Thursday, August 17, 2006
Moving
I just can’t comprehend how people move out of their old place and into a new one in one day! I simply can not understand it.
We took possession of the new place on the 4th and had to be out by the 15th. That gave us 11 days. We had things packed in advance (not much, but we made an effort), and took a load over in The Squeeze’s pick-up every trip over here.
I’ve heard it said that “Friends help you move; good friends help you move a body”. That may well be true, but I gotta say, a couple of our friends have been incredibly helpful. Personally I would sooner move 30 bodies than move into a new house again, but that’s just me. Props to our great friend FWG for all the help with packing and lugging, not to mention the use of his new banana boat to help transport many of our belongings over here. Thanks also to Dan the man for his help and his power tools to help with jobs such as cutting trim and baseboard at the old place and helping to construct our new closet in the soon-to-be master bedroom.
The strange thing is that we didn’t even move the heavy furniture! We hired a moving company for all of that stuff. Sofas, chairs, wall units, entertainment units, dressers, beds, tables, desks, fridge, treadmill…the list goes on. Three guys with strong backs and good senses of humour did all of that lifting for us and we had a few laughs with them. After lugging the sofa-bed up from the basement (and we all know what a nightmare that can be), one mover said “Please tell me this isn’t going into the basement in the new place.” I looked at him with a straight face and said, “Oh, no, it’s not,” and after waiting a beat for his sigh of relief, I continued, “it’s actually going on the top floor.” Ahhh, good times.
The day all of the furniture was moved in, The Squeeze and I went back to the old house to do some cleaning up. We took his truck and my car full of old cans of paint, solvents, etc. to a hazardous waste depot, and we took two truckloads of garbage to the transfer station. As we were preparing for our second garbage run, we paused to chat with our neighbour who was putting up a new fence between our places. He's always wanted to do it, but didn't want to insult us I suppose. It also seemed like a good time to do it before the new people move in so it doesn't come across as an insult to them either. While we stood there chatting, I casually reached out my right hand to rest it on one of the fenceposts. Immediately I felt a sharp pain shoot through my hand. Damnit! I was stung on the palm by a wasp that was on the post! I ran into the house to run some cold water on it to reduce the sting. Unfortunately, we had already moved the fridge, so we didn't have any ice. A few minutes under the cold water did the trick, but I still put on my pouty face so I could score a nice cold iced cappucino at the local Tim Horton's. You know...to keep the swelling down. ;o)
We did the last bit of packing up loose ends and scrubbed the place within an inch of its life. Next on the list was to touch up some paint, paint the basement floor and put up the baseboards like our agent promised the new owners. Where I come from, when one makes a promise, one follows through on their word. One doesn't make a promise on someone else's behalf and expect them to do it. Suffice to say we were a bit pissed at our agent for telling them we'd have all this work in the basement done. Oh well, such is life. As it turned out, there was a power outage for a brief time, so we were a bit delayed with washing and painting the basement floor, but we got it done finally. The directions on the can said that the paint would be dry within 24-48 hours. We were hoping for 24 so we could get in there and put up the baseboards on Sunday since The Squeeze was back to work on Monday.
When we returned on Sunday to get the last of our things and put up the trim, The Squeeze walked into the basement where he stuck to the floor. Damn! Not dry yet. A couple of footprints. No big deal. To me, anyway. What the hell, we don't live there anymore. The bummer is that it meant that we had to go back Monday night to do the trim, and the new owners wanted to do a walk-through that night. Closing was the next day, so they just wanted to check the place out. I really wasn't looking forward to meeting the new owners, but we did anyway, and quite frankly, they seem like very nice people. I hope they are good to our neighbours. I was really prepared for them to be pricks and I immediately set in my mind that I wouldn't like them.
