Traffic Traffic here in KC is odd. I’ve lived and driven in other large cities and they all have their own flavor of driving. Some sport an aggressive, take-no-prisoners approach to rush hour. Others are fast paced without the aggression. KC is unhurried, almost slow. Few people exceed the speed limit, and plenty are content to mosey along in the far left lane at less than the posted limit. Coming from Springfield where my driving habits placed me in the top 1/3 of assertive drivers, I was shocked to realize that I was now one of the most aggressive drivers on the bypass. Unfortunately the KC Missouri police thought so too, I got a speeding ticket last week on my way home from work.
Apartment Living Apartment living sucks. Having a garage helps, but this is still like staying in a Residence Inn with our own furniture. Michele likens it to living in someone else’s house - you have no control over the other people in the building. The fan that accompanies our A/C is extremely loud, the “walk in” closets are tiny, and the neighbors are loud at times. (The neighbors also have an unprotected Wi-Fi connection, not that anyone here is keeping track mind you.)
Moving While the physical portion of our move is over for the time being, we are both still going through the exhaustion and emotional depression that follows a major life event like this. In our seven year marriage we have moved across country four times now. The first, from Springfield to Vancouver Washington, was at our choice. The remaining three have all be forced due to economic reasons. I. E. I lost my job and found a new one hundreds or thousands of miles away. No matter how positive you manage to be about a new place and a new job, it is still slightly bitter when you feel you’ve been forced to make the move.
Politics We’ve moved to one of the most conservative states in the union. Democrats, heck even liberal Republicans, are thin on the ground here. Thanks to Michele we have discovered a small cell of thinking voters involved in a campaign to elect a liberal democrat to the Kansas Statehouse from our district. It is nice to be around people with similar views and attitudes. It is also fun to be involved in a campaign. You can see my contribution here.
Springfield The news I get from people I still know in Springfield is gloomy. The project I was ousted from has been canceled as near as I can tell. The couple remaining consultants have been moved to other projects, and the three state people assigned are awaiting reassignment. It is sad to think that a world-class distributed project would be scrapped after 7 years of effort and $100,000,000 in expense. And the people in power in Illinois wonder why they have a five billion dollar deficit.
Michele and I have completed the last major task on our moving to-do list. We’ve stored all the overflow items in two climate controlled lockers down the road. Each locker is five feet by ten feet, with about 10 feet of vertical space. We filled each to capacity, so we have 1000 cubic feet of stuff in storage.
Our plan coming here was to rent for a year to learn the lay of the land, and to determine if KC is good for us long term. We had a lot of questions regarding our new adventure, questions that required time to answer. Will my new job be enjoyable and truly long-term? Will Michele find long term employment that is satisfying for her? Will we like the area and its people?
Renting meant less space - much less space. So spare computers, bicycles, lawn chairs and garden hoses are in storage. Along with linens, towels, books, videos, stereo equipment, and pots and pans. Getting this ton or two of stuff from our tiny garage stall to the locker required two trucks, and two longs days of effort. The thought of having to retrieve it all in less than twelve months is enough to make me cry.
So, as I sit here slowly knotting up into a mass of abused muscles, I am wondering if I can bring myself to just throw away or donate away everything left in those two lockers next July.
Seven years ago, on July 26, 1997, I was granted the rare privilege of marrying my best friend, my confidant, my lover, my true companion. She is a woman of uncompromising ethics, rare intelligence, emotional strength beyond measure, and quiet grace. It has been my honor to be her husband for the past seven years, and I am eagerly awaiting each day of the next seven and beyond.
Our relationship is founded on a deep trust, and emotional honesty. When life throws me a curve, or sneaks up on me from behind, Michele is always there with a safe place for me to fall. And when I triumph over an inner demon, or external challenge, she is my greatest fan.
This woman has faced turmoil and hardship time an again during her life. She has overcome obstacles I can’t imagine enduring, much less growing from. She has a unique ability to find the positive lesson in the worst of circumstances. I am inspired by her courage, I consider myself successful when I am able to emulate her actions.
My greatest joy happens when I can make her happy, when I can make her laugh. My greatest sorrow is when I feel I have somehow failed in her eyes.
My Dearest Michele, I love you with all that I am, with all that I can be. You are my inspiration, my joy, my utter happiness. I am proud to be your husband, friend, companion, and lover. I would marry you again in an instant.
I love you Michele.
Go see this movie. Do it today. Take your friends, your family, your coworkers. I don’t care if you agree with Michael Moore or not. His film is the first alternative view we have had of the events leading up to and following the terrorist attacks on the United States in September 2001.
The view itself isn’t as important as its being stated. In America we all have the right to have an opinion. Moreover we have the right to express that opinion. The current political administration is only the caretaker of our country for a prescribed period of time. That they want to forever take away your rights and your freedoms is a crime against our Constitution.
