Today is moving day. And Easter as well. Happy Easter Moving Day! Min and I got to sleep in a bit this morning which we really appreciated. Oreo appreciated it as well.
We had plenty of packing left to do this morning. Packing and preparing. There is so much that needs to be done before we go. I hate moving. Even little, simple moves like this are a big pain. There is so much to think about because you have absolutely nothing when you first arrive. Little things like cups, plates, paper products, utensils, lamps, pillows, etc. become really big deals. Fortunately Dominica is really good at remembering all of the different things that we will need so I leave most of that stuff up to her.
I managed to quickly post a few pictures of the Mazda 6 today. After its wheel swap, new tires, oil change and bath yesterday I thought that it really needed to have its picture taken. So I ran out and took a few quick pictures while the car still looked pretty good.
Originally we had hoped to be able to leave early this morning leaving us plenty of time to do some shopping for the things that we need once we arrived. But then we realized that there are no Super Walmarts in New Jersey and everything that we need is going to be closed and there will be nothing at all to do once we unload the cars. So we decided to pack at a more relaxed pace and not try to leave as early as we had planned. So we got mostly packed and then went over to the Omega Grill to get some lunch.
We ended up leaving around 2:00 or so. The weather was great for the drive. The whole trip went really well. My car drives really great after all of the work that I did yesterday on it. I am really glad that I had enough time to get that taken care of yesterday. I am going to be in New Jersey for the next two weeks straight at least and I didn’t want to be stuck with a car that still had its winter tires on it and needed to have an oil change.
We made the mistake of trying the Google suggested route which involved taking US80 into New Jersey and coming down NJ206 down to US287 instead of coming in on US78 direct to US287. That added a bit of time to the trip. That was really dumb. I knew better than to go that way.
It was around 8:00 by the time we finally pulled into the apartment complex. Oreo and I arrived just a little bit ahead of Dominica but she was very close behind us. When she started getting close to the apartment she recognized where she was.
It didn’t take us very long to get the cars unpacked and everything into the apartment. We really didn’t bring very much with us. Each of us had a suitcase. Two computers (my Windows XP desktop and the “new” SUN SparcStation that I just got from eBay), my laptop bag, one monitor, one tiny desk, one small printer stand, a printer, two plastic bins, one hamper full of stuff, one traditional folding chairs and two of those modern folding lawn chairs and two bean bag Ottoman things. And that is about the entire contents of the apartment. Not very exciting.
The really exciting news is that there are some available wireless networks in the area and I am able to check my mail tonight and email people to let everyone know that we arrived safely. The really bad news is that my cell phone functions like total crap in the apartment and is barely usable. People can call me, at least, but holding down a conversation is really tough. That is going to pose a serious problem down the road. Pretty quickly, in fact.
We are really happy with the overall condition of the apartment. Everything has been recently painted and the bathroom and kitchen are brand new. Everything was redone including the floor tires, new shower, etc. Brand new appliances as well. And the kitchen is quite large. Not that I need it. In fact the apartment is only barely smaller than the house in Geneseo! The bathroom and kitchen are definitely a bit larger.
We were only in the apartment for a few minutes before I discovered a giant centipede hanging out on a wall in the middle of the apartment. Both Dominica and I have serious problems with centipedes – much moreso than our fear of spiders. For those who don’t know: The fear of centipedes is known as Chilopodophobia. It is an extremely rare term that may not have been picked up by the Oxford English Dictionary yet but it will be there soon.
It didn’t take very long at all to get everything set up. I set the laptop up on the little desk in the bedroom and got online as best as we could. The connection isn’t very good but it only needs to get us through until Tuesday morning when Cablevision comes in with the real Internet access. We were tired and didn’t want to go out, partially because of Oreo who was somewhat upset by being in a new location and just wanted to lay down on his pillow, and so we just ordered out some Domino’s pizza for dinner. It was not the same Domino’s that I had been using from the hotel.
Dominica set up the “bed” for us to sleep on tonight. There is no carpetting in the apartment just hard wood floors throughout. That isn’t very good for people who have to sleep on the floor. Not very good at all. We had almost nothing that we could bring with us to make our makeshift bed out of so we are stuck sleeping on just four thin blankets on the hard wood floor tonight. It was extremely hard and uncomfortable, but it is all that we have for tonight. Ugh. Four thin blankets to sleep on and just one small blanket to keep warm with. At least we had our pillows.
There was just about nothing for us to do in the apartment but we did think to bring along a couple of DVDs so there would at least be something to do. Unfortunately my new desktop does not have a DVD player in it so we were stuck with only the laptop to watch them on. Not the best platform for watching movies.
We popped in the original Gidget with Sandra Dee from 1959. Min and I both love those old “feel good’ movies of the 50s and 60s. There was a style of movie made back then that just doesn’t exist today. We didn’t manage to watch the entire movie before I needed to get to bed. I have to be up at 5:30 so staying up late is not a good idea.