Delays, delays, and more packing

So earlier I promised I would update you guys on my delay. Well it was basically because yesterday required more care in packing our electronics than we thought it would. All we had left to do was our clothes, tv equipment and computers, but that took longer than we had anticipated.

I also check my email one last time and received an email from MTS HR wanting me to take a quick test. Well here I am already really tired from packing and I now have to take this test, so I hope I did ok. I know I got a few things wrong, but nothing too bad I hope. My main concern is the typing test. I suck at typing tests. I don’t type in a proper manner, and in fact only use the middle two fingers of each hand, but if I am just typing ‘off the cuff’ like I am now, its decently fast, but if I have to read something and type it takes me longer. So I am nervous about that.

So after that we started to do some more packing of our stuff and along came 11pm, and we just decided at that point to stay home one more day. We really did not want to start the day tired as hell, and driving 8 hours. So we slept in and started finishing the organisation of our stuff. Luckily one neighbour had come over to give us some cranberry raisin muffins for our trip (she’s really sweet) and I asked if her husband could come over and help me organise the packing. So he came over to help after awhile. He made off like a bandit too. I had things I was not going to take and when I asked him if he wanted them he did. He got 3 pieces of granite (cutouts from granite countertops where a sink would go) perfect for his bbq he is planning on building, he got a large container that I had put all my extra supplies back in my cabinet days, so full of caulking (stop giggling), shelf pins, epoxy, all kinds of pretty decent stuff, plus 3 chop saw blades that I am not sure if they’d been sharpened or not, but good blades anyway. So I do believe he was amply rewarded for his help. That and beer too! But I could not have done all that he did, so really very cool of him to help.

The delay also meant I could see all the neighbours before we left, which I was not able to do yesterday, so that’s a good thing. Oddly enough I was able to see an old friend I used to work with at Target too. Just as we were leaving I heard my name being called and there he was! I had been trying for weeks to get in touch with him, but he has 3 kids now and works a lot of hours, so he doesn’t have a lot of free time. He’s got three cute kids and a wife that looks like Kirsten Dunst. He’s a really cool dude and it was good to see him one last time.

We still have to load up the CRV with a few things, but I would not want anything in there tonight anyway, its very tempting for someone to break in steal stuff. So loading it tomorrow it will be. I figure 2 hours after we get up will be enough time to pack and leave.

Now I have some bad news. I have to take out the garbage one last time. I thought last week was going to be the last time, and Kathy said that was going to be the last time too. But noooo! Now I have to do it one last time (again). I’m very bitter.

 

Ok, now I really mean it! We leave tomorrow!  Cliff - Peer Pressure Works, Chad - The Grind, Kelly - ‘Round the Bend, Kim - In Desperate Need of Entertainment, Erron – From the Inside Looking In, Kyle - Blog, Liam - In the Now, James – Feelings of White, Shaun - Expedition of Truths, Tammy - Tam I am, Vlad – Analog Coast, Janine – Because.

‘Victory is mine!’, sayeth the… Brad?

Foreword… Sorry Cliff. Positive ending, no rant today.

So yeah, I won that battle. And yet again it was a phone call to the CEO of U-Haul, as he was piling his kids into the car (on his way to church), that did it.

We woke up a bit late (9:30am) after doing a lot of packing last night and I promptly called the U-Haul traffic routing place I talked with yesterday. It was Amy, the one I talked with yesterday, and she told me the same thing. That $27 was gonna stay the way it was because according to her, her boss (Tina) had gotten an email direct from the CEO saying $27. Again I told her I would not make a big fuss over a $27 difference, I would just be unhappy. I told her that when I talked with people before and that I saw the cargo van available for one-way rental I was right when other people said that could not be so, and I am right now when I say it was a little more than a $100 difference. Still she said she could not do anything. I told her I had no option but to go through with it, but if I had any other choice I would cancel my reservation, I just have no option at this point.

Right after I talked with her I called the CEO again. He remembered talking with me and when I said they gave me a $27 discount he immediately said that was wrong. He sounded a little upset too. He said he told them to give me a $103 discount, not $27. Again he appologised and said with 18,000 employees sometimes the message gets mixed up. He asked if I knew the city the traffic routing place was at, and I gave him the phone number, who I talked with and my reservation number. Three minutes later I got another call from the traffic routing place confirming that the discount was now $103 in total. It wasn’t Amy who called me back either, I think she might have been a little upset with me. I’m gonna bet that the CEO was quite abrupt with whoever he talked with about this.

So overall a good result. Props to the CEO again. Nice guy and is trying to do the right thing. So not bad for a CEO at all.

