Move Update

Just a quick update on how our move is going. We're still a bit less than two weeks out from the actual move itself, but things have been proceeding apace. We had the inspection and appraisal of our current home, both went well (although I've never heard what the appraisal value was, mostly out of curiosity - it should be pretty close to our selling price as we did base it on comps in our area).

Of course, no plan survives contact with the enemy, and we've had a few things go a bit off the rails:

o Dog Exploding. Not only did one of our dogs, Hallie, make a jail break when the inspector didn't close the basement door completely (she was found by someone in the neighborhood and got home safe and sound), but apparently something she ate on her adventure didn't agree with her. About two hours after I got her home I was standing at the top of our stairs, on my way down, and farted.

OMG, I just insulted someone. ;-)

Anyway, I thought to myself, "Whew! That was pretty bad!". Then I went a couple of steps down the stairs, and it got *worse*. Which, of course, tends to ignore the laws of fart physics. I thought maybe Hallie had farted, and as I went down the stairs and the smell got stronger I was to be proved partially correct. Right in the middle of my study was a pile of the wettest and stinkiest poo I've ever seen come out of my dog. And I hope to God it came out of Hallie because otherwise someone else was crapping in my basement.

On the plus side, the new owners got a freshly steamed carpet in that room.

o Garage Door of Death. Our inspection of the new house showed that our garage door seemed to be set to crush anything beneath it rather than reverse if it hit, oh, a dog. Or me. Turns out that the company that installed the door (or Handy Jack, as I'm calling the former owner, as he never saw drywall he didn't want to stick some sort of wall socket into) did a really bad job, and the drive was set high so that the door would close despite the side rubbing up against the rail. I'm hoping that we can have the people who did this fix it, otherwise we're looking at between $750 and $1250 to get the door either reinstalled or replaced entirely. I'm very glad I asked for the $2000 credit on closing, although now I'm thinking $5000 would have been more appropriate.

o Homework. We have two weeks of workmen now scraping our ceiling (no asbestos, thankfully), replacing the television sized alarm system panel (vaccuum tubes! I'm sure of it!), taking down the giant wall mirrors in the dining room, removing wallpaper, and painting the place. Cost: $11,000. I am not looking forward to redoing the bathroom and kitchen. They are supposed to be done a couple of days before we actually move in.

o Purging. Gotta get rid of the stuff that won't fit, to make room for the stuff that will. One of those is my Jerker (really) computer desk from IKEA. These are hugely popular with computer musicians, as they have places to put near-field monitors and you can stick a keyboard or mix desk under a monitor shelf. I will miss this system, but the truth is I rarely do any computer music projects these days, and with a laptop based system I'll probably just mount the speakers on the wall in my game room and pull out the necessary components when I do decide to jam. Time to check out prices and put stuff like this on Craigslist, no way am I going to ship this behemoth to Poughskeepie.

o How Dry I Am. After 19 years of flawless service, our Maytag dryer (which we sold with the house) decided to have it's first problem, two weeks before we moved out. I was torn on whether or not to fix this, as technically it's no longer ours, but we did have a couple of weeks of laundry we still need to do here as the new place has work being done on it, and I did not feel good about sticking the new owners with a surprise of this nature. So, I thought I'd open it up and take a look, but opened the wrong end (no service panel in the back). When I couldn't get the screws back in, we called the repairman.

However, in an astonishing case of No Good Deed Goes Unrewarded (as opposed to the usual state, Unpunished), it turned out that it was a $25 part causing the problem, and the bill was less than $90. For those of you keeping score, the new remote cost more than that. I was happy to give the new owners a fully functioning dryer, and do it for what is currently seeming like a very cheap amount of money (see above issues).

We're still on track to move on the 17th, and we are just starting to box some of our stuff, mostly books for now. Once we've had the final gaming session at the place where it all began, I will do the games and whats left of the books in the dining room/library. That should save us at least a couple of hours of labor on the move, which will be *more* than the cost of the remote.

Right now we're looking at a new computer desk, lighting fixtures, a 1.9GHz phone system that won't interfere with the new wireless router's .11n frequency, vaccuum cleaner (we currently have a built-in system), and toaster oven. I think we're going to live with this fridge for a couple of months, ugly as it is, as it seems kinda dumb to buy a new one if we decide to get yet another one when we redo the kitchen. Which will make the current spate of projects look very cheap indeed!

Oh, and I decided on your standard Office Depot folding tables, 5'x2.5', for the game room. I can fit three of these bad boys against the wall and have a very modular gaming surface system. With our current smallish dining table with butterfly extenders as the main table, I'll be able to do pretty much anything I want in this room. I did order four of the shelving units for storing games in progress and my laminated maps, so I'm pretty much set for what will end up in that space. Very exciting, and perhaps the thing I'm looking forward to the most. That will be one stuffed walk-in closet by the time I'm done, but it's also going to be a very clean look in the room. Makes up for having to leave the house I've loved living in the most in my lifetime. Now if only there were decent dining options down in Wilsonville...

I'll probably do another update after the move is done. I'm sure glad Mel is as organized as she is, I'd have forgotten half of what I arranged within 20 minutes.