We are sitting in a Super 8 in Perry, Georgia and enjoying seats that don't move and high-speed internet access. I have, for the first time, managed to get a connection running with my D-Link wireless router. I've had nothing but endless frustration until tonight. I plugged it in and it just worked. Heck if I know what I was doing wrong before or what I did right this time, but I ain't arguing. Anyway, just to catch everyone up with all the fun we've been having so far:
Thursday we tried to do some packing, but we had to knock off early for dinner at Pastor and Kim's. We were there late, which was fun, but not good because...
Friday, we were up at 5:30am to go get a 24-foot moving van, using it to move heavy stuff from the house to the cabin (and it was heavy; thanks Dad and Richard), then loading it up, driving it to Birch Run, and unloading it (thanks Dave, Jerrica, Tevra, Timothy, and Mom). We were going to drive back, but it was 11pm and we just couldn't do it.
Saturday, we finally rolled out of the sack around 7am, and headed back north. By the time we dropped off the truck, grabbed something to eat, and got home, it was already noon. We worked for a while, then cleaned up and headed over to my parents for dinner.
Sunday, we were supposed to be in Birch Run by noon, but we still had all our packing and the entire house to clean. Obviously, we were late. We finally got everything crammed into both vehicles and headed for Birch Run singing the theme song from The Beverly Hillbillies. We spent some time with Debbie's family and just bummed around the rest of the day.
Monday was D Day. I had hopped to eat my last meal in Michigan around 8am, but we had to fit two vehicles worth of crap into one. We chucked a lot of stuff and by filling every single crevice in the Durango, we got the rest ready to go. We started south at 4pm and almost got to Lexington, Kentucky.
Tuesday, we were on the road by 11am. We didn't make very good time; we came to a complete stop several times, and once we sat completely stationary for 20 minutes. We also had a hard time staying on the road. We were stopping every hundred miles or so for some reason. We finally stopped in Perry, Georgia, just south of Macon. We should be at Mickey's House tomorrow.
When the county name our road Swamp Road, there was some residence who wanted to petition for a name change because they felt that their property would be devalued by that name. Well, I wonder what they would have thought of the name we ran across today: Stinking Creek Road. Only in Kentucky.
Anyway, time for bed. We've got a lot more driving so I should hit the sack.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Short news
Hey All! Well, our newest addition to the family seems to be fitting in so far. The whole family is sitting at HOrizon Book Store in TC checking that everything works okay. The newest addition is what I'm on and works fine ... found the wireless network and surfing the web just fine. Ric old lap top and new D-Link doesn't seem to like each other. We will have to see if it can be fixed or if we will be using only mine until he gets a new laptop or figures out how to make his old laptop like the D-Link.
We are almost all packed up. Get the moving truck Friday to take a huge load to my Mom's. Then we will be heading out of Michigan on MOnday morning.
More later...........
We are almost all packed up. Get the moving truck Friday to take a huge load to my Mom's. Then we will be heading out of Michigan on MOnday morning.
More later...........
Monday, October 09, 2006
Shoulda Killed Him
It certainly would have improved the human race marginally. I have no use for these assholes. Go ahead and sue; prove to the world what you are. It's not like we don't already know or anything.
Yea, They Disgust Me Too
I can only wish that I could come up with stuff this funny. "Statistically speaking, you'’re probably an inbred spawn of illiterate, unhygienic, penis-worshipping child molesters." I have got to remember that one the next time someone cops a bit too much attitude.
ROTFLMAO
ROTFLMAO
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Newest Member of the Family
No, no. Nothing like that. Today we bought a Toshiba Satellite for Debbie to use as an outside travel consultant for the company she has been working for. Tomorrow, we will be driving down to Grand Rapids to hammer out the final details and have the laptop configured by their "computer guy" for accessing the company network, e-mail, reservation system, etc. It's basic, but it should last for a while. We really don't beat up our hardware too badly. I am, after all, writing this on a laptop that classifies as a museum piece (Dell Inspiron 8000 I bought in 2000 or 2001), so I would expect the Toshiba to hold up for quite a while. My only regret is that I swore I was not buying another Microsoft product, but Windows XP is the only OS Debbie's employer will support. So off we went to Best Buy like good little lemmings and bought an off-the-shelf laptop. Ah well. As soon as the house sells, the trusty Dell will find itself replaced by a sweet little Mac Mini.
