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August 31, 2004
As Good As Done
Well, there's still a few boxes to hide and unpack, but we're basically moved in... w00t! Tossing stuff was painful but great. I put in well over 300 miles between the two houses and the dump (houses 2.4m apart and dump maybe 3-4m away from either. There's still another run or two to the dump to go, but there are no longer huge piles of junk (except in our closets, perhaps).
As if to signify the end of the moving ordeal, I actually got a decent night's sleep last night! I'd forgotten what waking from a restful slumber was like--bliss!
I just received some photos of Karen and Nino's wedding in the mail. Truly, it was a fantastic event and filled with emotions nothing short of happiness and fun.
Posted at 06:05 PM | Life and Work | Comments (0)
August 24, 2004
Almost There...
The wheels are finally going into motion! We sign the lease agreement today and bring the prorated rent check this afternoon. Tomorrow morning I pick up the key and wait at the new place for the utilities to show up and install. Apparently specifying a general time of day is not possible because time pieces haven't been invented yet that measure time with any resolution finer than Wednesday. So, rather than moving, I will do some routine inspection and wait for Wednesday for people to show up to service their customer. :P
I've also decided that for the inspection, I'm going to not only document damage via the normal form, but also with a digital camera. Sadly, I should have done that with my current/former house because the property manager has shown just how much of an asshole can be possible and there is little to no doubt that he's going to try and pin stuff on me that was broken/dilapidated prior to my moving in. The house was a piece of shit when we moved in, and we're leaving it as a relatively same pile of shit. At least it should be a sparkling pile after the cleaners we hire get thru with it.
This weekend was basically one huge dump run. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, the amount of stuff one can collect over the years is both impressive and seemingly impossible. I've taken so much trash to the dump, I can't imagine fitting it all back in my room. It sure feels good to do a huge cleansing tho. If I weren't so lazy, I'd do it more often.
Posted at 03:33 PM | Life and Work | Comments (0)
August 19, 2004
Fear and Loathing -- in Hilo
The next stage of moving is starting to set in...Dread. All this waiting has allowed me time to think too much about this move. I've discarded mountainous piles of trash, memorabilia, documentation, photos, mysterious objects and more. And yet, as I've started boxing up stuff, there's a surprising plethora of stuff I either cannot throw out or actually still use.
I keep trying to envision how I should lay out my new room and each time, it's an unrealistic minimalist vision. I see simple objects and contents without the inevitable clutter that follows me. Could I live with just those few things that I see in my woolgathering? Could my sty turn modern? I guess one way to find out is to just store all my boxes of crap and see what I can live without.
Sadly, thru different circumstances, many Floridians are evaluating their life of possessions in much the same way. After uncle Charley came to town, many, I imagine, are wondering exactly how much of their lives they're going to try to return to and how much they can let go of. I certainly count myself as being on the fortunate side of such a self-realization, but ultimately the raw emotions/sentiments are of the same core.
Now to shift gears. In case you've read previous blog posts about my move, you'll also notice another (possibly unfortunate) result of having too much time prior to the move: I have time to be overly philosophical about moving. While I don't subscribe to specifics about the idiom, the intent certainly rings true of: the devil makes work for idle hands. I definately haven't been idle, but I've had far too much time to self-actualize, and let me just say--when the id, ego and super-ego have a pow-wow, you know it's time to look for something else to keep you busy. ;)
Posted at 09:28 AM | Life and Work | Comments (0)
August 16, 2004
The Waiting Game
Waiting, waiting, waiting. It's good that we (well two of the four of us) started throwing out old junk as soon as the move was initiated. Every weekend has been at least one dump run, packing the back of my hatchback with boxes and boxes of stuff. It's simply amazing how much we can accumulate over the years. I'm glad we didn't wait until now to start tossing junk. The pressure isn't nearly as bad as it would be if we had just started cleaning/simplifying now--two weeks prior to moving.
