Week in Review

It's been a busy week!
Sorry about the lack of photos, I still haven't gotten my desktop set up. It has the memory card reader in it.

Last weekend I spent a bunch of time with CVS, it was his birthday, a bunch of us went out to eat. It was good times. I had met everyone but one at least once, so it was good seeing old friends again.

I went to a grocery store this week on some co-workers suggestion. Elgin Fresh Market. They said it has great prices for produce and nothing else. I must say I agree. A can of corn was a $1.37, but mangos where a dozen for four bucks and some change. I picked up the veggies I needed to make a pot-roast out of a steak Katie had bought that the cats tried to ruin. I had gone to my parents 2 weekends ago, and when I came back, the freezer door was open. The steak was defrosted, but still cool, so I figured it was safe. The Chicken, no way!

The roast turned out really well. I invited a guy from work over for dinner. Trying to make new friends. He is a pretty cool guy. Likes camping, so we have something in commmon. Before he came over (he works later then I do) I did a rushed pickup of the apartment, so it's actually kinda clean, well, at least picked up. Most all of the trash got hauled out, and you can walk around in it. He helped me move the TV tank into it's spot in the TV stand. I am going to get water in that next week so I can get fish for it in a month or two.

It's been raining out the last couple of days. I walk to work - it's only a block away. My feet got wet today. I hate wet feet. My shoes are shot - the lowers are worn so bad they look like slicks, and they evendently split at the ball of the foot during the move. The uppers where still in good shape, I actually took care of them, so I was milking the bottoms out as long as I could. Wet feet, time for new shoes.

I went to walmart tonight, and found the pair I like. They look nice, almost like dress shoes, as I wear them to work. Waterproof and steal toe, they also claim to be electrical isolators. Sweet! Right up my alley. Kinda spendy, $52.73, and I picked up a set of gel arch supports for $5.97. $60 for shoes that, judging from my last pair will last me a year and a half or so. That works out to be, what, ten cents a day? So my shoots cost me a penny an hour. I can deal with that.

I also picked up a couple of fish, most all of mine died during the trip - there went my perfect shipping record. I had forgotten to plug in the tank heater one night, and the tank got really cold. Anyway, I was down to my Pleco and a femail guppy. Too few to feed with my automatic feeder, I simply can't turn it down that low. So I picked up to quarter sized angel fish and a male guppy. Still a bit thin for the feeder, but the angels should grow fast enough that it will be ok. The guppies will probably get moved before the angles are big enough to tear the male up, so I am not worried about that.

I had hoped to be able to water-change my way into local water before I bought fish, but that isn't the case. I am going to be acclimating the fish slowly to the Florida water. Tney are getting put into a bucket tonight with just enough water to cover the heater. Most of it will be the water from the pet store. Right before I got to bed, they will be getting a few cups from the tank. When I get up, maybe a quart. Lunch, a quart or more, and into the tank they will go tomorrow night before I leave for my folk's place.

Going to the folk's this weekend. Maybe. It's supposed to snow pretty bad tomorrow I guess. I am supposed to help mom go through the house being that it's her weekend off. They are wanting to get the last of the salvageable stuff out and a list of what's still inside so they can buldoze the place.

I need to get the oil changed on the truck, it's been like 6k miles. I have been so busy with the move, and now this week, working late, that It hasn't been taken in. The smell from the fish tank spilling in the truck is gone (at least to my nose, but I don't smell very well [hrmm, that doesn't sound quite right - LOL]). I guess mom will have to stick her head in the truck and see if it still makes her eyes water.

Photos of the broken trailer

I literally ran the wheels off of the trailer I rented trying to get to Elgin.
Sometime in the middle of the night between Atlanta and Chatanooga, one of the wheels fell off the trailer. Quite a scary thought, as my vehicle (a friend called me on calling it a truck - saying it's a station wagon on stilts) was on the trailer.

Here you can see what happened. It looks like a lug nut came off. That is the bottom most stud in the photo. The studs on either side where literally pulled in half, and the upper two studs snapped off at the base of the lug nuts.


I had to pick up a new trailer around Nasheville.

Weekend Recap

Last week, Katie saw her first real snow fall. She had only ever seen it snow once, in Texas. It snowed 2-3 inches. She basically spent ALL day outside watching it snow. When I came home, I showed her how to pack snowballs, make a snowman. She liked it. Next day, FLU. Poor thing.

Friday night, I cleaned my truck out. It is trashed. The rocks, dirt, fishpoo, plants, etc. from the fish tank sloshed up on to everything! I spent 2 hours cleaning it. I had a 5 gallon jug of water leak and completely fill the back seats with water. I picked up at least 3 cups of aquarium gravel by hand and vacumned up another 2 cups. What a mess.

