Haven’t posted anything in a long time. We’ve ben so busy, I can’t believe it.
Patty is very busy at school but is doing well. With classes, corporate briefings, learning team in the evenings, and all the social events they have for the students, I don’t think she’s sat down for more than 10 minutes in the last month!
My work is good. I still like working from home, and am definitely sure that switching to Cynergy was a great move for me. Hopefully at some point I’ll be able to post links to the work we’re doing so you can check out the products.
Pets are happy. Dakota has decided to get really stressed when we go to bed in the evenings. We think his eyesight may not be as good as it once was, so we leave a light on in the house (man is it dark when you’re not in the middle of Houston!) and that seems to help SOME, but we still think he’s lost his mind…
I found the local woodturning club, and have gone to a couple of meetings. I’ve had several offers to go over to other people’s shops for lessons, which is really nice. I’m going to start that as soon as I can find the time. I also got a brand new table saw for 1/2 price off of Craig’s List. Sweet!
Charlottesville and the house are both nice. We’re finally settled into a routine, and the weather here is so much better than Houston!
Oh, I;ve also been using the Movies On Your PC feature of our Netflix account - the selection for the PC versions is not astounding, but I’ve streamed two season’s of The Office and am impressed with the way they implemented it. PC only, sadly… needs IE on Windows… Not sure if Mac Parallels or the other mac Windows hybrids will work?
I’ve been working from home all week.
I love it!
I find that I’m getting a lot more done, taking better breaks, eating better, and am generally happier than working in an office. That and I’m not wasting 1 1/2 hours a day in the car driving to and from work! I’m glad I took the job - it’s really interesting and challenging, but definitely fun. Once our project goes public, I’ll post some details.
Patty has been doing prework for her school year. We’ve also been settling into the house, cleaning, breaking down boxes, going to the DMV, and dealing with the stupid post office who seemed to royally screw up our mail forwarding.
Well, it’s official. We live in Charlottesville! Well, actually, only this part of “we”. Patty is coming up this weekend with Higgins (the cat) to join the dogs and I up here.
The house is good! The neighborhood is quiet and is close to the Rivanna Trail, which is a cool network of trail that completely circumnavigates Charlottesville. I’ve been walking the dogs on it most days, and today we spotted a small deer. Raya nearly had a conniption she was so excited!
In personal defeat news, the couch we bought in Atlanta does NOT fit into the basement in any way whatsoever. So it is in our living room right now, with an ad on CraigsList. Hopefully we’ll get takers on it.
The house is at least partially unpacked. I got everything out of boxes for the kitchen (I think) and at least put them in the cabinets. We’ll have to perform some strategery once Patty gets here to organize things better. I’m not too good at that, and she is!
Tomorrow is my last official day at Booz Allen. I’m heading to the local office (the one I was SUPPOSED TO transfer to) to turn in the badges, laptop, etc. Monday starts the new job at Cynergy Systems — I’ll be headed to DC for the week and ramping up there. I’m really excited about it- the people there seem on top of their games, and I think it will be a good technical challenge for me to step up in a “real” development environment. A little nervous, but mostly excited.
I think the biggest challenge will be working from the house. I hear from people who do it that it takes a couple months to get in the groove — not taking a 3 hour nap at lunch, actually doing solid work… but once you get in that grove they say it’s awesome. And it looks like the work will be really interesting, so that should help me find the groove better.
BTW, we changed our cell numbers from the Houston (832) numbers. If you have any email address for us and still have the 832 numbers, send me a note and I’ll send you the new numbers. If you’re going to use my Booz Allen address, better hurry — that dies tomorrow evening sometime I suspect?
as if there wasn’t enough chaos in our lives…
Posted by: Todd in scary, work, relocationI accepted a job offer with Cynergy Systems, one of the leaders in Rich Internet Application development. The main office is in DC, but after a couple weeks I’ll be working from home in Charlottesville! The job sounds really interesting, the pay is good, and it will be a great way to develop my technical programming skills.
… stay on target!
We have successfully made it to Gulfport, Mississippi! We left our (former) house at 7:30 this morning — Higgins and Todd in the truck, and Patty, Dakota, and Raya in the CRV. Todd and Higgins were Snowman and Fred, and Patty and the dogs were Bandit and Frog (well, Frog 1 and Frog 2) — Smokey and the Bandit for those of you who missed it.
