2358 miles

2,358 miles in just under three days.

Somewhere in Nebraska we came across Julesburg, which is actually just across the border in Colorado.


You can get a little bored being in a car for 13+ hours a day... I was determined to get a shot of our car reflected in the hubcap of a passing truck. After many attempts (much to Stella's chagrin), this was the best i could do.


In Utah, the road stretched out forever. Or maybe this is Wyoming... or Nevada. Who can tell?





We finally arrived in Berkeley around 6:30 pm on the evening of thursday July 26. The trip was quite smooth, other than the muffler problem in Nebraska. Driving through the desert at the Utah/Nevada border was crazy though... one of the most intense rain storms I've ever driven through. In the desert. Does that strike anyone else as odd?


Unpacking was a tedious exercise... combining two houses of crap into one smaller house was quite challenging, but we finally (mostly) have it done. it's always that last 20% of any job that seems the hardest. We're loving it here, though. After a full week here, we finally got some use out of the lime tree growing in the back yard, first with a wonderful grilled salmon dish that Stella prepared, then with some mojitos that i mixed. What could be more perfect than a mojito with good white rum and freshly picked limes? I guess I'll have to grow some mint in the garden.

Nebraska

Made it to Grand Island, Nebraska yesterday... about 800 miles, so we're ahead of schedule to make it to Berkeley in three days. It helps that we cross into a new time zone each day, giving us an extra hour of driving each day.

Last night was rough though... we tried about 6 motels before we found one that had vacancies and accepted pets. We finally found a Motel 6 which allows one pet, so we put both cats in a pet crate and brought them in. Surprisingly, they dealt with that pretty well. But while we were driving around looking for a motel, the muffler came detached from the exhaust system. So first thing this morning (7:30am) I called the nearest Midas and asked if they might be able to do something with it this morning. "I'll see what I can do..." the man says. I drive right there, they weld the thing back on in 10 minutes and say "you're all set".

"What do I owe you?", I ask.

"Nothing."

Wow. Fixed for free first thing in the morning. I'm still amazed. Now we can resume our cross country journey.

Stella is doing most of the driving so I can read the new Harry Potter book. I'm loving it!

moving day

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged… I’ve been crazy busy with getting ready to move. To sum up since my last blog…

The going away party was great fun. Lots of people showed up… my “hippie” friends, my “free jazz musician” friends, Stella’s co-workers and Stella’s neighborhood friends. And no fights broke out given the vast differences in personalities. Quite amazing. Stella blogged more about the party, so check out hers to see more. She also made references to the tequila hangover I had the next day. Her blog is invite only, but if you ask nicely, she’ll invite you.

Then we had a series of dinners with various people. Much wonderful food was consumed and great conversation was had. I got to eat one last time at my now favorite Ann Arbor restaurant, Pacific Rim. They have a seared tuna dish that is absolutely stunning.

Today was the big moving day… after a weekend of frenzied packing, the moving van showed up at 9am this morning. I was out borrowing a friends pickup truck when it showed up, but I arrived home moments later.

They then took of for Stella’s place to load her stuff. Shannon came over and helped me load the two pickup trucks with trash and recycling, both of them filled. It’s absolutely amazing how much crap one gathers from living in one place for a while. We drove to the dump and emptied our loads then I was off to return the truck and stop by my office to say goodbye to my boss, who was on vacation the last 7 days and didn’t realize I would be gone when he returned to work today. Now there are a mere three employees at the Ann Arbor office of Net-Linx Publishing Solutions. And now I get to work from home in Berkeley, California. Pretty damn cool, if you ask me.

I’m about the head over to Stella’s to deal with the last of the trash, and then we’ll sleep on an air mattress tonight and hit the road first thing in the morning. I just wonder how much the cats will like being cooped up in the car for 3 days of travel.

Here they are, enjoying their last moments of freedom for a while.

If I get a chance to blog from the road, I will. Otherwise, see you in California!

almost on our way...

