Digital Choke Daynotes

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Remember the old saying: "The first 90% of a project takes 90% of the time, and the last 10% takes the other 90%."? That's the way moving works.

Last Friday night, and I still hadn't been able to find a moving truck. I had thought to use the storage place's truck, but it became unavailable. I had made some more calls around noon, and one place said they would have one available later. I called them just before 5pm, and no truck. I made a couple dozen more calls, no luck. Some places were closed by then. I tried some Internet sites, no luck.

I started calling again a bit after 7am Saturday morning. By a bit before 9am, I finally found one. I zipped down to the rental place, did the paperwork, and became the proud temporary owner of a 18 footer. I got back to the house around 10am, and started loading boxes for the storage unit. (Remember that since the new house is not ready yet, we are putting most of the stuff in a 10x20 foot storage unit, and moving only bare necessities to an apartment.) A bit before 10am, some of my friends showed up to help out. And they were sorely needed, since my heart decided to do the atrial fibrillation thing.

The 'afib' thing is not debilitating, but you don't have much energy. So I wasn't much help. Luckily, there were about 5 strong teenage boys (friends of my 18 yr old daughter) that came to help out, so they finished up loading the first load of stuff destined for the storage unit. I got my good friend (he's the contractor that was working on the remodeling of the old house) to drive the truck, since the afib thing was making me a bit light-headed. I figured that it wasn't a good idea to be driving.

So we got the first load unloaded at the storage unit. Then back to the house for the apartment stuff. The gang loaded up the big piano (an upright that used to belong to my great aunt...the piano was built in about 1897) that was going over to my oldest daughter's house. Then they loaded up the furniture and other boxes that were going to the apartment. They filled up that truck, then we went to the apartment to unload that stuff. Back to the house for another load for the storage unit, then a long drive to my oldest daughter's house to unload the piano. By that time is was close to 8:30pm, so we dropped off the truck and went back to the house. To get a few more odds and ends for the apartment. We got back to the apartment by about 10:30, and crashed.

Sunday was a day off. We went to church, had a nice dinner, and made plans for Monday.

I went back to the house Monday morning to finish cleaning up and moving the garage stuff. My friend came over and got a few things into his truck that I didn't need anymore: a riding lawnmower and little trailer, some metal farm gates (he lives in the country also), and a few other things that I won't need at the new place. He was really appreciative of that stuff, and I was happy to give it to him for all the work that he did.

Monday afternoon I met my wife at the new house, where the home inspector was doing his thing. I met the owner (nice retired Italian gentleman), and talked to the home inspector about what he found. He was quite impressed with the house. He was only able to find two things wrong: an electrical outlet that was wired backwards, and a dirty furnace filter. Everything else in the house was perfect. The owners have kept the house in perfect shape. It's like a new home model that has a nightly cleaning crew. Nothing out of place, everything is clean.

The owner told me about the professional landscaping job that he had done, and the guy that keeps the yard in shape. That guy was worried about losing the account. The owner told me that he only charges $60 per month, and comes once a week. I told the owner to tell the guy to keep coming. That is a small price to pay for the work that he does. Every planting front and back has a drip irrigation outlet on a timer. There is underground drainage everywhere for rain runoff. There is ground cover everywhere, and the plants are all neatly trimmed. So there will be minimal puttering around in the back yard, but no real work. That is going to be a big change from the old house, where you can spend 3-4 hours a week just mowing the weeds.

After that visit to the new house, it was back to the old house for some more moving of stuff. We got home a bit earlier that night, about 9pm.

Tuesday was a work day. There was much catching up due to the Friday and Monday I took off. Tuesday night it was back at the old house for some final moving and cleaning. A group of my youngest (18 yr old) daughter's friends came over to help clean up everything as a church service project. They vacuumed, cleaned windows, walls, bathrooms, etc, and did a fine job. I stayed outside, and loaded up a full-size truck's worth of garbage for a "Lone Ranger" trip. We didn't get home until about 930pm, so I missed "24". I plan to catch it on FX next Tuesday (they re-run the latest episode then).

That brings us to today (Wednesday). The carpet cleaners were due at the house today. I went to work for some meetings and a few project documentation things, then to the title company to sign all the papers for the sale of the old house. The buyer had done his signing in the morning, so that is almost a done deal. We should be able to get the closing done (and the final check) by Friday. After that, we came back to the apartment (and gave our 30 days' notice). We had a nice spaghetti dinner with fresh corn and a salad. My wife and daughter went off shopping, and here you and I are.

Tomorrow's plan is to make a final gathering up of stuff at the old house, mostly cleaning supplies. One more "Lone Ranger" trip. Saturday we'll grab the trailer, and take a final load down to the charity store. My father-in-law will also be there to move the trailer over to his house. And then we'll be done with the last 90% of the moving project.

On Sunday, I'll meet with the buyer of the house to go over all the odds and ends of home ownership. Things like where the sprinklers and pipes are, how to maintain the well (such as when the bugs get into the motor relay and the water pressure drops to 0), how to start the pellet stove, and other stuff like that. I'll give him all the keys and stuff, and then we'll really be done. (This is assuming that the escrow has really finished. My Realtor® says that you should be really careful about what you say (after disclosing everything as part of the selling process), so that there will be no chance of the owner making any last-minute demands that might delay closing. But it all looks good.

We've got connectivity at the apartment here, although it requires a manual plug into the phone jack, since we only got one phone line. So daily posts will get back to normal here. With any luck.

It's Saturday morning, and I am relaxing in front of the various home improvement type shows. It was a lazy morning, and will turn out to be a different kind of Saturday than I am used to.

To catch up (again), Thursday we went over to the house to grab the final load of stuff, mostly the cleaning supplies and the odds and ends. There was a couple of things for the storage unit, the rest was the cleaning stuff we used, and a couple of outside chairs for the balcony of the apartment. The carpet cleaners did a nice job, so the house is in really good shape.

Friday night we did a babysitting job over at my oldest daughter's house. Jared and Christine have two children, Liam (1 1/2) and Joelle (3), and they needed a night out with his brothers/sisters, so we were glad to volunteer. They are really good kids, and enjoy having "Poppa" and "Grandma" to visit. We brought in dinner, spread out a blanket on the floor, and had a little picnic dinner while watching some "Blues Clues". After dinner, a bath for the children, a little more playtime, and then off to bed. It was a pleasant evening.

We came back to the apartment to a small leak that may be from the hot water heater exchange in the heating system. My youngest daughter had put a bucket under it, which was OK for overnight. This is a large apartment complex, with their own maintenance staff, so a phone call to the office this morning brought by one of the maintenance staff. The leak is coming down where the filter/exchanger is in the hall ceiling. It might be in the heat exchange unit (which uses hot water from the water heater), or perhaps from the roof. But the best thing about the whole process is that they get to fix it. My Saturday will not be taken up by this repair job.

So we slept in this morning. It's been rainy all week, but today looks partly cloudy/sunny with perhaps some showers. My wife and daughter (Stacy, 18) went off furniture shopping for the new house. (I was able to get out of it, thankfully.) This afternoon, Pam and I are going to a home show at the county fairgrounds. And I'll probably get to hit a couple of furniture places.

A different kind of Saturday. No lawns to mow, no house maintenance, no moving. At least for the next couple of weeks as we wait for the new house to close escrow.

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