Anyway, not much else to report. Rooms continue to empty, bins continue to pile up. We are renting a moving truck on Friday the 13th (which falls on Friday this month) to drive everything that we won't be taking with us in the Durango to Florida and Arizona, down to Debbie's mom's basement. We will be back that night, stay here at the house Friday night, pack the Durango on Saturday, then start heading south. We currently plan to spend Saturday night and Sunday at Debbie's mom's, then head for Florida very early Monday morning to go romp with a giant mouse and hang out on a cruise ship. On the 29th, we are heading west and hope to make Mobile, Alabama the same day to hang for a bit with my sister and brother-in-law. Then sometime on the 30th, our trek west begins in earnest. We hope to be at Arcosonti on the 3rd or 4th of November to give us a couple days to recover from the drive, explore the area a bit, and get ready for our five-week workshop.
Anyway, not much else to report. Rooms continue to empty, bins continue to pile up. We are renting a moving truck on Friday the 13th (which falls on Friday this month) to drive everything that we won't be taking with us in the Durango to Florida and Arizona, down to Debbie's mom's basement. We will be back that night, stay here at the house Friday night, pack the Durango on Saturday, then start heading south. We currently plan to spend Saturday night and Sunday at Debbie's mom's, then head for Florida very early Monday morning to go romp with a giant mouse and hang out on a cruise ship. On the 29th, we are heading west and hope to make Mobile, Alabama the same day to hang for a bit with my sister and brother-in-law. Then sometime on the 30th, our trek west begins in earnest. We hope to be at Arcosonti on the 3rd or 4th of November to give us a couple days to recover from the drive, explore the area a bit, and get ready for our five-week workshop.
Sunday, October 01, 2006
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!!
Happy Birthday to the Best Mom!
She is in Vegas (no -- Tom Jones is not there this time!) Maybe she will hit it BIG and be able to retire. I'll have to figure out how long a drive it is from Arco to Vegas and meet up with her when she flys in to see Tom.
We finally sat down yesterday to figure out when we should leave Michigan to get to Florida in time for our vacation. We will be leaving northern Michigan either 14Oct eve or 15Oct am. Then plan on staying at my Mom's (please and thanks?!) until we leave Michigan Monday October 16th. If we don't get to see you all before that, BYE for now. You can keep up with our life here on the blog and also email either of us.
She is in Vegas (no -- Tom Jones is not there this time!) Maybe she will hit it BIG and be able to retire. I'll have to figure out how long a drive it is from Arco to Vegas and meet up with her when she flys in to see Tom.
We finally sat down yesterday to figure out when we should leave Michigan to get to Florida in time for our vacation. We will be leaving northern Michigan either 14Oct eve or 15Oct am. Then plan on staying at my Mom's (please and thanks?!) until we leave Michigan Monday October 16th. If we don't get to see you all before that, BYE for now. You can keep up with our life here on the blog and also email either of us.
Brain Dump
I know I promised more routine updates once things calmed down, and you would think that eliminating the 60 hours or so spent every week working and driving back and forth to work would qualify as "calming down." Well, you be the judge.
Friday, September 22 - The Anniversary Date of our New Life.