The seat seems to be pretty comfortable and it only has 24,000 miles on it too, so not bad. Now we’ll have to see how it goes for the rest of the trip. heh

All we have left to do is pack up our clothes, the computers and our LCD TV. Other than that we are set to go. We’ve already packed some things in the U-Haul, and we are taking it slowly and with many breaks. Its 35C right now, so not the best time to be packing up. I’m pouring sweat right now.

Oh and Tammy, yes the 14’ would add another tank of gas. When you’re going 2,000+ miles, even a few mpg less starts to make a difference. Its why I wanted to use the cargo van in the first place. :) Plus we are still going to have room in the 10’ anyway. A 14’ would be left with an insane amount of room.

We leave tomorrow at, hopefully, 8am. We’ll get to Beaver, UT in the early evening, again hopefully. So our trip is Lancaster, CA to Beaver, UT to Dillon, MT, to Dickinson, ND (and no I did NOT make than name up. I’m not sure I want to know the entomology of that name), then on to Grand Forks for the storage, then to Winnipeg. My father is supposed to meet us there, but I don’t know if he’ll be able to yet. Their passports are expired and they are calling the border crossing at Emerson tomorrow. So I’ll know more later. I did get an alcohol order though, dad wants some 40s brought up. lol

 

We leave tomorrow!  Cliff - Peer Pressure Works, Chad - The Grind, Kelly - ‘Round the Bend, Kim - In Desperate Need of Entertainment, Erron – From the Inside Looking In, Kyle - Blog, Liam - In the Now, James – Feelings of White, Shaun - Expedition of Truths, Tammy - Tam I am, Vlad – Analog Coast, Janine – Because.

Testing testing, 1, 2, 3

Just testing to see if I can blog from the laptop, so I can continue in this challenge.

We are still packing, although most things are pretty much done. All we really have left is suitcases, take down the TV and wrap it up, and also our computers. So sunday night we will not have our main computers on at all. That will be really weird. What are we going to do? I don’t really remember what I used to do before I became addicted to computers. I just sat here for a few minutes and yeah, drawing a blank.

I’m also having an issue with the U-haul people again. They called this morning and said they didn’t have a 10’ truck, but would I take a 14’ for the same price as the 10’? Uhhh… no. And add ANOTHER $105 to my trip for another tank of gas? I’m already up past what I had budgeted for. Then I found out that after all my problems and calling the CEO and him helping me out, the grand total of my discount? A whole $27. Yeah, that ain’t happening. If it was going to be like that I would not have bothered making all the phone calls I did, I would just be bitching about U-Haul. It was a little over $100 difference, this is what I told everybody I had talked to, and this is what I am after. I talked with a few people today and I have another call to make tomorrow. If I don’t get what I should have gotten in the first place, its time for another call to the CEO. And then I’m not going to be nice about it. I’ll straight out tell them this will hit social media sites.

My budgeting originally went like this:

U-Haul cargo van - $1,228 vs 10’ truck - $1,334

Gas savings in using van about a 35 gallon tank @ $3 per gallon = $105

Total savings = $211

Now that I have to take the 10’ truck I just lost that gas savings of $105, but I figured it would even out with the offer of the cargo van rate, but now they are going to knock $27 off the price? Everything that I had calculated for the cargo van, and everything I had budgeted for is all messed up now.

So now I’m pissed. Add to that I am sore, tired, hungry and stressing out about packing and making sure we are able to leave on time monday morning.

Well if we don’t get what I am hoping for, I’m gonna have a blog post Cliff is gonna like.

 

2 Days to go!  Cliff - Peer Pressure Works, Chad - The Grind, Kelly - ‘Round the Bend, Kim - In Desperate Need of Entertainment, Erron – From the Inside Looking In, Kyle - Blog, Liam - In the Now, James – Feelings of White, Shaun - Expedition of Truths, Tammy - Tam I am, Vlad – Analog Coast, Janine – Because.

They didn’t shoot me because they thought I was crazy

If you have seen The Longest Day you may remember a scene as British troops are landing on Sword Beach where a guy starts wading ashore and playing the bagpipes.

Well amazingly enough that part is actual fact. He was a private named Bill Millin and he died yesterday. One of the interesting things in the artice was this bit:

He said he found out later, after meeting Germans who had manned guns above the beach, that they didn’t shoot him “because they thought I was crazy.”

Its pretty funny, but also pretty amazing.

