Saturday, September 1, 2012

T minus 10 days

The major updates since Sunday are:
- The movers came on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday; we had three major categories of movers: HHE packers, UAB packers, and HHE loaders/shippers
- Our UAB shipped out on Wednesday
- Our HHE shipped out on Thursday
- Tonight is our last night in Colorado for probably quite a while

Okay yeah, it's happening.  I believe it now.  The house is empty.  We slept on our air mattress last night, we cleaned the house today, and we'll be hitting the road tomorrow morning.  Our dogs have never been outside of Colorado before, but I think they're cool with the change.

On Monday around noon I instinctively thought "I need to make sure I record my time for this morning's work."  There were multiple things wrong with that. 

The move went fine as far as we know.  There were some minor complications, like:
1) We had stuff designated to move out of our UAB into our HHE if we were over our allowance, but the movers assured us we were under the 450 pounds.  Then we got a call the next day saying we were over by 90 pounds.  I mean, not even close.  Frustrating to say the least considering we specifically called their attention to the issue and how we weren't sure how exactly to weigh 450 pounds of random items (using a bathroom scale?).  Chalk this one up to experience.
2) The list of prohibited items was broader than we imagined.  Flammable liquids, ammunition, and fireworks - sure.  Matches, lighters, and batteries - no problem.  But their prohibition of just about all liquids, including open bottles of anything, is more limiting than I would've imagined.  Consequently our car will have many more liquids in it that we expected.

The movers liked a local hip hop radio station, and - like all effective advertising - the song I remember the best was played many times and had an extremely repetitive line: "I don't really care".  Not exactly the greatest motivational soundtrack for one's movers - I would've much preferred "Use extra padding on that crystal, yo" - but they seemed to like it.

Here's a free tip I learned during the move: if you don't have enough Gatorade mix for a full bottle, you can pour a little mix straight into your mouth, then take a drink of water, mix it around, and voila!  Now, you might think that wouldn't work - and you'd be absolutely right - but I PROVED that it doesn't work.  Word to the wise (from the unwise).

It turns out our HHE driver has a 1993 rig that he's racked up over 1,078,000 miles on.  Wow.  He also said it gets 5 miles per gallon whether or not he's pulling a load.  I expected it to be significantly different from a conventional car, but I didn't expect numbers like that.  Interesting.

We're still undecided on whether to buy or rent.  The general pros and cons of both are pretty obvious, but on one facet, we think it could be great to rent and experience different parts of the DC metro area.  Renting offends our equity-building sensibilities, but we might have to get over that.  The uncertainty of how long we'll be in DC isn't helping our Kepner-Tragoe decision making flow chart nomograph either.  We'll do some house hunting next week and see what makes sense, particularly assuming we'll need something as of about Sep 30th.

Alright it's time to get some sleep before The Drive begins.  If the adventure hasn't begun already, it clearly will tomorrow.

(This post written while listening to Waka Flocka Flame I Don't Really Care.)

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