But, prepping early has had a reverse effect of sorts. It's given me extra free time to think about the move without the pressure of preparing and so I have been experiencing an overinflated case of "senior-itis." I just want to move and get it over with already. Sadly, the new place isn't ready for us yet, so it's just a waiting game. We can't pack up a lot of stuff because then we're just living in, around and out of boxes. And we can't sit idle because that's just boring and frustratingly inefficient. So the best we can do for now is just toss stuff out and go shopping for new stuff. :)
Posted at 06:46 PM | Life and Work | Comments (0)
August 12, 2004
Customer "Service"
To prepare for the upcoming move, I've been getting utilities and services transfered to the new place and have encountered the oxymoron "customer service" over and over again. Was there ever a time when people who collected exhorbitant fees for overrated products/services were ever helpful to the consumer? I sure can't think of such a utopian time.
Oceanic Time-Warner has been particularly vexing. On Friday morning, I called them to arrange the transfer of our cable TV and RoadRunner to the new place. They said there was a problem with scheduling and that a supervisor would be calling me back that afternoon or Monday morning. Gee, no call by Monday afternoon; how suprising! So I called them again and went thru the same process... I told them about the change, they couldn't schedule it, and they said they'd call me right back. Today, Wednesday afternoon, two days later, I hadn't heard back from them. I can tell you're as shocked as I was :P. They checked on the status and sure enough, they're "working on it" and will have to call me back this afternoon or tomorrow morning. That means that I'll have to call them on Friday because they won't have called me. :P
And lest you think I've not been accessible to their calls, they're calling on my cell phone which is always with me and always on during the day.
I guess the reason they call it customer service is because their definition of service is the slang: to have sex with. They rape your wallet and leave you bleeding from ass, feeling used and empty. Perhaps one day, they'll realize that service's more widely used and accepted definitions is "Work done for others as an occupation or business."
Posted at 12:37 AM | Rants and Opinions | Comments (0)
August 10, 2004
Urban Legends
I've spent a good portion of the last few days perusing snopes.com reading up on urban legends. Using some of the information contained therein, I was able to correct a few quotes that are commonly misattributed to Mark Twain on Quotes Salad. Ahhh, progress!
This was all spurred by a very popular thread on Fark. Only read it if you have a whole day to kill and you skip the various flame wars about reading in dreams and various other topics.
Posted at 02:25 AM | Web Site Stuff | Comments (0)
August 07, 2004
Moving House
It's time for a new house. The circumstances behind the impetus to move are sad, frustrating, infuriating and several other -ing words not suitable for general consumption. Regardless, the fact of the matter is we're moving at the end of this month.
Normally, I go to sleep quickly, rarely wake up during the night, and would be woken by Rene San Miguel and Kathleen Kennedy on CNN Headline News. After the (IMO) premature termination of my lease, I would wake 1.5 to 2 hours earlier than my TV is set to turn on. Yesterday, we found out we were accepted for a lease on a house which is a great step up from the "College" style house I've been in for 11 years. I would have thought having the pressure of searching for a new place lifted would have improved my sleeping, but oh no. That would be just too easy, now wouldn't it?
Asleep by 11:30 right after Family Guy. Awake at 12. Asleep a minute later and awake again at 12:30. Asleep again a minute later and 3:37--fully awake. What the hell?!?! All I can think about is dealing with getting the utilities moved, dealing with moving crap, and making sure the house is clean. Moving happens during a stressful time at work (the semester starts that week), and life will be going thru a massive change.
We'll see what tonight brings. Hopefully sweet, sweet slumber. And hopefully whining here and generally feeling sorry for myself will help as well. ;)
Posted at 02:42 AM | Life and Work | Comments (0)
August 05, 2004
Conformity
In a rare attempt at conformity, I'm moving to a new blog system -- Movable Type. While writing my own was educational (especially in comment filtering), the lure of extra features and the lack of desire to learn how to recreate them on my own led me to seek alternatives. I read many blogs and a good portion utilize MT. We'll see how it goes!
Posted at 07:17 PM | Web Site Stuff | Comments (1)