Saturday morning, we pile into the VERY SMELLY Escape. I put plastic down on the back seats and blankets so we don't get wet. Drive to Barraboo WI, and pick up my sister. She wasn't feeling well either. So now I am off to my parents with 2 very sick women that are likely to heave and improve the smell in my truck.

We arrive at my folks apartment, and walk right in un-announced to my mom. She was SO surprised! We caught up for a while, then wandered off for supper. We went to a resturaunt, and mom walks in first, there is my Aunt's Laruie and Therese, and some neighbors. She was again surprised! We told stories, ate some cake, and all decided that the chicken was THE BOMB!

I visited the house. So sad. I picked up a book I had given mom for Christmas one year off the floor and broght it back for her. There is just so much stuff that is burned, laying on the floor, etc. It's overwhelming.

Yesterday, I droped Katie off at the Milwaukee airport. They let her on the plane there. Bummer! I went to dinner at a Thai resteraunt with a friend from collage just north of the airport while Katie was waiting to board. I wasn't taking any chances with leaving and having to come back to pick her back up at the airport.

I am keeping her, you can't have her!

The saga continues!

8 am Sunday Airplane ticket: $256.80
5 trips to the airport, 210 miles: $30
24 toll booths: $14
Food for airport sitting 18 hours: $26
New clothes, socks, razors, etc because luggage is at destination: $25
Katie still here in Elgin: Priceless

Yep, Katie is still here in Illinios. Florida, I'm keeping her, you can't have her back! Sorry, I tried. 5 trips to the airport, 2 different tickets, 3 days of fighting with the airline. It's much easier if she stays here. Really. Trust me.

I dropped her off on Sunday at the airport. She got to the terminal gate at 7:48 for her 8am flight. She was told she couldn't board the plane (they had given her ticket away it appears). She was put on standby. Long story short, at 7pm, she was told that the next available flight would be the 7pm flight - on Monday. She can't get her bags back, they flew them to Orlando on the first plane that they wouldn't let her on. So she secured a paper ticket for this Monday flight, calls me, I go pick her up.

Monday, I drop Katie off extra early. She gets to the gate, and they tell her it will cost another $175 to get on the plane. What????? That's extortion! On the way to the airport, she found out that she has this week off. Her dad looked new flights up and found out that it's cheaper to fly out a week later on a new ticket then it is to pay the $175 at the gate. I go pick her up.

Tuesday, her bags are supposed to be back in town. The airline is going to call when they arrive. Yeah, right. She finally gets somebody who has the wherewithal to LOOK and see that her bags had indeed shown up in the morning - this is about 5pm. I go to pick up her bags.

New airline ticket. Did you know that ticket prices can double over night? I eventually found her a ticket. $178. I am tired of dicking around with United Airlines and O'Hare airport. Her flight is a Midwest Express out of Milwaukee. It's cheaper to drive up there and back then it is to put her on a plane 27 miles away. Obsurd.

The good news is that I get to keep Katie for an extra week. Let me tell you, this is a very good thing. She is MOST helpful! She unpacked my kitchen tuesday, and put stuff away in the cabinets. I came home to a home cooked meal! Last night we moved a bunch of stuff around in the 2nd bedroom/office/den whatever you want to call it so I could set up the 29 gallon fish tank. You can almost walk in there now! LOL


This move has been eventful if anything...

It's Move in time...

Well, I got the keys for my apartment.

WOOT

Now to move all my crap into it. This is gonna suck. I am going to drop everything off in the 2nd bedroom and sort it out this week from there. Maybe, just maybe, I will be able to get the rental truck and trailer back yet today!

Wish me luck!

Katie's day of hell

Katie's day really sucked. She spent ALL day at the airport, and never got on a plane. She lost her book. Broke her bag, and got hit on to boot!

She has a ticket for a plane tomorrow at 7pm. Maybe she will get on this one.

This works for me. Help unloading.

YAY

An hour late and a wheel short...

My move is cursed!

Not being able to get my apartment for 2 days because the wheel fell off the trailer, and now this.

Katie is on standby. She is sitting at the airport, watching planes fly away. How frustrating. I just looked online at what flights where still available, and there is1, and they want $1208 for it.

Good thing she has a good book!

Moving Sucks!

I must say, if I knew that moving would be such a terrifying experience, I wouldn't have even thought about it.

Where to start...

I rented a 16 foot truck and car carrier from Budget. Picked it up, not a problem. With a lot of help from the Peterson's, I got the truck all loaded. Got my Escape up onto the trailer, and off we went!

Somewhere between Atlanta and Chattanooga, a tire fell off of the trailer. It looks like a lug nut worked itself loose, and the extra strain sheared 2 studs, and off popped the wheel. We didn't notice when the wheel fell of, only discovered it when we gassed up.