My gramps went ashore on Juno Beach but he doesn’t talk about it much. His best friend died there and it still holds some powerful memories for him. Literally one second his friend was next to him, the next he was gone. Gone as in they found a boot, nothing else. He has only talked to me once about his military days and I have never pushed him to tell me more. There comes a look in his eyes that tells of a weariness of soul, and its best to let that alone.

Really the only thing he has mentioned of his military days in WWII was when he was in the Netherlands, at least I think it was there I am not completely positive. Anyway, apparently he made a friend of a young child there, sharing chocolate and whatnot. After the war they started sending letters back and forth and every year to this day he gets a Christmas card. He has gone back and visited a few times as well. Pretty interesting.

Not sure why I wrote this, but I did.

The pressure is building for us to get our stuff done and each day it seems the list gets bigger, even though we are crossing stuff off. Basically we have tomorrow to get everything packed up and ready to go, and we are not even close to that. I spent a lot of today fixing leaky faucets instead of doing moving stuff. So I’m irritated, sore from kneeling on cement, and tired. I really really wanted Sunday to be a day of just packing up the U-Haul and that is it. Looks like we are going to be doing much more than that. I’m not happy.

3 Days to go!  Cliff - Peer Pressure Works, Chad - The Grind, Kelly - ‘Round the Bend, Kim - In Desperate Need of Entertainment, Erron – From the Inside Looking In, Kyle - Blog, Liam - In the Now, James – Feelings of White, Shaun - Expedition of Truths, Tammy - Tam I am, Vlad – Analog Coast, Janine – Because.

A trip into LA (its all about Nick)

So today we went down to say goodbye to Kathy’s brother and his family. On our way down we stopped of at Habitat for Humanity and I donated a Honda CRV full of crown molding, toe kick, scribe molding, glass cabinet doors, brushed nickel knobs, drawer sides & glides, cabinet hinges and hinge plates and some other odds and sods things from my former life in cabinetry. There was a lot of stuff. I’m glad they took it all and they seemed happy to get it too, so that was my good deed for the day.

We got to the brother’s house and then shortly after that we went to a Chinese restaurant a few blocks from their house. The oldest nephew (Nick, the stinky one. I swear that should be his name.) didn’t show up until just as we were ordering and so held that up for a few minutes, and then he ordered the most expensive thing on the menu, while the rest of us ordered the $5 specials, which annoyed his parents.

I should explain something here. Nick is 27 years old, his only job to date has been handing out flyers, he spent 5 years in college and still doesn’t have his prerequisites to transfer to a full program. He finally dropped out of college and is now writing ‘the next great novel’, which started out as the ‘next great movie’. He decided that he is first going to publish this book, and then it will be made into a movie and then he’ll be famous. Cause that is all that is important to him. Famous is life to him. He meets someone famous and he’s on cloud nine for ages. He really believes that celebrity is something to be idolized. 

I should explain the ‘stinky’ remark too. I know you want to hear this. All our bedrooms are down a hallway and the guest room is the first room. Every time he is over the hallway smells. Like burning nostril smell. The MIL tells him to take a shower, if he stays a week he’ll bring one change of clothes, maybe, or just expect the MIL to buy him clothes while he is up here. Hell, today he wore a shirt that had all kinds of food stains on it, it looked pretty nasty.

He’s house sitting for a guy with a 3 month old puppy right now and at lunch his mother was asking him about the puppy and his response was, ‘What do you care? Its not your puppy.’. Yes, ‘normal’ conversation with his family is impossible, he hates talking about anything not of his direct interest, and even when you do approach him on his interests he’ll blow you off. He’s not like this with other people, just with family. Half the shit he’s done I’ve found out through my neighbours who he’s talked to on occasion.

The sad thing is he’s not an idiot, in high school he got pretty good grades, but as his friends have gone off to college and gotten real life jobs, he’s gone on to find new friends. In his words, ‘he’s not into reality’. He can also be very kind, but its hidden in a shell of narcissism. All his faults can be directly blamed on bad parenting too. Not near enough discipline, which has allowed him to literally allowed him to cry and get what he wants, to this day. A few years ago he told all his friends about this huge party he is going to throw at his house, invited a ton of people and didn’t ask his parents permission (since it is there house). Once he told them he was having a party his dad said no. Net thing we know he is calling us bawling his eyes out that he wants to throw a party and his dad said no. In the end he got his way, cause he ha learned that the bigger pain in the ass you are, the more likely everyone will submit to his will.

Now after all that you may think I don’t like the kid, but I do. He can be funny, and make some pretty good comments from time to time. He doesn’t really have a mean bone in his body, but he is also highly annoying. At lunch he was complaining that he didn’t get his food at exactly the same time as the rest of us, and made sure everybody knew he wasn’t happy. I’m glad we were able to see him one last time, but I just wish I didn’t get the feeling that he was really only there for the free lunch.

