Aaaaaand we're here! Finally!
The trip was not smooth. The movers cost $3k, which they company paid for, but they arrived an hour late on the 31st, came in and looked around, mumbled something about having to take a call from their supervisor, then promptly returned saying 'we're not going to be moving you, someone else will come along and do it.' Personally, in my limited experience with the guy, he was an *** and just didn't want to do the packing, but whatever. Our planned farewell dinner with our friends in Troy was ruined by having to wait an additional
eight freaking hours for the second movers to arrive, then pack, then head out.
We were utterly exhausted, but we drove around nine hours down to my parents' to spend the night. Well, I say 'night.' We arrived just as dawn was breaking the next morning (we were supposed to arrive around 10pm the previous night). Ugh. But we arrived safely, neuroti-kitty in tow. Phe managed to sleep a bit, but I kept being woken up by work. However, because my parents live in BF Nowhere, Alabama, they have no internet. Or even 3G service. Or even cell phone service. I don't function well without internet connectivity on the best of days, but during the week, when it's a
huge part of my job? RAEG.
(And yes, my boss of course knew of my plight, and he was helping me out. I just felt so...helpless. And I don't give up work responsibility easily. It's part of the reason I have the job I have and the perks I have and the paycheck I now have. Frus. trat. ing.)
Soooo, we had a shoot in Orlando on Friday (we moved on Tuesday), and the movers weren't going to be arriving with all of our stuff until the following Thursday (today), so we decided to stay an extra night with my parents, drive down to Orlando last Thursday (another seven hours), do the shoot on Friday, and then take Saturday and go to Universal's Islands of Adventure. Which,
fun. Particularly the Harry Potter world. I have pics I'll share later. If you have me as a friend on Facebook you may have already seen them. But yeah. Mucho fun. And we went in and did saw the Ollivander's Wand Shop show, which is exactly like the movie wherein a small group (less than 30 people) go in, and the Wandkeeper chooses someone and goes through the whole 'trying out wands' thing, complete with sound and practical effects. And Phe was the one chosen! He really didn't expect her to be 25. But still. Again, video, but not right now (see below).
Btw, I am so totally glad that I got my new (used) car before we moved. That Rav4 fits me far, far better than the Scion xA. And cruise! Oh, how I've missed you so. Also, primary reason for the quick car purchase was so that Phe didn't have to travel down on Xena, her ancient tank/Buick Regal.
Well, I got a call on Friday saying that All of Our Stuff™ would actually be delivered on Tuesday (two days ago) rather than Thursday. Huzzah! So we made our way down on Sunday, rested for a bit, then went out to dinner and
X-Men: First Class to kill the time and get past the fact that, well, we had no stuff. Like, say, chairs.
Monday we more or less did the same, sans movie. I found the CEO, we quasi-moved into the temp office, blah blah blah.
Now, remember the lack-o-internet thing? Yeah. So I called Comcast on the drive down Friday (yay new car Bluetooth!) and said "Look. TV, internet, etc.?
It's what I do for a living. I can hook up a cable modem. Can you please just turn on the service, so that when I get down on Sunday night, I can buy a modem, plug it in, and have teh intarwebz?" Shockingly, they said yes. So that's what I did. Except, they couldn't find the modem. Loverly. So on Monday, when things were once again open, I found another coax cable and tried a different outlet. They still couldn't find it. So I scheduled a tech to come out.
Useless *** that he was, he not only could not figure out what the problem was, but said "someone will come by in a couple of days to fix it." And then didn't schedule that fix. Thankfully, I called to follow up and found this out, so today a second (much nicer and more helpful tech) came out. And found that it wasn't a problem with the lines inside the townhouse. Nor was it a problem with the lines running from the box to the townhouse. No, instead it was something problematic with the lines maintained by the community's HOA. He called them to schedule maintenance, but when I called to follow up, I got the single most frustrating human being with which to deal on the phone. In fact, she told me point-blank "We (the HOA) don't do anything for you." Really? Thanks. *****.
Frustrated as hell, I finally just said "**** it" and scheduled an ATT U-verse high-speed internet install for tomorrow. I can't get the planned 50MB/s I would have from Comcast, but hell, 24MB/s is better than 0MB/s. Right now I'm uber-glad I added tethering to my phone. 2MB/s isn't great, but it's at least a bit of a lifeline. I have internet at the office, of course, but...yeah. Need. web.
Oh! The movers. So, I got a call from them on Tuesday, saying they'd arrive around 2pm. Well, around 3pm they still hadn't shown up, but I got a call from their dispatcher-woman-thing. Who told me that there were some extra charges, the weight went over, and they couldn't get the semi(!) inside the gated community so they had to rent a shuttle to take the property to its final destination. And that the charges were an extra
$1,000 (well, $928.89), and that they wouldn't deliver our stuff until it was paid, so I needed to just go ahead and give her authorization to charge my debit card (she said all of this unbidden, btw, not like I even said anything indicating that I
wouldn't pay). Highway. ****. robbery.
So! Anyhoo, we're here! All of Our Stuff is here! And we're unpacking Tuesday night. When in the kitchen, a steady stream of water begins pouring out of a light fixture in the ceiling.
Sigh.
I called the landlord (super nice guy, btw; a friend of the CEO's wife), and he had a plumber come out the next day (yesterday). The guy got it fixed, but the water damage had ruined a couple of square feet of drywall. But they don't want to drywall it up again until we use the shower (from whence apparently came the leak) 10-12 times to make sure that it's all taken care of. So there's a big hole in our kitchen ceiling. No big, just...*sigh.*
But! Here we are! And it's great and I love it and I'm super-excited. Minor growing (well, moving) pains, but the townhouse is awesome (minor plumbing issue notwithstanding), the area's amazing, and it's invigorating to be in a new place with a bigger job and paycheck. It's great to be working directly with the CEO again (working remotely between Boca and Nashville just wasn't the same), and once our little kitty stops having to have all of these strangers traipsing around all over the place, he'll love it here too. Phe utterly hates sand, but so far she hasn't had to come into contact with any, and I think she likes it here too.
So, uh, in short: Yay travel! Boo movers! Boo HOA! Yay job! Yay pay! Yay townhouse! Boo plumbing! Yay overall!
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