Off the trailer with the Escape. Katie drove that 150 miles untill it was late enough in the morning for businesses to be open. A call into Budget, and they find me a new trailer just south of Nasheville. Off we go.

We get the new trailer, put the Escape back on the trailer. About Kentucky, we find a combination of high winds, bad roads, a semi-truck passing us, and a bit of bad luck. The wind & or the semi gusts us around, this causes the truck and trailer to start to whip back and forth. This gets worse untill I SWEAR we where on two wheels before the truck gets back under control.

I think the cats each used up one of their 9 lives.

No damage done. The Escape stayed put on the trailer. Nobody got hurt. We pulled over, and checked everything over. The inside of my Escape is absolutely TRASHED. The rocks, water, fish-poo, etc. from the fish tank is EVERYWHERE on the inside of my poor truck. The cats where standing splayed-legged like they expected their crates to roll right over.

To make a long story short, we pulled into Elgin at 6 pm tonight. The leasing office closed at 5. They aren't open tomorrow due to Easter.

I literaly ran the wheels off a trailer to try to get here on time.

I am now sitting in a Day's Inn with the cats and fish typing this post. I have the room for 2 nights until I can get the keys for my apartment.

I gotta drop Katie off at the airport tomorrow morning about 6am. I best be to bed!

This wind really sucks. Cant hardly go down the road without getting blown off of it.

Spending the night in Effingham IL. Going to leave in the morning and hope to be to the apt around noon. So much to do.

An interesting thing happens when you are missing a lug nut on a trailer. The wheel falls off. I had too get a new trailer in Tennessee.

Tifton GA gas is 3.15 per gallon. I put in $75 which was the max they allowed. The gas needle says full. My guess is that the truck has a 32 gal.

Supper time. Parking at Perkins was interesting. My first try had me too far out. I walked around and found a better spot and used up the section

Looks like 10 miles per gallon. 120 gallons. $400 in gas is my guess at this point.

On the road finally.dont expect to get in chicago until saturday.

Almost all packed.

Well, I am almost all packed.
The Peterson's came over and did a LOAD packing. 5 of them, probably about 4 hours. Yeah, without their help, I wouldn't have been packed this time tomorrow.

THANKS!!!!

I have a little bit of packing to do tomorrow, the computer and a few little things. I also have to break the fish tank down and get that road-ready.

The plan is to leave at noon so we hit Atlanta tomorrow night around 7pm. Trying to avoid rush hour traffic. Probably keep driving till we are on the other side of Nashville before we stop. Leaving at 7am would put us into Elgin around 3pm or so.

Unpack a little on Friday, Finish on Saterday. Drive around a little bit. Sunday really early, drop Katie off at the air port for her flight back.

Work on Monday.

You ever push and pull on something and expect it to move?

Well, it's finally lunch time for me. I had to work for an hour and a half on a problem at my new job today.

I moved the 'electronics hutch' into the truck by myself. Let me tell you, I don't think I will do that again anytime soon. When I bought it, it took both Katie and I to unload it out of my Escape.

I used some short 2x4s to lever it up onto the moving dollys I have. Then I double checked, I can't go up the ramp with the 2 large ones sideways. Darn, rotate one, take one out, replace it with a small one.

 I rigged up some rope to the moving dolly so I can push from behind and pull from up front.






 Here I have the hutch in it's ready, moving position. You can also see the gear I used to move it with. It would have been a funny video to watch my struggle with this thing up the ramp.

Moving Day

 Today is moving day.

I got my rental truck, my rental trailer, now I just need some rental help! HAH!

I have a TON of stuff to shove into this 16 foot truck. It ought to be big enough, but still a pain to load.

I best get to it...

Preparing to Move

Busy Busy

How come it seems like the more stuff you have to do, the less of it that gets done?

I have only 4 rooms here. I was hoping to have the living room all packed up by end of this last weekend. It's close, but not done. The only major items left in the living room is the computers. Not a big deal I guess. Tonight, I am planning on packing up the bulk of my bedroom. Tomorrow night, the bulk of the Kitchen. The bathroom isn't a big deal to pack. The computer stuff is going to be a pain. There is just so much of it, and it's rather fragile. The fishtank and the cats are going to take longer then I am planning - that tank always does.

My plan is to get the UHaul on Wednesday, and start loading it up. Either start driving that night (it would be really nice to be past Atlanta before I stop for the night) or early Thursday morning. I would like to be at my apartment by noon on Friday. That would give me all day Friday and Saturday to unpack. My friends offered to help me unpack on Saturday, I am hoping to not need their help (thanks everyone!).

Oh well, wish me luck.

Restless Feet.

A rolling stone gathers no moss.

Well, in-case you haven't heard, I am moving.