Earlier in that day I was doing a bit of unpacking here at the condo, and decided to unpack the computer and set it up here in the office. I needed to cut through the zip ties that were holding some wires together, so I found a utility knife with a thin, flimsy blade and tried that. No dice. I then tried a small pair of manicure scissors. Still no luck. I then found my "good scissors" with the orange plastic handles. I tried using them the conventional way but got nowhere. I then put the orange handles in the palm of my hand and squeezed. Of course, being me, the handles broke and the pieces lodged into my palm. Same damned hand the wasp stung me on two days earlier. Now I have a wasp hole under my baby finger, a deep "V" between my index finger and thumb, and another gash right in the middle of my palm. I call that one my "traumata". Not sure where it came from, but that's where it appeared. Naturally, I wasn't able to find the box that held the Band-Aids, so I tried to stop the bleeding with a wad of Kleenex.
I decided to get out of the house and get some errands done. I needed to exchange my cable modem for the computer at the cable company office, then went to Home Depot to pick up a few things. I headed to the local office supply place to get a new paper shredder as ours can barely take one sheet without whining in agony. I also picked up one of those plastic carpet protecter mats for the computer chair. Due to the thickness of the carpet, I needed to buy the thickest mat they had, which wasn't able to be rolled up. That meant I had to carry the huge shredder box (it comes with this huge basket) and the gigantic plastic mat with a thousand little plastic nails jabbing into every part of my body back to the car. I sure the staff there were watching me through the window getting a good laugh. We had been experiencing some problems with the computer speakers I bought there in December, so the clerk I spoke to told me that they have a one year warranty, and all I needed to do was find the receipt and we'd be all set. That's right. Find the needle in the haystack and all will be well.
Tuesday were were scheduled to have our central air unit replaced. "We'll be there between 10 and 11," they said. Since we had no food in the house, I figured I'd duck out around 9:30 and grab a breakfast bagel at Mickey D's down the street and get back in plenty of time. I had my shower, got dressed and ran downstairs to find the workmen blocking my driveway already. They came in and got to work. How long could this take? Around noon they had to head out to get a part they needed. I figured they would be back in a few minutes, so I better not take off. About 90 minutes later they returned. They finally finished their job around 4:00 before telling me that a service tech would be by in a couple of minutes to inspect the job. OK then. I waited for him to arrive at around 4:30 to do his half hour inspection at which time I was finally able to get out for my breakfast!
While I waited for my freedom, I managed to find that receipt for the speakers in one of the "Master Bedroom" boxes. I packed up the speakers, all the wiring, and the control unit and took them and the receipt back to the office place where I purchased them. I told the girl at the service desk that I have speakers that aren't working.
"Do you have the receipt?"
"I do. I bought them for a Christmas gift and they have a one year warranty."
"Oh."
The girl looked at the speakers and then at me like I was a leper.
"Is there a problem?"
"Well the warranty is with Logitech."
"OK...."
"Not with us."
Two computer geek guys who were standing a few feet away came to her side.
"Oh ya," the one said, "the warranty is with Logitech."
"So what does that mean to me?"
"You need to contact them directly."
"And then what?"
"They'll either give you an RGA number or give you instructions on shipping them back."
[Did I mention I hadn't eaten all day?]
"Well, it would have been nice if the guy I dealt with yesterday told me that, rather than have me lug it all in here for nothing."
So I lugged it back out to the trunk.
I was a cranky prick that night. Just ask The Squeeze.
Today I went to the Logitech website to see what I need to do to get the problem solved. They suggested jumping through all sorts of hoops, test the speakers on another system, blah, blah, blah. They don't work. I know they don't work. Don't dick me around. But just for fun, let me plug the line into my iPod to see what happens. Well holy mother of God! The damned things work. So that got me to thinking....maybe the line got disconnected when the desk was moved around. Could be. Needless to say, things are back in order now. Problem solved. Sometimes I can be so caught up in being right, and it kinda pisses me off when I'm not. In a way, it was really to my benefit that the office supply place didn't take them back. I would have felt like a total knob finding out they work fine.
