September 20, 2006: Going Nuts Trying to Get the Money to the Apartment

I slept in until Dominica and Oreo left this morning. Some days I just can’t get myself up early. It is especially tempting to stay in bed when I am not expected to be in to work until much later.

Okay, now I know that I slip in some pretty serious jabs at some manufacturers and other companies in here from time to time (hey, someone from Dell registered with the site today – maybe they are prepared to get into a cool discussion about how I have the wrong impression of them! Now that could be cool) but absolutely never have I been able to tear a company or product apart like Joel did today to the Sprint Power Vision Network. I want everyone everywhere to link to this story. Hopefully Joel’s review will be the top hit on Google instead of Sprint’s own. Now this is seriously what I want to see from a product review. Cell phones realy are like this. Nothing works, all the touted features are things that I can’t even imagine who would want, they look silly and everything is confusing. Go Joel. You are my hero. (Speaking of Joel, Dominica was reading some “Joel on Software” earlier this week!)

Today is a day of errands. I stayed at home for a little while so that I could go to the post office on my way into the office this morning. I ended up getting stuck at the house for a while because of phone conferences at the office so I couldn’t commute during that time.

Once I was able to leave the apartment (aka Centipedeland) I went up to the office to talk to them in person about moving out and about the pesticides on the lawn without any serious notification. They said that they would do something about that right away. Then it was off to the post office to get some money orders to pay for the apartment.

It was at the post office that my day’s adventures really began. The post office was totally able to get me the money orders – except for the fact that my bank kept declining my debit card. Ok, I just moved the money into the account twenty minutes ago and I am sure it is just a hold to make sure nothing funny is going on. So I drove to the office and decided to deal with it over lunch.

At the office I managed to deal with the apartment complex, to some degree, to get them to allow us to leave as they attempted feabily to convince us that we had another six month lease because they didn’t know we were leaving. But once I explained that this was my fifth attempt to contact them as a reminder that we were leaving as they should have known since they were informed six months ago that we were not renewing and that this was really just a courtesy on our part and not anything formal and that we received no notice from them for renewal and that we weren’t sent a bill for next month they decided that we could go.

Then I spoke to my bank (the bank formally known as “my bank”) and they informed me that the reason that I couldn’t get money orders was that the bank restricts me, and all of its other customers, to only being able to take out $600 per day. Enough for the basics in Rochester life but completely useless when you need an apartment downpayment in New Jersey – even in inexpensive Newark. So the bank wasn’t going to help us. They said there were no exceptions ever to this rule. This is the second time in a month that we were so disappointed with that bank that we decided to close an account. Last time was Dominica’s (which we haven’t gotten a chance to close out yet) and now mine (which I intend to do next week once we have banks on our block in Newark.) So, now what to do?

I called everyone trying to figure out a strategy moving forward as we really need to get the money to the apartment company by like, you know, TOMORROW!! Okay, don’t panic, we can deal with this.

I took lunch sooner than I had planned on and headed out to find a bank to convince to do a wire transfer for me. Not likely but worth a shot, I suppose. The apartment place called and said to try the post office again and see if they would take a credit card. I didn’t think that that seemed very likely but better than nothing which is what I had at the moment. I went to the post office in Watchung and… no luck. Just what I thought. Cash or debit only. Oh boy.

I got to the bank office in North Plainsfield just in time to talk on the phone for twenty minutes and then realized, after consulting with tons of people, that dad could get a cashier’s check issued in Perry and overnight it directly to the apartment people and that that would take care of everything. So dad set about to get that in motion and I headed to McDonald’s for a quick bite and then to the office to get mailing instructions off to dad. What a day that made for. Sheer panic up until about three in the afternoon.

After that the day went decently smoothly. We have just about everything lined up for the move. The electric and gas company has been contacted. We only have to worry about electric in the new place as the water and gas are included. Gas is generally included in apartments but it is a nice touch. We have gas hot water and gas heat in the building so winter will be cheap. I also got the CableVision Internet access scheduled to be turned on in the afternoon on Saturday so we shouldn’t be without Internet at all, if all goes to plan. I even managed to get the Road Runner service shut off back in Geneseo today which turned out to be fast and completely painless. Tomorrow Dominica is going to double check with Penske about the truck rental but everything should be set there as well. Saturday is going to be nuts but it will all be over in a single day. Ahhh. Feel the relief in the air.

I worked until half six and then it was time to head for home. I decided to post early. So, that is what I am doing now. Have a good night everyone. See you tomorrow.

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