Yesterday the new movers came out to both our houses to give an estimate of moving costs. The cost is based on the total weight of our stuff. Good incentive to get rid of things. The estimate came in higher than we expected, but the guy also estimated our weight on the high side - 10,000 pounds. We're hoping we actually have closer to 8000. The estimate came to $9000, which is a lot of money, but probably worth it to insure our stuff is well handled and delivered on time. We also set the pickup date for Monday, July 23. I don't know whether we will start our long drive that day, or the following morning. I wonder how the cats will deal with 3-4 days in a car. I've called a vet to ask about some kind of kitty tranquilizers, but have not heard back yet.

Today is the buyer's home inspection of my house. Fortunately, they are not doing a radon test, which would involve completely shutting up the house for 48 hours. Since we are in the middle of a heat wave and i have no air conditioning, this would make the house unlivable for two days. This inspection is the last hurdle to the sale - if everything works out, the sale will be a done deal. wish us luck.

I'm glad that our drive happens to be timed to the release of the final Harry Potter book. Stella and I may have both finished it by the time we reach California.

Impeach Cheney

A serious movement is now underway to initiate the impeachment of Dick Cheney. A large coalition of organizations has united behind the effort to bring the movement into the mainstream debate and persuade congress to act. The Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Rep. John Conyers, is now officially in favor of the impeachment of Cheney. This is big, since it's the Judiciary Committee that has to first approve articles of impeachment before they move on the House.

At the very least, please sign the petitions at impeachcheney.org and moveon.org. If you can make the time, also write to your congressional representative.

A new blog...

I've been sporadically posting blog entries on MySpace, but since I am about to embark on a huge life change, I thought it would be appropriate to start a "real" blog. Plus Stella started a "real" blog and I aspire to be as cool as she is with the written word. This, of course, will never happen, but I hope to have fun trying. Her blog is open only to friends (since she is a teacher and thus a public figure of sorts), but i am sure she would welcome you among her readers if you asked her nicely.

Much of this process of moving has been fraught with stress, but yesterday was particularly intense. It started as a great day - Stella & I took her son Jeffrey to the Tigers game (where, unfortunately, they beat my hometown Cleveland Indians). Though we saw only a light drizzle just after the game, apparently a big storm blew through Ann Arbor - enough to break off a huge part of a tree in Stella's back yard. It took down an electrical line into her neighbor's house and the phone line into hers. All this while it's on the market. Great timing.

But to add to the stress of that, we also learned that the moving company we hired for our move to Berkeley is somewhat less than reputable, and we had already given them over $800 in deposits. We happened to look them up online and found various forums about moving with complaint after complaint about the company. Everyone reporting about them had been charged significantly more than originally told and were threatened to have their belongings held unless they paid. When finally delivered (often up to a month late), things were broken, missing or severely water damaged. Their moving license was revoked in their home state of Illinois so they could only do long distance moves, there was a class action lawsuit against them, and hundreds of complaints with the Better Business Bureau. At this point we knew we had to pursue other options, but booking a moving company this late in the game can be impossible. Fortunately, it appears that we got the deposit back, although I'll believe it when i actually see the refund posted.

So now our options are:

1) rent a truck ourselves and drive it there.
2) hire a reputable moving company and hope they can squeeze us in last minute

I'm not crazy about driving a 26 foot truck to California with us and two cats in the cabin.
Fortunately we found a well reviewed Ann Arbor company that can do it. It will likely cost between $6000-$8000, depending on the actual weight of our combined crap, but it's likely much better in the long run than what the original movers (Best Price Moving & Storage) would have put us through. They are coming monday to estimate the cost for our stuff, and hopefully then we can set a moving date fairly close to our original one. We're thinking sometime around July 22.

In other news, I once again have a signed sales contract on my house. The first one fell through after the inspection. I believe it inspected fine for a house of this age and price range, but those first-time buyers with no buying agent were spooked enough to back out. I'm hoping things go better this time. Still not sure when the inspection is, but I hope it's soon. Should this fall through, Shannon & Nikki are waiting in the wings to rent my house.

Tomorrow will be a day of boxing up as much stuff as I can - mostly books, cds & clothes for now.