Short day at work because a) I needed to get my butt over to the American Legion hall for the showing at 3pm prior to our auction at 5pm, and b) what are they going to do; fire me? Anyway, we were both pretty nervous about the auction. Even though we filled a 24-foot moving truck with stuff, it just didn't look like that much once it was at the hall. We were also a little nervous about what things were going to auction for. Auctions are unpredictable; if you get the right people there, you can make a mint. The wrong people, you give a lot of stuff away or take it back home. Given that we had no way to haul much of anything home, that meant giving away anything that didn't sell. Now personally, I wasn't doing this to make money. I was only interested in reducing volume. But we fronted the auctioneer $1,000, rented a truck for $85, purchased trigger locks for all the guns I was selling, etc., and it would be nice to at least make that back so we weren't effectively paying people to take our crap.
I've always had the attitude that if you expect the worst, you will live your life being constantly and pleasantly surprised. I went into the auction figuring we could consider ourselves lucky to break even and everything over that would be gravy. To make a long story short, we went home with a lot of gravy. Like, $3,600 worth of gravy. All for a truck-load of junk, most of which hadn't seen the light of day in years.
We were happy, to put it mildly, but we also didn't get out of the hall until after 10pm, which meant we didn't fall into bed until sometime around midnight.
Saturday, September 23 - Our First Day of Freedom
So of course we were up by 7am to get to one of Debbie's nephew's last football game of the season. They won (way to go, Ashton!!), which, if I heard right, made them undefeated for the season. Debbie's mom bought everyone lunch at a local diner, then we headed for home. We were planning on working on the packing, but we decided we had eaten too much and watched Fantastic Four instead.
Sunday, September 24
I was up early again, for no apparent reason. Debbie was still in bed, so I figured it would be a good time to catch up on all my internet stuff. Yea. Right. Not even close. Not only was I way behind on everything, I was working from the lowest circle of dial-up hell. So once Debbie was up, we decided to do something more constructive than stare at a computer screen upon which nothing was happening, and go into Traverse City and shop for "Arco Supplies" (everything from rain gear to finger condoms). We came home from TC, unloaded, re-loaded with other stuff and headed into Kalkaska for my youngest grand-niece's 1st Birthday Party. My sister and her husband were up from Alabama, so that was pretty much the day. We did get home in time to start watching Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, but we both fell asleep about and hour or so into it. And yes, we realize we live a very exciting life.
Monday, September 25
I'm not sure what good it does to quit your job, then get up every morning at the same time anyway. Today we had doctor's appointments and car maintenance. After my flu shot, tetanus booster, and blood draw, I felt like a pin cushion. Once we were back at the house, we made good progress on turning the piles of debris into somewhat better organized piles of debris. We now have four piles going in the living room: The first is a pile of things we want to take with us on our first trip down to Florida, then out to Arcosanti for the five-week workshop. This pile must be very small as it all has to fit into the Durango. The second pile is stuff we will most likely take back with us when we come back to Michigan around Christmas when we hope to be in our permanent apartment at Arcosanti. The third pile is stuff we will send for once we are better situated. The fourth pile is stuff I suspect may never make it out to Arizona. We worked steady until dinner, then ran into town for a few more errands, then back home for dinner and the rest of Fellowship of the Ring.
Tuesday, September 26
Yep. You guessed it. Up at the butt-crack of dawn. We spent the entire day sorting, cleaning, packing, labeling, and stacking. We ended the day with dinner and a movie (Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers).
Wednesday, September 27
Up early and packing, but for a different reason. Debbie was scheduled for some cruise classes in Chicago on Thursday and Friday, so I figured I would drive her down there, then spend a couple days bumming around Chicago while she was in class. We were mostly packed and were just starting to load the car when I got a call from our auctioneer asking if we would come into Traverse City to pick up our check and sign some final paperwork. Of course. I can change plans pretty quickly when serious money is involved. So we finished loading the Durango, then headed for Chicago via Traverse City. We arrived at our hotel around 6pm, and spent the rest of the evening walking around the area, grabbing some BBQ for dinner, then going to bed.