I should end this here, otherwise I could go on for another few pages. Cliff knows, he’s heard me rant about him a few times already.

I’ll end this on this note…

 

Did you see that? His feet! He’s playing with is feet!  Cliff - Peer Pressure Works, Chad - The Grind, Kelly - ‘Round the Bend, Kim - In Desperate Need of Entertainment, Erron – From the Inside Looking In, Kyle - Blog, Liam - In the Now, James – Feelings of White, Shaun - Expedition of Truths, Tammy - Tam I am, Vlad – Analog Coast, Janine – Because.

Cel phone company part dos

Kathy keeps saying I’m spelling ‘cel phone’ wrong, but I don’t care. For some reason I associate ‘cel’ with the phone and ‘cell’ with DNA. And since I ain’t no scientist I’m gonna stick with ‘cel’. SO screw you spell checker and screw you wifey! I’m going rogue! (just not in a Sarah Paliny way)

So what happened with my cel phone? Its still fucked up. I called this morning and talked with Customer Service and they asked me the usual bullshit questions and asked if the internet part of the phone worked. I don’t know, I use my PHONE as a PHONE and don’t use it to web surf. I had to repeat that twice. So he transferred me to Tech Support and they said that the internet part of my phone could be trying to update and not be able to. She said to bring it in to a repair centre and they could force an update on it.

Off to a repair centre where I had to leave the phone for a few hours. I call them back and ask if my phone is ready yet. Nope. Its broken they say. It won’t take an update at all, and the only way to stop that from happening is to upgrade my plan (and get a free phone) or buy a replacement phone. Yeah, not gonna happen. I told them my contract is up in Oct and I’m not going to renew, so I’ll just come by and pick up my phone, which I did.

Now what did I tell you yesterday? That they’ll try and get me to upgrade somehow, and yes my tinfoil hat is on correctly (so they don’t hear my thought waves, they can do that y’know ). Considering its difficult to get a new battery for a phone that is a year old, or any accessories, that they turn around cel phones so quick they want you to throw the old away and get the latest and greatest. Yes I do believe this whole thing is deliberate.

This scene really speaks to me right now.

Oddly enough, so does this one…

5 more days to go!

 

They fuck ya with the cel phones!  Cliff - Peer Pressure Works, Chad - The Grind, Kelly - ‘Round the Bend, Kim - In Desperate Need of Entertainment, Erron – From the Inside Looking In, Kyle - Blog, Liam - In the Now, James – Feelings of White, Shaun - Expedition of Truths, Tammy - Tam I am, Vlad – Analog Coast, Janine – Because.

Bastard cel phone companies

So today I am waiting for the call about setting up the deal on a 10’ U-Haul truck that the CEO got for me. First off though, another night with no sleep. I was just too hot last night and it wasn’t happening, then we get to the window tinting place and there are no appointments available (I did make one for tomorrow), just as we are leaving the tint place I get a phone call I know is from U-Haul, well my cel phone decides that this is the perfect time to ‘update’.

At this point I have to mention that at least once a week it does this, or at least attempts to. I’ve left it for hours on ‘update’ and it never finishes. The only way to get out of it is to shut down and reboot. Now I have an old Samsung a920, with a battery that is pretty much dead, and a contract that ends in a little over one month. For the past few months this phone has been acting up like this, the majority of the time just as I am receiving a call.

Do I think this is deliberate? You bet your ass I do. Either they want to piss me off so much that I cancel the service and get a disconnect fee or they want to try and upsell me to a new phone with a new contract.

(It just tried to do it again)

I hate this phone and I hate Sprint. I’m gonna call them tomorrow and give em a what-for. Its made me miss an important call (luckily I was able to get a hold of the person), and its been very very frustrating to have to deal with. Fuck them up their fucking asses with a fuck stick. I’m in the mood to yell at someone and luckily I have a free 2.5 hours while our CRV windows get tinted.

Also tonight we had a dinner with some old ladies from the MIL’s church, Kathy & I had asked that they come over because they are really nice ladies and we will miss them. It was a good time and it was nice to see them one last time.

 

Cel phone companies are evil.  Cliff - Peer Pressure Works, Chad - The Grind, Kelly - ‘Round the Bend, Kim - In Desperate Need of Entertainment, Erron – From the Inside Looking In, Kyle - Blog, Liam - In the Now, James – Feelings of White, Shaun - Expedition of Truths, Tammy - Tam I am, Vlad – Analog Coast, Janine – Because.