We took possession of the new place on the 4th and had to be out by the 15th. That gave us 11 days. We had things packed in advance (not much, but we made an effort), and took a load over in The Squeeze’s pick-up every trip over here.
I’ve heard it said that “Friends help you move; good friends help you move a body”. That may well be true, but I gotta say, a couple of our friends have been incredibly helpful. Personally I would sooner move 30 bodies than move into a new house again, but that’s just me. Props to our great friend FWG for all the help with packing and lugging, not to mention the use of his new banana boat to help transport many of our belongings over here. Thanks also to Dan the man for his help and his power tools to help with jobs such as cutting trim and baseboard at the old place and helping to construct our new closet in the soon-to-be master bedroom.
The strange thing is that we didn’t even move the heavy furniture! We hired a moving company for all of that stuff. Sofas, chairs, wall units, entertainment units, dressers, beds, tables, desks, fridge, treadmill…the list goes on. Three guys with strong backs and good senses of humour did all of that lifting for us and we had a few laughs with them. After lugging the sofa-bed up from the basement (and we all know what a nightmare that can be), one mover said “Please tell me this isn’t going into the basement in the new place.” I looked at him with a straight face and said, “Oh, no, it’s not,” and after waiting a beat for his sigh of relief, I continued, “it’s actually going on the top floor.” Ahhh, good times.
The day all of the furniture was moved in, The Squeeze and I went back to the old house to do some cleaning up. We took his truck and my car full of old cans of paint, solvents, etc. to a hazardous waste depot, and we took two truckloads of garbage to the transfer station. As we were preparing for our second garbage run, we paused to chat with our neighbour who was putting up a new fence between our places. He's always wanted to do it, but didn't want to insult us I suppose. It also seemed like a good time to do it before the new people move in so it doesn't come across as an insult to them either. While we stood there chatting, I casually reached out my right hand to rest it on one of the fenceposts. Immediately I felt a sharp pain shoot through my hand. Damnit! I was stung on the palm by a wasp that was on the post! I ran into the house to run some cold water on it to reduce the sting. Unfortunately, we had already moved the fridge, so we didn't have any ice. A few minutes under the cold water did the trick, but I still put on my pouty face so I could score a nice cold iced cappucino at the local Tim Horton's. You know...to keep the swelling down. ;o)
We did the last bit of packing up loose ends and scrubbed the place within an inch of its life. Next on the list was to touch up some paint, paint the basement floor and put up the baseboards like our agent promised the new owners. Where I come from, when one makes a promise, one follows through on their word. One doesn't make a promise on someone else's behalf and expect them to do it. Suffice to say we were a bit pissed at our agent for telling them we'd have all this work in the basement done. Oh well, such is life. As it turned out, there was a power outage for a brief time, so we were a bit delayed with washing and painting the basement floor, but we got it done finally. The directions on the can said that the paint would be dry within 24-48 hours. We were hoping for 24 so we could get in there and put up the baseboards on Sunday since The Squeeze was back to work on Monday.
When we returned on Sunday to get the last of our things and put up the trim, The Squeeze walked into the basement where he stuck to the floor. Damn! Not dry yet. A couple of footprints. No big deal. To me, anyway. What the hell, we don't live there anymore. The bummer is that it meant that we had to go back Monday night to do the trim, and the new owners wanted to do a walk-through that night. Closing was the next day, so they just wanted to check the place out. I really wasn't looking forward to meeting the new owners, but we did anyway, and quite frankly, they seem like very nice people. I hope they are good to our neighbours. I was really prepared for them to be pricks and I immediately set in my mind that I wouldn't like them.