Thursday, September 28 - Chicago
Up at 5am for our commute into Downtown Chicago. We didn't have any real problems other than figuring out how to get into the building where Debbie's classes were being held. We eventually found the parking area and ditched the car. Debbie headed to her class, and I hiked to the nearest bus station and grabbed a ride to the Shedd Aquarium. It's been 20 years since my last visit and much had changed and a lot of new stuff added. I enjoyed it, but I guess I'm just not one of those people that can do this sort of thing alone. I kept catching myself turning to point out something to whoever was with me only to find no one there.
I was done at the aquarium around 3pm, and the weather was absolutely beautiful, so I decided to hoof it instead of messing with the bus. It took me five minutes less time to walk than to ride the bus. Score one for the Arcosanti concept. I hung around the lobby until Debbie was done, then we were back out in Chicago commuter traffic and heading back to our hotel. Dinner at the Olive Garden near our hotel finished up the day.
Friday, September 29 - One Week Anniversary of Our New Life
And I was up at 5am for a repeat performance of annoying Chicago commuters. Instead of spending the day wandering around by myself, I just hung out on a comfy couch and caught up on some reading and making some notes for this entry. As soon as Debbie was done with her last class, we headed straight for Michigan and arrived home (at least for a couple more weeks) around 1:30am. The power was off when we got here, so we knew that the sun didn't shine much (if at all) the entire time we were gone. Is there no sun in this cursed land? And whose dumb-ass idea was it to run a house on solar power in a place that can go weeks without seeing any direct sunlight? Oh. Right.
Saturday, September 30
I actually managed to sleep in until 7am today. We took our time getting around in the morning, then headed into town to make several bank deposits, and buy some groceries and the last of our Arco supplies. We came back to the house with the intention of doing some more packing, but after looking at the half dozen piles of stuff we were planning on giving to people, we decided to spend the rest of the day playing Santa Claus. We didn't make it back to the house until after 10pm. Debbie went straight to bed, but I wasn't really tired, so I decided to do this instead.
See what I mean about "calming down?" Next week for sure....
Some random notes:
I want to know in what universe that honking your horn at someone that is sitting at a red light has ever aided in moving traffic. Every cab driver in Chicago does this. Whenever you see a street scene on TV or in a movie and there is this background noise of random honking, that's cab drivers just making random noise. The really funny part is that when they have a reason to honk, they don't. Cut off a cab and nearly run him into a parked car (which I did) and they won't touch the horn. They will loudly curse you in Arabic, but never the horn. But if you are sitting in front of one in a line of stationary cars at a red light, expect to get honked at two or three times before the light turns green. Maybe the major cities should follow the example of the town in Georgia that made punching someone for burning a flag a $50 ticket, and make punching a cabbie for superfluous horn usage a $25 or $50 fine.
While living in Flint and working in Detroit, I only wanted to get out of the city. Now that I've spent a couple days in Chicago after living in a rural area for seven-plus years, I can say without a doubt that I still have no desire to live in a city. That isn't meant as some generic city-bashing comment. I understand enough about economics to know that without the cities, the rural life I've been living would be impossible. I can also appreciate the role cities play as reservoirs of culture and science that just cannot be supported in a place like Traverse City. All I'm saying is that it just isn't for me.
Will Chicago ever finish building that damn expressway? They were working on in when I was there twenty years ago, they were still working on it when I was there ten years ago, and they are still working on it with no end in sight. This has to be some sort of all-time record for the biggest waste of taxpayer money and commuters' time in history.
Best line I heard the entire time I was in Chicago, spoken in the Shedd Aquarium by a woman my age while looking at an enclosure containing bright yellow poison dart frogs: "Look at those! They almost look real!"
A thought occurred to me watching preschool kids operating the computers used in the various displays at the Shedd Aquarium: If you think computers have radically changed things, just wait. You ain't seen nothin' yet.
OK; it's now very AM on Sunday.
Friday, September 22 - The Anniversary Date of our New Life.