Thank you Michael Moore for giving voice to an alternate view of our country. Thank you for your courage to stand up and speak out when the Orwellian neo-conservative forces in our country want us all to sit down, mind our manners, shut up, and march obediently into a fascist state.
Go see this movie. Exercise that most crucial part of the idea that is the United States of America: your brain. Think. Express. Participate. Speak now or you may lose your voice forever.
I am embarrassed for Decatur Illinois. I grew up there and believe me it is no great shakes. An industry town, it has been slowly dying since the oil crisis and high unemployment days in the 1970s and 1980s. For years I have quietly defended Decatur from those who would smear it and drive it down further. For better or worse it is my hometown.
However, this summer’s season of “Big Brother 5” features a total cretin from Decatur named Jason. He is the epitome of all that is wrong with men in America, and perhaps the world, today.
I am embarrassed for my hometown, and I embarrassed for my gender. I am so glad that I am not a macho, arrogant, meathead idiot like “Jace.”
Michele and I haven’t lived in an apartment since the spring of 1998. And even then it was a duplex where we had reasonably good relations with the couple in the other half. Michele’s last apartment would have been in Colorado Springs in February 1997, mine was earlier, April 1990.
I lived in a rental house for two and a half years, and then the duplex for another five or so. Suffice to say, we aren’t used to communal living. The noises from the apartment above at times make us tense, at other times downright unhappy.
Fate has placed us in a ground floor apartment under at least two men in the mid-twenties, maybe three; with a twenty-ish woman thrown in for spice. They are noisy. We can hear the water from their toilet running through the stand pipe, and we are constantly aware of footsteps. As Seinfeld would say, “they are heavy walkers.”
Parking here is also a problem. Each apartment gets two spaces, one inside their garage and one outside on the shared pad. There are eight apartments sharing our pad, so that means eight outdoor spaces. The guys above us work for a lawn care company and there are always two oversized pickups parked in the prime spaces. They also have a personal pickup and two motorcycles. There are at least three other vehicles always parked outside. At times getting into and our of our garage or outdoor space has been difficult.
Friday evening we were subjected to over an hour of loud music. The thumping of the bass was most prevalent in our little home. At times lyrics could be heard as well. The evening before it had taken me five minutes to back and pull and inch my way around a car blocking me into my space. We reached our breaking point.
Saturday morning we visited the office and lodged a complaint. Friendly neighbors had warned us that the landlord wasn’t diligent about enforcing some of the rules. It turns out that the boys with the loud stereo and big trucks moved in before the leases were amended to restrict the type and number of vehicles allowed in the common parking areas. The landlord’s agent was happy to deal with the noise issue, but we’ll have to see about the parking. She did say that their lease was up in October, and that it would not be renewed.
Last evening, starting around 9:00 and lasting until after 10:00 there was sustained thumping from the apartment over us. We were both aware that we had complained about them that morning and were worried that retribution had started. I would have confronted them directly, but I was afraid that all the frustration from the move and job situation would come boiling out; making a tense situation far worse.
This morning all is quiet on the upper front. Only time will tell just how far out on to the thin ice we skated yesterday with our complaints. Hopefully their October moving date will arrive quickly. And more importantly, we hope the new upstairs tenant will be a quiet, mousy retired couple.
Moving is an immense pain in the ass. And lower back. And feet. It’s just a pain. Since last Saturday, when Allied deposited 8,300 pounds of our stuff here, I have spent several hours each day moving boxes, opening boxes, emptying boxes, refilling boxes, dreaming about boxes, and learning to hate boxes.
We’ve played the “what’s in this box?” game a lot. Sure there are labels on the outside, but the third grade hand writing often defeats my ability to figure out what is in the box. And some of the labels are, ah, creative. “Garage Misc.” appears on several boxes out there.
We’ve managed to find most of the things we use in daily life, but some items continue to remain hidden in the sea of boxes filling our tiny little garage stall. I can’t for the life of me find my tools. No hammer means no pictures on the walls. Today I gave up looking for the box of tools and bought a new hammer. If my memory is right I did the same thing at least once before. This is the third hammer I own.
I had hoped, a week ago, to be ready to move this stuff to storage by this weekend. Now I am hoping we’ll be ready for that chore next weekend.
One good note: one of our neighbors is moving out and they are taking all the empties as fast as we produce them. They get much needed boxes, and I don’t have to haul them all to the trash compactor.
Seeing as how I lost my last employment gig through exploration of the client’s network, I am trying my best to not cross any known or unknown boundaries here at my new gig.
It isn’t easy.