Kurt and Keri loaned us some walkie talkies, which were saviors! Patty drove in back and could change lanes and block for me, letting me know when the lanes were clear. We thought stopping for gas would be hard, but found a truck stop Exxon (so we got the employee discount) and it worked out just fine.
The truck was actually pretty easy to drive, except for the NARROW bridges in Louisiana and the regular bumps in the highway that may have fused a vertebrae or two (Shelbert: remember the drive from Houston? Yeah, apparently there’s a SECOND harmonic for a 51′ long truck / car trailer. Bump Bump Bump BUMP Bump Bump Bump BUMP!
So we’re here. Dinner at Applebee’s and a beer that Patty brought in the cooler (YAY!)
Tomorrow we’re off to Atlanta. Should go just as well we hope!
Alrighty. Time for an update.
About a week ago, our plan was to pick up the truck on Thursday morning, pack it all day, and then get out of town Friday (today) after the closing.
Still a week ago, Patty says “Should we get the truck a day early… you know… just to have a little more time?”
Man is she smart. We picked up the truck on Wednesday and spent 2 solid days packing it. We finished on Thursday night around 10:00. We got about 1/4 of the truck packed quickly, and realized that we needed to fill the vertical space much more efficiently, so we unpacked most of it and started over basically. Good thing! When you open he back door of the truck now, there is a solid wall of our stuff. The truck says it has 1300 cubic feet of space in it? I think we’re using 1299.93 cubic feet of it, and we had to give our wheelbarrow to our neighbors (which is good — he borrowed it a few times, so it’s going to a happy home).
We also called our friend Kurt to come over and help put the car dolly back on the truck. Good thing! At 10:00 last night, in the dark, backing a 24 foot truck up my street — trying to get the trailer hitch within 1/2″ of the trailer. Then driving my car (whose tires are muddy from the rain) onto the trailier (whose surface for driving is remarkably NOT GRIPPY) on top, and strapping it down.
We got to Kurt and Keri’s nearly at 11 last night, got a pizza, and very quickly decided that maybe we’d take today off and start the trip tomorrow — less cars on saturday, less Friday rush hour traffic, an extra day of rest.
So that’s the plan now. We’ll leave tomorrow at 6am or so and head to Gulfport, MS. Then Sunday to Atlanta.
Oh - minor detail - closed on the house this morning with a walkthrough. It was quick and painless and the people were really nice.
I read a psychology study in college that Moving is the most stressful event for someone in their life — more than the death of a loved one. Methinks they were right.
At least we get to play Smokey and the Bandit tomorrow (sadly, the truck is NOT full of Coors)…
‘Mr. Clare… Tear down this wall!’
Originally uploaded by Patty and Todd
climbing wall demolition progress. sold it to a couple of climbers. nice that it will have a loving home.
My friend Shantera’s mom had me over for lunch to show her my insulin pump. In trade, I got a lunch that would probably make my nutritionist keel over and die.
It was awesome.
you see it right. 2 pork chops smothered in peppers. rice and gravy. yams. warm cornbread. collard greens. raspberry tea. thank you Ms. Evelyn!
Here’s a pic of my cat, Higgins, doing what he does normally - sleeping in odd positions in odd places around the house.
Very not-interesting I know, but I was testing posting the photo from my cell phone thru Flickr. Will he handy while hurtling down the highway during the move to let you guys know what’s going on.
We found out that my company will not be giving us a corporate move, since I was the one initiating the request. Grrrr. They moved me down here last time under the same circumstances… Something about people abusing the policy. Oops.
We started looking into movers, and I mistakenly submitted a request at a site that makes movers compete. So we’ve got about 30 emails and 50 voicemails and all of them sound shady and way too eager to tell us why their competitors suck.
In the end, we decided that we’ve only had one contractor (our exterminator) work for us whose work we were satisfied with. That and the movers were multiples more expensive than moving ourselves…
So on Friday, June 22, the FogleClare caravan streams east towards Atlanta, then off to Charlottesville. Patty will be driving one of our cars, and Ill be driving a 24′ Budget Rental Truck and towing our other car on a dolly behind me.
We’re not sure how to divvy up the pets yet between the two vehicles. Higgins LOVED the hurricane evacuation two years ago. I think Dakota is making a grass roots campaign to ride in the truck with me. I think he wants to be Fred (the dog) from Smokey and the Bandit
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