Now Blogging From Texas

It’s been so long since I’ve blogged I barely know where to begin.

The big news is that since you last heard from me, I moved out of New York. This didn’t really work out as smoothly as I had hoped, but I trust in several years I’ll look back on it as a great character building experience.

Here are some decisions we made, what we thought, and what actually happened.

Instead of taking a Penske Truck and driving all of our stuff to Texas, we decided to sell most of our furniture, and ship the rest.

We thought: Shipping our furniture would save us the hassle of driving a moving truck in the snow (I hate to point fingers, but my lovely wife was actually the one who was pushing for this one). With high gas prices, we’d actually save money by shipping.

Actually: Selling enough of our stuff to sell was tough. The feeling we imagined and the feeling we felt seeing lamps, tables, favorite old couches, and everything walking out the door for pennies were vastly different.

Further, shipping was a fucking nightmare. Instead of simplying packing up our shit any old way and stuffing it into a truck, we had to pack it securely to ship, and then rent a car to get it to DHL and the post office. Both companies completely trashed our stuff. Lots of wedding gifts are now shattered messes in the garage, and due to New York’s shitty supply of sturdy cardboard boxes and our own stupidity, it’s doubtful we can get the insurance we paid extra to compensate us for any of the damages. Further, of the 7 boxes of books and CDs we sent via USPS Media Mail, only 5 arrived. An entire box of expensive nursing textbooks and 250 CDs have disappeared. We got a message from the post office a month ago with the address portions of our cardboard boxes neatly cut out and sent to us along with a note stating that “these were found loose in the mail”. Perfect.

As nice as it sounded to replace our old random furniture with things we both like, the feeling that we’re just hemorrhaging money right now without any income is not a good one.

Further on the spewing money front, we agreed to go to South Africa with my brother and cousin in a couple of weeks. While this technically works out well (I wanted to go with my bro, since he remembers more of it than I do), it’s unfortunate that we’re spending another giant chunk of change without having a steady income yet.

We thought: Driving a minivan stuffed with crap across the country would be fun
Actually: It was a pretty fun, I guess, in a painful sort of way. One thing that did work out well, is that while we were leaving New York, Maggie’s Aunt (in Minneapolis) offered to give us her 2002 Ford Escape. This threw a scheduling problem in the mix with our rental, which we solved by doing the unthinkable: driving back to Minneapolis after we had arrived in Austin. Total, we drove 4500 miles over a 10 day period. That’s a lot of driving, folks. Our honorary trucker certifications are in the mail, supposedly.

We thought: It would be easy for Maggie to get a job
Actually: It was. The job she’s at now didn’t exist before she whipped out her resumé with Columbia on it. Maybe the massive debt is worth it?

We thought: We’d go crazy about how cheap everything is compared to New York
Actually: Everything is so frickin’ cheap! Everything from huge spacious apartments, to drink prices, to pints of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. All so cheap!

We thought: Having a car would be great, here.
Actually: While it has been great to be in control of my own travel plans, Austin is a shitty place to drive. Traffic is bad, road are poorly designed, and drivers are idiots. Everything from tailgating, nobody obeying the speed-limit, hanging out in your blind spot, and running red lights — these drivers are unbelievable. Coupling that with lanes that change into turn-only lanes without warning, and completely inadequate street lighting at night, the accident rate here is through the roof. I already got rear ended by some jackass while I was trying to change lanes, and I have seen more crazy accidents in the last month than I’d ever seen in New York. The other day I saw two cars smashed beyond belief with police, fire, and medical on the scene…in a parking lot!

Other good things:

• I think my expectations of customer service are so low from living in New York, I am constantly amazed by how nice and helpful people are here. I don’t get attitude at Starbucks, and grocery store workers actually know where their products are located.

• We’re moving out of my Cousin’s house at the end of this month, which I’m really looking forward to. As well as we get along with him, there’s really nothing like our own space.

• Maggie started working today, and I have a second interview at a pretty hot sounding startup company. Hopefully I’ll get that job.

Speaking of, I should really get back to doing some work — I have to study up a bit for that interview tomorrow. I’ll update you again in the next 6-12 months. (I’m setting the bar low.)