Earlier in that day I was doing a bit of unpacking here at the condo, and decided to unpack the computer and set it up here in the office. I needed to cut through the zip ties that were holding some wires together, so I found a utility knife with a thin, flimsy blade and tried that. No dice. I then tried a small pair of manicure scissors. Still no luck. I then found my "good scissors" with the orange plastic handles. I tried using them the conventional way but got nowhere. I then put the orange handles in the palm of my hand and squeezed. Of course, being me, the handles broke and the pieces lodged into my palm. Same damned hand the wasp stung me on two days earlier. Now I have a wasp hole under my baby finger, a deep "V" between my index finger and thumb, and another gash right in the middle of my palm. I call that one my "traumata". Not sure where it came from, but that's where it appeared. Naturally, I wasn't able to find the box that held the Band-Aids, so I tried to stop the bleeding with a wad of Kleenex.
I decided to get out of the house and get some errands done. I needed to exchange my cable modem for the computer at the cable company office, then went to Home Depot to pick up a few things. I headed to the local office supply place to get a new paper shredder as ours can barely take one sheet without whining in agony. I also picked up one of those plastic carpet protecter mats for the computer chair. Due to the thickness of the carpet, I needed to buy the thickest mat they had, which wasn't able to be rolled up. That meant I had to carry the huge shredder box (it comes with this huge basket) and the gigantic plastic mat with a thousand little plastic nails jabbing into every part of my body back to the car. I sure the staff there were watching me through the window getting a good laugh. We had been experiencing some problems with the computer speakers I bought there in December, so the clerk I spoke to told me that they have a one year warranty, and all I needed to do was find the receipt and we'd be all set. That's right. Find the needle in the haystack and all will be well.
Tuesday were were scheduled to have our central air unit replaced. "We'll be there between 10 and 11," they said. Since we had no food in the house, I figured I'd duck out around 9:30 and grab a breakfast bagel at Mickey D's down the street and get back in plenty of time. I had my shower, got dressed and ran downstairs to find the workmen blocking my driveway already. They came in and got to work. How long could this take? Around noon they had to head out to get a part they needed. I figured they would be back in a few minutes, so I better not take off. About 90 minutes later they returned. They finally finished their job around 4:00 before telling me that a service tech would be by in a couple of minutes to inspect the job. OK then. I waited for him to arrive at around 4:30 to do his half hour inspection at which time I was finally able to get out for my breakfast!
While I waited for my freedom, I managed to find that receipt for the speakers in one of the "Master Bedroom" boxes. I packed up the speakers, all the wiring, and the control unit and took them and the receipt back to the office place where I purchased them. I told the girl at the service desk that I have speakers that aren't working.
"Do you have the receipt?"
"I do. I bought them for a Christmas gift and they have a one year warranty."
"Oh."
The girl looked at the speakers and then at me like I was a leper.
"Is there a problem?"
"Well the warranty is with Logitech."
"OK...."
"Not with us."
Two computer geek guys who were standing a few feet away came to her side.
"Oh ya," the one said, "the warranty is with Logitech."
"So what does that mean to me?"
"You need to contact them directly."
"And then what?"
"They'll either give you an RGA number or give you instructions on shipping them back."
[Did I mention I hadn't eaten all day?]
"Well, it would have been nice if the guy I dealt with yesterday told me that, rather than have me lug it all in here for nothing."
So I lugged it back out to the trunk.
I was a cranky prick that night. Just ask The Squeeze.
Today I went to the Logitech website to see what I need to do to get the problem solved. They suggested jumping through all sorts of hoops, test the speakers on another system, blah, blah, blah. They don't work. I know they don't work. Don't dick me around. But just for fun, let me plug the line into my iPod to see what happens. Well holy mother of God! The damned things work. So that got me to thinking....maybe the line got disconnected when the desk was moved around. Could be. Needless to say, things are back in order now. Problem solved. Sometimes I can be so caught up in being right, and it kinda pisses me off when I'm not. In a way, it was really to my benefit that the office supply place didn't take them back. I would have felt like a total knob finding out they work fine.
# posted by Dave @ 4:42 PM 
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Dear God, how long did it take you type this? And the patience?? You are my hero. I hope the new house is fabulous!! Can't wait to see pics. ;-)
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