I took a new job with a company called Hexagon Metrology. The quick description of what they do is "make robots that measure things". My job is going to be webmaster for http://www.hexagonmetrology.us/ and related websites.

My last day with iMapp was on Friday, the 7th. It was very tough to leave them. They where such wonderful people.

I am moving back north. Not quite to Wisconsin, but close. I will be moving to Elgin Illinois. If you look at the satellite map, going out from Chicago, Elgin is the last town before you get to cornfields. I am hoping to get myself a bit of cornfield by the end of the year. Elgin is also on I90 which means it's a basically a straight shot to my folks place. 370 miles, I would need to get 25 miles per gallon to make it there on 1 tank of gas. I think this is doable, as I am getting 23 miles per gallon in mixed driving on my 1 hour commute to work for iMapp.

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The last month I have been busy starting to pack, figuring out HOW I am going to move 2 cats and 2 fish tanks 1200 miles in the winter. I am thinking of doing separate blog posts on that.

My current schedule is fly to Elgin for next week. Finish packing, load a UHaul, and move over the Easter Weekend.

Wish me luck!

Timelapse vidoe of me moving my stuff in.

Here is a time lapse video of Katie and I moving my stuff in.
The time of no activity near the beginning is when I was taking the tarp off and untying the load. This video is over the course of 4 and a half hours.



I am happy to report that the fish tanks survived the trip! The trailer and the tarp are the worse for wear. I have to weld up the trailer some from when the spare tire tried to fall off. The tarp is basically a loss. I expected this though.

The cats are loving the new jungle gym!

Google Map of my travels

I exported the data points out of my GPS logger and saved them as a KMZ file. Here is my journey.

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It looks like I am going to need to clean up the data points a touch, as the GPS got a little jumpy when it was indoors.

Nashville Traffic

Nashville at one thirty. A touch busy but not bad.

Back to Tennessee!

Tennessee. We are making good time.

See you later, Illinois!

Out of Illinois.

The gas milage isn't as bad as I feared!

16.85mpg on the first tank of gas with a full load. And we are getting closer and closer to Normal.

Illinois!

Illinois again? I thought i had gotten out of this state. More tolls.

Starting back towards Florida

All loaded up. We are eating at Culvers. We decided to leave tonight to get through Chicago at might. Cross your fingers the trailer holds out.

Welcome to Wisconsin, Illinois state park.

Welcome to Wisconsin, Illinois state park.

I294 costs a lot, and is a lousy road!

Sorry but Chicago roads suck. The poor trailer is bouncing around like an eight year old at a birthday party.

Supper at the first Culvers we found...

Supper. Culvers.My favorite. I got a basket of cheese curds. A discussion with a local gave me a route through Chicago. That will save time.

Kentrucky

Kentucky seems a nice state.rolling hills. Deer. Trees.

T T T Tennessee!

Tennessee. A new time zone. I watched the time on phone change. Looking for a place to stop for the night.

Gas Refill

Another tank of gas a little north of Atlanta. This tank was 20.8mpg. We where only doing about 65 for most of this tank

The First Road Trip Adventure!

Our first adventure. The trailer lights came unplugged and we wore them out on the ground. Had to put a new plug onto the trailer.

Georgia

Georgia is glad I have Georgia on my mind.
I just got gas in FL. Taking a gamble that gas is cheaper in FL than in GA. I lost. That is why I don't gamble. Looks to be about $.06 cheaper in GA.

I am not 100% sure, because I also filled my little gas can, but it looks like i am getting 18.7mpg hauling the empty trailer at 75mph. Recalculating my projected gas expenses to somewhere around $500. I have budgeted $600.

I had filled up the tires on the truck before we left this morning. They where all at 25psi. I think the dealership put them that low. Not sure though. Odd they where all the SAME low preasure. I filled them up to 40psi (44 psi max) and the air compressor timed out. I stopped at this gas station for air as well, and put the trailer up to 75psi from 45 psi, and set the truck tires to 44 psi hot. Maybe this will help with milage a bit.

So far, so good.

Finishing moving to Florida

Well, I am finally doing it. After nearly 3 years of being here, I am moving to Florida.

Katie was gracious enough to come along. She likes driving, me... not so much. Don't get me wrong, I love road trips, I just don't like the whole driving part.

I tricked out the new truck a bit for the trip. CB & Scanner antenas, GPS, the whole 9 yards!

I am borrowing a trailer from some of Katie's family. In return, I bought a spare tire for the trailer. I am not driving that far without a spare!

We are currently driving by Gainsville FL.

This is the route that google suggests I take.

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I am not fond of it. It runs me through Chicago. Bleh.

I am going to take this route instead.

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I avoid Chicago. YAY. I also bypass Indianapolis and Louisville.