Sears (it’s a Craftsman mower) to check on their price. The most expensive tractor that they had (with all accessories) came out to just a little over $2800. I got very pissed that they had lied to us about the price of the tractor. I was in a rage until I got home and checked my email. Our realtor got the specs on the tractor. We went to Craftman’s website, built out a tractor with the same specs, and it came out to around $3500. Looks like I got pissed for nothing. We decided to accept their counter-offer, and move forward with the purchase of the house. We’re scheduled to close on the 13th, which is a Thursday. We’ve got a few friends helping us move on Thursday and Friday. On Saturday, I have about 14 friends showing up to help us move. I’ve helped tons of people move in the past, and I’m calling in all of my favors. Things should go smoothly.
School: I’ve registered for my Fall 2006 classes that start August 28th. I’m taking Astronomy and Security Breaches in the first 8 weeks of the term. In the second 8 weeks, I’ll be taking History of Early Christian Ireland, and Wed and E-Commerce Security. I’m really looking forward to my classes. Should be lots of fun. I hope to learn quite a bit in all of my classes.
Gaming: My friends and I suddenly became interested in the Hero system. We bought books, software, and source materials for the game. Hero Games made quite a mint off of our purchases, so they should be in business for a while longer. We created some Champions characters, broke some rules in our ignorance, recreated the characters, and played for about 5 hours last night. It was a blast. I’ve played Champions before, but it was about 13 years ago. I had forgotten how much fun it is to roll 12d6 for an energy blast! Rolling lots of dice is such a good feeling. We’re going to return to our regularly scheduled games of 1st edition D&D Saturday. We’re in the middle of cleaning out a devil infested castle. Should prove to be fun if we can ever get past the first room of the castle.
That’s about all that has been going on in my life. I’ll try to keep you updated on a daily basis for those of you that are reading my blog… if anyone is.