Short day at work because a) I needed to get my butt over to the American Legion hall for the showing at 3pm prior to our auction at 5pm, and b) what are they going to do; fire me? Anyway, we were both pretty nervous about the auction. Even though we filled a 24-foot moving truck with stuff, it just didn't look like that much once it was at the hall. We were also a little nervous about what things were going to auction for. Auctions are unpredictable; if you get the right people there, you can make a mint. The wrong people, you give a lot of stuff away or take it back home. Given that we had no way to haul much of anything home, that meant giving away anything that didn't sell. Now personally, I wasn't doing this to make money. I was only interested in reducing volume. But we fronted the auctioneer $1,000, rented a truck for $85, purchased trigger locks for all the guns I was selling, etc., and it would be nice to at least make that back so we weren't effectively paying people to take our crap.
I've always had the attitude that if you expect the worst, you will live your life being constantly and pleasantly surprised. I went into the auction figuring we could consider ourselves lucky to break even and everything over that would be gravy. To make a long story short, we went home with a lot of gravy. Like, $3,600 worth of gravy. All for a truck-load of junk, most of which hadn't seen the light of day in years.
We were happy, to put it mildly, but we also didn't get out of the hall until after 10pm, which meant we didn't fall into bed until sometime around midnight.
Saturday, September 23 - Our First Day of Freedom
So of course we were up by 7am to get to one of Debbie's nephew's last football game of the season. They won (way to go, Ashton!!), which, if I heard right, made them undefeated for the season. Debbie's mom bought everyone lunch at a local diner, then we headed for home. We were planning on working on the packing, but we decided we had eaten too much and watched Fantastic Four instead.
Sunday, September 24
I was up early again, for no apparent reason. Debbie was still in bed, so I figured it would be a good time to catch up on all my internet stuff. Yea. Right. Not even close. Not only was I way behind on everything, I was working from the lowest circle of dial-up hell. So once Debbie was up, we decided to do something more constructive than stare at a computer screen upon which nothing was happening, and go into Traverse City and shop for "Arco Supplies" (everything from rain gear to finger condoms). We came home from TC, unloaded, re-loaded with other stuff and headed into Kalkaska for my youngest grand-niece's 1st Birthday Party. My sister and her husband were up from Alabama, so that was pretty much the day. We did get home in time to start watching Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, but we both fell asleep about and hour or so into it. And yes, we realize we live a very exciting life.
Monday, September 25
I'm not sure what good it does to quit your job, then get up every morning at the same time anyway. Today we had doctor's appointments and car maintenance. After my flu shot, tetanus booster, and blood draw, I felt like a pin cushion. Once we were back at the house, we made good progress on turning the piles of debris into somewhat better organized piles of debris. We now have four piles going in the living room: The first is a pile of things we want to take with us on our first trip down to Florida, then out to Arcosanti for the five-week workshop. This pile must be very small as it all has to fit into the Durango. The second pile is stuff we will most likely take back with us when we come back to Michigan around Christmas when we hope to be in our permanent apartment at Arcosanti. The third pile is stuff we will send for once we are better situated. The fourth pile is stuff I suspect may never make it out to Arizona. We worked steady until dinner, then ran into town for a few more errands, then back home for dinner and the rest of Fellowship of the Ring.
Tuesday, September 26
Yep. You guessed it. Up at the butt-crack of dawn. We spent the entire day sorting, cleaning, packing, labeling, and stacking. We ended the day with dinner and a movie (Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers).
Wednesday, September 27
Up early and packing, but for a different reason. Debbie was scheduled for some cruise classes in Chicago on Thursday and Friday, so I figured I would drive her down there, then spend a couple days bumming around Chicago while she was in class. We were mostly packed and were just starting to load the car when I got a call from our auctioneer asking if we would come into Traverse City to pick up our check and sign some final paperwork. Of course. I can change plans pretty quickly when serious money is involved. So we finished loading the Durango, then headed for Chicago via Traverse City. We arrived at our hotel around 6pm, and spent the rest of the evening walking around the area, grabbing some BBQ for dinner, then going to bed.
