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!
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.
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.
This Weekend
The weekend started out with diet Mountain Dew, Ciclone, and poker. I mixed the Mt. Dew and the Ciclone about a 50/50 mix and downed three 32 oz. cups over the course of the night. I was good and blitzed. It’s been a while since I’ve gotten sloppy drunk. It was a good thing. Somehow, despite being snockered, I managed to come home with $90 more than I showed up with. I knew that I was doing well, but I had no idea how well I did until the next day rolled around. I counted my money the next morning, and I had an extra $90 in my wallet. It was nice.
The rest of the weekend wasn’t as good. I spent most of it working around the house getting it ready to sell. I kept trying to watch my TiVo’d “Last Comic Standing”, but it took me four attempts to make it all the way through the hour-long show. I was even fast forwarding past all of the hubris that comes with reality shows. All I care about are the comics doing their act. Most of them were pretty good, a few were hilarious, and a couple just plain sucked.
Sunday was more work around the house, but at the end of the day, we decided to head to the movie theater to watch X-Men 3. It was an ok movie, but lots of the movie seemed to be centered around Pheonix. I know nothing about that character, and the movie’s attempt to explain her powers, abilities, back-story, and motivations were heavy-handed. Even though they spelled it out well, I still felt like something was missing. There were some good effects, some decent fights, and quite a few explosions. That always makes the movie better.
Moving Prep
One of the final steps of prepping our house for sale was to clean out our storage area. We saved every box for every computer part, electronic component, and other gadgets that we had bought over the course of the past seven years. They were all stacked in the room where our freezer, dog kennels, and air hockey table are at.
I took the day off of work in order to get it all done. I rented the smallest U-Haul truck that you can get, and filled it about halfway with all of this trash. Then I had to drive about 30 miles to the nearest landfill to dump the contents of the truck. The weather was hovering around 96 degrees all day, and the U-Haul didn’t have air conditioning even though it claimed to have it. It was a sweltering, sweaty day of work.
I managed to get the room cleared out, and took two loads to storage. The house is very nearly ready to be sold. We’re very much on target to get the house on the market next week. There are a few minor things to do, but we’ll get them knocked out over the course of the next few nights.
Life is Busy
Sorry for the lack of posting last week. Between the packing for move, trying to get the house ready for sale, cleaning the house, and hanging out with my wife’s aunt while she was in town, I didn’t have much time for anything else. Life won’t settle down anytime soon, but I’m going to try to make a more concerted effort to post here. I’m not even sure if anyone is really reading this. I’m getting a few random hits from a few IPs, but nothing significant. That’s ok. I’m mostly posting this for myself than for anyone else.
We made an offer on a new house last Thursday. The offer was verbally accepted Friday morning, and officially accepted in writing Friday night. I didn’t realize how tense I was about waiting for an answer until we got the answer. I thought I was staying cool and handling things fairly well. However, when we got the word that we got the house, I could feel a massive load of tension leave my body. It was a great feeling.
I spent all weekend cleaning, packing, and getting rid of trash. It was a good weekend of good progress. We’re shooting to have the house ready to sell on June 19th. That’s exactly a week away. I think we’ll make it there. I’m taking tomorrow off of work and renting a U-Haul to get rid of a bunch of boxes, move some furntiure to storage, and finalize things around the house. There are some touch-up spots that need to be painted. I’ll take care of them Tuesday afternoon.
You may not hear from me tomorrow, but I may take a short break and do a little blogging…. We’ll see….
House Hunting
My wife and I went out with our real estate agent to look at five houses yesterday afternoon. It was a good trip. Here’s what we found:
House #1: This house was builtin the ’70s, and it was fairly obvious. Low ceilings, wood paneled closets, and unusual floorplan. The owners had updated the decor to a more ’90s look, but they succeeded in doing was making it look like a hospital. The walls were white, the decor was off-white, the carpet was cream colored… You’re getting a picture of it, eh? The floorplan was clumsy and cluttered. They had walled in their hot tub area, but they did a shoddy job of it. We weren’t impressed at all. Since this was the first house that we looked at, we were kind of bummed out about house hunting. We just had to hold out hope that the other houses would be better.
House #2: The next house was more promising. The layout was good, and the great room was huge. It had a three car garage, a decent amount of land, but no fence. We need a fence for our dogs. The best thing about the house was that the roof was made of steel and granite. Yep. You read right. Steel and granite. 50 year warranty. Sweet. The worst thing about the house was that the master bedroom was a little small, and it shared a bathroom with one of the guest rooms. The other guest room didn’t have a bathroom nearby, so guests would have to trek across the living room in their skivvies to get to the bathroom in the morning. Not the best arrangement. Despite the bad things, we put this house on our list of possibilities.
House #3: The third house that we looked at made me vomit a little bit in my mouth. It was entirely done in a southwestern decor. I’m not talking picutures on the wall. I’m talking, painting on every surface, wallpaper, and exterior cedar coverings. It was 4700 sqaure feet, which was a little too large for us, but we still wanted to look at it. I wish we hadn’t wasted our time on the house. The best feature was a nice, large, fenced-in backyard. Yeah. That’s it. The fence was the best thing about the house. The rest of it sucked. We toured the whole house since we were already there, but I kind of wish we hadn’t wasted our time on it.
House #4: The fourth house was the diamond in the rough. Fresh paint, fresh carpet, great condition, awesome floorplan, great layout, an office with a perfect view of Pikes Peak, a large fenced-in back yard, and 6.8 acres of land. We loved the house. It’s perfect for us! I can’t wait to get into it. The garage is only 2 car, but it’s oversized with plenty of storage space. It’s only been on the market for 5 days, so we’re hoping to be able to jump in there and swoop up the house before someone else does.
House #5: The last house was the most expensive one of the lot, and it was very unimpressive. It was on 5 acres of land, with a split-rail fence around the entire thing. They had a smaller patch of a backyard fenced in with so-so looking (but expensive) wrought iron fencing. The house was hot, muggy, and uncomfortable. The layout was ok, but the carpet and decor was very ugly. We would have to spend many thousands of dollars (on top of the purchase price of the house) to get it into a state that we wanted to live in it. I wasn’t disappointed in this house because we had already found our new dream home.
UPDATE: Just got a call from my wife. Our loan officer said that we could move forward with an offer on the new house even though we don’t even have our current house on the market! We’re meeting our real estate agent tonight to go over an offer contract. We just started looking a few weeks ago, and things are moving very quickly! There’s so much work to be done in such a short period of time. Good thing my boss is a great guy and will let me use bits and pieces of my vacation and my floating holidays over the next few weeks as we get things ready for the move! I’m so excited!
