Things are finally slowing down so I figured I'd share some of the insanity so far...
Adventure #1 Deceus comes to town.
I had a pretty packed schedule work-wise the week before the move and with the girlfriend unemployed I figured she could handle packing. Just take everything, put it in boxes and take to the garage/basement. Simple, or so I thought.
4 days out: things are 25% packed tops. The stuff that is packed is all in tiny boxes. This is where I started to realized I fucked up. What was done was everything from every closet and cabinet was pulled out and covering every square inch of counter and floor space... Apparently this all apart of some grand plan I just wasn't aware of. Pay for packers next time, got it.
3 days out: now we're maybe 33% packed but nothing is downstairs. Things are now at least going into medium sized boxes.
2 day out: 50% packed, somehow not much has gotten done. Full blown panic sets in and I spend most of the night getting everything I can downstairs and staged well for the movers. A few trips to Lowe's for massive heavy duty bins and the garage/basement is done in what has to be record time. Oh and I get rear ended in the truck during one of these trips. Put a decent dent in the bumper just above the hitch. I let it go without filing a claim because I didn't care or have the time/energy to deal with anything at this point.
1 day out: Get up at the crack of dawn, realize we're still 60% packed, panic continues. Sell my big ass grill for $50, sell the treadmill/rack/platform for $250, make multiple runs to the landfill. Movers get in and we're only 80% packed up. They fly through all the packed/stage stuff in less than an hour. The truck is 85-90% full and they ask what all is left. I don't have a great answer to that except: a ton of random shit spread out through out the house. So the packers spend the second hour just grabbing random stuff and the last bit of the truck doesn't really get packed very well. Truck: 100% full, house: 90% packed ... fuck.
SHITSHOW TIME/DAY 0: My dad gets in and lends a hand. Destroyed more cheap particle board furniture, more dump runs. Unpack 10% of the truck, throw caution to the wind and just start recklessly throwing shit into the middle of the truck where we can and making the mother of all leaning junk towers. Leave some stuff with neighbor to come back for. My poor dad had to make about 100 trips up and down my cliff of a driveway after repeatedly being promised everything would be done and we'd just be hopping in and driving. We're leaving at close to 5pm. That's only about 8 hours later than expected. The drive was pretty uneventful. The Penske could barely do 45 up some of the hills in NC and there was constant 30+mph gusts the entire time and it's somehow 30 fucking degrees.
MOVE-IN DAY: I drop my dad off at enterprise and give him a bottle of Blanton's for the trouble. During the walkthrough I walked straight to the one skimmer basket on the pool and it's blocked solid with leaves. Looks like it hasn't been cleared out in weeks and they probably haven't cared for the pool in months. So to prevent the pump from burning up, I get down and clear it all out. It's still freezing outside but a few handfuls later it's clear. Hey the rough part is over right? ... wrong. The realtor lets me know I won't get the keys until the deed is recorded but let me park the car in the garage. Didn't think much of it, figured I'd sign and it'd be a done deal like last time. I found out at the siging that the attorneys have to send the documents to the lender, who sends them back and then they send it to the county before the deed is officially recorded ... great. The lender makes some last minute requests and I'm stuck sitting in the driveway at the new place for a few hours. 5pm comes and goes, I've got a restless 7 year old and cat in the car and not sure if I'm going to be homeless for the night ... great. While we wait I call my dad ask where he put the truck keys ... they're in his coat pocket. No worries though he'll just overnight em to me. 6pm rolls through and someone must've stayed late for me because I get confirmation that the deed is officially mine. It's close to 7 before we get in. All I can think about is how I'm getting the truck back tomorrow and the unpackers showing up to a death trap at 9 am tomorrow. I try to setup the internet because I have all day meetings tomorrow I have to be at. The team is planning out work for the rest of the year. Spectrum can't find my modem no matter what outlet I try or what I do. They have to send a tech and I have to wait 2 days. I stay up most of the night again clearing out the worst of the wreckage and make it somewhat safe to unload.
SHIT SHOW 2-POINT-OH: I'm up at 6am because I can't fucking sleep, the cat and kid taking turns freaking out all night being in a new house. Check UPS around 7am and it looks like the keys made it to Raleigh at 4am and just made it to Charlotte. Thankfully something looks to be going smoo... wait a minute an update at 8:30 from Richmond. "Your package has been delayed because ... reasons." The key never left Richmond but they assure my Dad it'll be in by 5. Unloaders show up and knock it out of the park. UPS gives us excuses until 3pm and then finally stops letting us past the tier 1 guys. They stick to their guns but the key simply isn't coming. I call Penske roadside and they're fucking awesome. They get me a key cut at one of their maintenance shops and let me know it'd be faster to pick it up, so I do. Fucking finally. Get to the truck with the key and ... it won't turn lol. Looks like it wasn't cut super well. They send out a tech with a better key and it won't turn either... it's been re-keyed at some point without Penske's knowledge. We wait on UPS til 5pm because they still haven't backed down from their promise they haven't lost the key. Eventually they send out a locksmith who makes a key on the spot based on the lock. It's 8:30pm and I roll into the Kannapolis Home Depot a full 10 hours late and get the truck turned in just before closing. The tech shows up the next moring and discovers the line from the street to the house is dead. At least it's something only kind of stupid and not me forgetting to plug something in. He runs a temp cable and I'm in business... Fucking finally, for real this time.
