Moving!
From Bellybuttonporn
I'm in the process of moving right now, so I'm sorry I haven't been online lately. My lease expired on July 31, 12:00pm. I've moved into a nicer house with more room and a garage. I'm still living with Tas, and a new roommate I met via Strangetalk.
Since we would have had to do the standard "homeless for a day" waltz, I conned the new landlord to give me the existing tenant's contact information. I called them up and asked if they'd let us store stuff in their garge. Being agreeable fellows, they well, uh, agreed.
So Starting last Friday (July 27th), I started moving stuff into the new place's garage. A lot of my crap was still packed from the last time, since I knew I wouldn't be staying more than a year. That made packing somewhat easy. I have a lot of books, CDs, DVDs, and Transformers. Those all got boxed up and sent over.
I figured out that i can totally remove the bench from the back seat of my Magnum, allowing the rear seats to fold totally flat (even more than flat, actually). That's good because the brakes on my Taurus are out, so I couldn't use it as a moving vehicle. With the magnum packed full of stuff (pics later), I'm pretty sure I had the fastest moving van in Ames over the weekend.
To be honest, the days just sorta blended together. I don't remember when things got done except in a sort of vague relationship to other things which happened. Matt (3rd roommate) showed up with a minivan sans seats to move some big stuff, so our couches, TV stands, bookshelves, weight bench, etc. went over with a minimum of fuss. I basically continued the pattern of filling the magnum up to the roofline, stacking it in the new garage, and repeating, until the stuff was all out.
I busted ass to clean the kitchen, including a horrible looking stove and the inside of the fridge. I cleaned the bathroom too (except the toilet, Tas did that). I also put Tas in charge of mopping because I was still taking communal crap over to the new place. We got the place cleaned up literally moments before the girl from Martin Property Management showed up to do our check-out.
I had 4 styrofoam coolers in the back of my car with our freezer and fridge stuff in there. The fridge stuff packed in ice, the freezer packed in dry ice. That worked out well. I had a few odds and ends and my 2-wheeled dolly in there too. Since the rear seat of my car was stacked somewhere in the midst of the garage, I couldn't fold the seats up and strap Amica in. So for the first (and hopefully last time ever) she got to ride shotgun. Now that I was officially homeless, I did what all homeless people do. I drove to the big city to seek my fortune.
Des Moines, city of my birth, land of my forefathers, and location of the most comfortable couch to sleep on, ever: Mom's. After chatting with her for an hour or so, I passed out on the couch. In my hazy recollection I seem to dredge up two or three phone calls of friends wanting lunch or other various hangings-out, all in vain. I Finally awoke to Hanna's call, asking me to eat with her and Ericha (I think that's how she spells it. It's a shame her mother sucked at spelling). So I blinked the sleep out of my eyes and drove back up to Ames. I decided to break into my new house (or just sleep in a recliner on the front porch) after dinner. I also decided to leave Amica at home with my parents so she wouldn't be under foot while moving.
A sidenote: A funny thing happened on the way to Ames. I nearly died.
After getting in the car I was futzing with my cell phone to get it charging, get my sunglasses out, and prepare for the drive to ames. I noticed a tighness in my chest and I started panting; as though I had just got done participating in those fat-kid-torture sessions otherwise known as the Presidential Fitness Challenge from elementary school.
Hey kids, guess what dry ice is? It's carbon dioxide! Eight hours of sitting in a sealed car in the hot sun ensured that my car was chock full of this life-stealing devil gas.
I opened my door and practically fell out, gasping for air. I rolled all the windows down and waited there, carefully doing my best not to die. It seems to have worked, so I started driving.
After dinner I was party to the easiest B&E I've ever seen. Noticing our pile of furniture stashed in the back yard (yes, we filled the whole 2-car garage), the landlord left the rear door unlocked so that we might move furniture in. So we did. Matt showed up and we moved my bed in so I could sleep, then I started moving the food products inside. So now I had severely improved my predicament: Rather than being homeless, I was a squatter!
The next morning I went to the new landlord's office to pay the rent and make our residency official. By the way, all of the hot chicks have returned to Ames. Thank you, hot chicks!
We spent the better part of tuesday and wednesday moving crap inside. I'd say we're about 80% into the house. I have no internet access, but can sometimes get a weak wifi signal from the neighbors, so I might be online (off and on).
My bed won't fit around the corner and up the stairs into my upstairs bedroom. Also one of my bookshelves is about a quarter inch too tall to stand up under the 6ish-foot ceilings upstairs. I need to sand a little off of it to make it fit. I plan on replacing my current queen-sized bed with a king-sized bed since everyone tells me king beds come with 2 little box springs which might fit easily up the stairs. Mattresses bend enough to make it around the corner, I'm sure.
Moving Tasks
-
Move out -
Clean -
Move everything into new garage -
Move everything into new house -
Assemble network -
Assemble living room A/V stuff -
Wash car -
sand bottom of bookshelf so it can stand up -
unpack books,etc. in bedroom -
get a king sized box spring (maybe mattress too if not expensive) to fit up the stairs
So there you go.