Thursday, September 28 - Chicago
Up at 5am for our commute into Downtown Chicago. We didn't have any real problems other than figuring out how to get into the building where Debbie's classes were being held. We eventually found the parking area and ditched the car. Debbie headed to her class, and I hiked to the nearest bus station and grabbed a ride to the Shedd Aquarium. It's been 20 years since my last visit and much had changed and a lot of new stuff added. I enjoyed it, but I guess I'm just not one of those people that can do this sort of thing alone. I kept catching myself turning to point out something to whoever was with me only to find no one there.
I was done at the aquarium around 3pm, and the weather was absolutely beautiful, so I decided to hoof it instead of messing with the bus. It took me five minutes less time to walk than to ride the bus. Score one for the Arcosanti concept. I hung around the lobby until Debbie was done, then we were back out in Chicago commuter traffic and heading back to our hotel. Dinner at the Olive Garden near our hotel finished up the day.
Friday, September 29 - One Week Anniversary of Our New Life
And I was up at 5am for a repeat performance of annoying Chicago commuters. Instead of spending the day wandering around by myself, I just hung out on a comfy couch and caught up on some reading and making some notes for this entry. As soon as Debbie was done with her last class, we headed straight for Michigan and arrived home (at least for a couple more weeks) around 1:30am. The power was off when we got here, so we knew that the sun didn't shine much (if at all) the entire time we were gone. Is there no sun in this cursed land? And whose dumb-ass idea was it to run a house on solar power in a place that can go weeks without seeing any direct sunlight? Oh. Right.
Saturday, September 30
I actually managed to sleep in until 7am today. We took our time getting around in the morning, then headed into town to make several bank deposits, and buy some groceries and the last of our Arco supplies. We came back to the house with the intention of doing some more packing, but after looking at the half dozen piles of stuff we were planning on giving to people, we decided to spend the rest of the day playing Santa Claus. We didn't make it back to the house until after 10pm. Debbie went straight to bed, but I wasn't really tired, so I decided to do this instead.
See what I mean about "calming down?" Next week for sure....
Some random notes:
I want to know in what universe that honking your horn at someone that is sitting at a red light has ever aided in moving traffic. Every cab driver in Chicago does this. Whenever you see a street scene on TV or in a movie and there is this background noise of random honking, that's cab drivers just making random noise. The really funny part is that when they have a reason to honk, they don't. Cut off a cab and nearly run him into a parked car (which I did) and they won't touch the horn. They will loudly curse you in Arabic, but never the horn. But if you are sitting in front of one in a line of stationary cars at a red light, expect to get honked at two or three times before the light turns green. Maybe the major cities should follow the example of the town in Georgia that made punching someone for burning a flag a $50 ticket, and make punching a cabbie for superfluous horn usage a $25 or $50 fine.
While living in Flint and working in Detroit, I only wanted to get out of the city. Now that I've spent a couple days in Chicago after living in a rural area for seven-plus years, I can say without a doubt that I still have no desire to live in a city. That isn't meant as some generic city-bashing comment. I understand enough about economics to know that without the cities, the rural life I've been living would be impossible. I can also appreciate the role cities play as reservoirs of culture and science that just cannot be supported in a place like Traverse City. All I'm saying is that it just isn't for me.
Will Chicago ever finish building that damn expressway? They were working on in when I was there twenty years ago, they were still working on it when I was there ten years ago, and they are still working on it with no end in sight. This has to be some sort of all-time record for the biggest waste of taxpayer money and commuters' time in history.
Best line I heard the entire time I was in Chicago, spoken in the Shedd Aquarium by a woman my age while looking at an enclosure containing bright yellow poison dart frogs: "Look at those! They almost look real!"
A thought occurred to me watching preschool kids operating the computers used in the various displays at the Shedd Aquarium: If you think computers have radically changed things, just wait. You ain't seen nothin' yet.
OK; it's now very AM on Sunday.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