Stay tuned for the next episode: Deceus buys a hot tub.
Adventure #1 Deceus comes to town.
I had a pretty packed schedule work-wise the week before the move and with the girlfriend unemployed I figured she could handle packing. Just take everything, put it in boxes and take to the garage/basement. Simple, or so I thought.
4 days out: things are 25% packed tops. The stuff that is packed is all in tiny boxes. This is where I started to realized I fucked up. What was done was everything from every closet and cabinet was pulled out and covering every square inch of counter and floor space... Apparently this all apart of some grand plan I just wasn't aware of. Pay for packers next time, got it.
3 days out: now we're maybe 33% packed but nothing is downstairs. Things are now at least going into medium sized boxes.
2 day out: 50% packed, somehow not much has gotten done. Full blown panic sets in and I spend most of the night getting everything I can downstairs and staged well for the movers. A few trips to Lowe's for massive heavy duty bins and the garage/basement is done in what has to be record time. Oh and I get rear ended in the truck during one of these trips. Put a decent dent in the bumper just above the hitch. I let it go without filing a claim because I didn't care or have the time/energy to deal with anything at this point.
1 day out: Get up at the crack of dawn, realize we're still 60% packed, panic continues. Sell my big ass grill for $50, sell the treadmill/rack/platform for $250, make multiple runs to the landfill. Movers get in and we're only 80% packed up. They fly through all the packed/stage stuff in less than an hour. The truck is 85-90% full and they ask what all is left. I don't have a great answer to that except: a ton of random shit spread out through out the house. So the packers spend the second hour just grabbing random stuff and the last bit of the truck doesn't really get packed very well. Truck: 100% full, house: 90% packed ... fuck.
SHITSHOW TIME/DAY 0: My dad gets in and lends a hand. Destroyed more cheap particle board furniture, more dump runs. Unpack 10% of the truck, throw caution to the wind and just start recklessly throwing shit into the middle of the truck where we can and making the mother of all leaning junk towers. Leave some stuff with neighbor to come back for. My poor dad had to make about 100 trips up and down my cliff of a driveway after repeatedly being promised everything would be done and we'd just be hopping in and driving. We're leaving at close to 5pm. That's only about 8 hours later than expected. The drive was pretty uneventful. The Penske could barely do 45 up some of the hills in NC and there was constant 30+mph gusts the entire time and it's somehow 30 fucking degrees.
MOVE-IN DAY: I drop my dad off at enterprise and give him a bottle of Blanton's for the trouble. During the walkthrough I walked straight to the one skimmer basket on the pool and it's blocked solid with leaves. Looks like it hasn't been cleared out in weeks and they probably haven't cared for the pool in months. So to prevent the pump from burning up, I get down and clear it all out. It's still freezing outside but a few handfuls later it's clear. Hey the rough part is over right? ... wrong. The realtor lets me know I won't get the keys until the deed is recorded but let me park the car in the garage. Didn't think much of it, figured I'd sign and it'd be a done deal like last time. I found out at the siging that the attorneys have to send the documents to the lender, who sends them back and then they send it to the county before the deed is officially recorded ... great. The lender makes some last minute requests and I'm stuck sitting in the driveway at the new place for a few hours. 5pm comes and goes, I've got a restless 7 year old and cat in the car and not sure if I'm going to be homeless for the night ... great. While we wait I call my dad ask where he put the truck keys ... they're in his coat pocket. No worries though he'll just overnight em to me. 6pm rolls through and someone must've stayed late for me because I get confirmation that the deed is officially mine. It's close to 7 before we get in. All I can think about is how I'm getting the truck back tomorrow and the unpackers showing up to a death trap at 9 am tomorrow. I try to setup the internet because I have all day meetings tomorrow I have to be at. The team is planning out work for the rest of the year. Spectrum can't find my modem no matter what outlet I try or what I do. They have to send a tech and I have to wait 2 days. I stay up most of the night again clearing out the worst of the wreckage and make it somewhat safe to unload.
SHIT SHOW 2-POINT-OH: I'm up at 6am because I can't fucking sleep, the cat and kid taking turns freaking out all night being in a new house. Check UPS around 7am and it looks like the keys made it to Raleigh at 4am and just made it to Charlotte. Thankfully something looks to be going smoo... wait a minute an update at 8:30 from Richmond. "Your package has been delayed because ... reasons." The key never left Richmond but they assure my Dad it'll be in by 5. Unloaders show up and knock it out of the park. UPS gives us excuses until 3pm and then finally stops letting us past the tier 1 guys. They stick to their guns but the key simply isn't coming. I call Penske roadside and they're fucking awesome. They get me a key cut at one of their maintenance shops and let me know it'd be faster to pick it up, so I do. Fucking finally. Get to the truck with the key and ... it won't turn lol. Looks like it wasn't cut super well. They send out a tech with a better key and it won't turn either... it's been re-keyed at some point without Penske's knowledge. We wait on UPS til 5pm because they still haven't backed down from their promise they haven't lost the key. Eventually they send out a locksmith who makes a key on the spot based on the lock. It's 8:30pm and I roll into the Kannapolis Home Depot a full 10 hours late and get the truck turned in just before closing. The tech shows up the next moring and discovers the line from the street to the house is dead. At least it's something only kind of stupid and not me forgetting to plug something in. He runs a temp cable and I'm in business... Fucking finally, for real this time.
Stay tuned for the next episode: Deceus buys a hot tub.