The messages here are contradictory at best. We have seemingly open internet access, but we aren’t given administrator rights to our workstations. There is a prominent link on the client’s intranet addressing “un-approved software.” It isn’t allowed.
Yet two of my co-workers discovered that they can avoid using GroupWise (the client standard for email and scheduling) by setting up Outlook. Their reasoning is that if the powers that be didn’t want us using the software on our machines, then they wouldn’t have installed it in the first place.
Much as I want to follow in their footsteps, and maybe make a few of my own, I am resisting the urge to explore for now. If the nonconforming steps my co-workers have taken go unnoticed for a while, then I may poke around a bit.
Well it is now official. We’ve moved. The Allied truck with 8,300 pounds of our stuff arrived at 8:30 this morning. Yes, eight thousand three hundred pounds. This was a welcome figure as the original estimate was 11,400 pounds. Between giving and throwing away stuff, leaving behind a refrigerator, washer and dryer, and selling the big screen television and its surrounding furniture, we managed to shed over 1 1/2 tons. Whew.
Our apartment is shaping up nicely now. All the major furniture is set, and a few boxes have been emptied. Since we’ve had our bed, office and kitchen set up for two weeks, we aren’t under any pressure to unpack everything all at once. We did take a 10’ truck full of stuff to our storage locker. In fact the driver’s assistant rode with me to the locker and helped to pack it all into that space. Our garage is about 2/3 full of boxes. Tomorrow we’ll start the process of finding the boxes we most want and unloading them inside. We anticipate spending several evenings doing a few boxes. We also suspect that our 5x10 storage locker isn’t going to be enough. We will either get a second locker, or a bigger one once we have a better idea of what else will need to be stored.
We are using the second bedroom as a den/Lucy room, the office is setup in one end of the main room, with one couch and the overstuffed chair in the other end of the room. The room that is most complete and will likely see the least change in the coming days is our bedroom. We focused on it today so we have a comfortable retreat when the unpacking loses its considerable ability to amuse us.
Tomorrow we’ll get the rest of the kitchen unpacked, and take another load over to the locker. On Monday we are going to get our Kansas driver’s licenses. We couldn’t do this before as we didn’t have any of the secondary identification documents available until today. With our birth certificates, and $25 in hand, we’ll be official Sunflower state citizens.
Michele’s job search continues. She has applied to several diverse potential employers including a local community college, USDA, the Kansas City, Missouri school district, and a medical laboratory. Hopefully she’ll start to hear back from her efforts soon. My job is progressing nicely. I’m working as part of a design team of 20 or so people on modernizing the entire application suite used by the Farm Service Agency within USDA. Over the next 6 months the project will double in size, and in a year the population is expected to be 300 or more. I think that I’m going to like this position.
We are finding Overland Park and Kansas City to our liking. There are some beautiful neighborhoods and parks here, and as we discovered last Sunday, parts of the downtown are very nice. There are blocks that need attention, but there is money being spent rehabbing and upgrading large sections of the core city.
On a final note, I heard from friends of mine still on the VCM project at DHS. It seems that on the Thursday before Independence Day, all the consultants on the project were told that Friday, July 2nd would be their last day. They were told to pack their desks and leave by 5:00 PM that day. Late in the afternoon Friday, some of the consultants were informed that they would get 30 day extensions while DHS “evaluated the situation.” Obviously this is a major shift in policy at DHS. The VCM project was started in 1996 and has cost around 100 million so far. To abandon this effort less than 18 months from completion signals significant political change there. Michele and I feel that my departure in March, painful and abrupt as it was, may have been a blessing in disguise.
Prolog : The week of July 5th I initiate the process of selling enough stock to generate $3000 in cash in the money market account. This money won’t be available until July 13th.
9:59 am : The movers have possession of all our worldly goods. I am expecting a paycheck for two weeks of work, that when combined with our account in Illinois will be enough to get our things back tomorrow.
10:02 am : My check arrives and, lo and behold, it is only for one week’s work. Seems I started in the middle of the pay period. Major oh shit moment. Now we don’t have enough to buy back our possessions.
10:05 am : I strike a deal for an advance on my next check with the boss. This will get us through the buyback transaction. Barely.
10:15 am : I talk to a friend in Springfield who is going to pick up a computer desk we are giving away. He agrees to get it Saturday while our cleaning lady is at the house. I call her and she agrees to let him in when he arrives.
12:45 pm : I leave work for the day, having reached my mandated 40 hour billing maximum. I deposit the paycheck in our new local bank.
2:00 pm : Michele and I enjoy a late lunch and talk about the stress of tomorrow. Neither of us is looking forward to the long day, filled with decisions. We just wish it was over.
3:30 pm : A quick check online of our Springfield balance reveals less money than we thought. Enough less that even with the advance from work we’ll be broke after buying our stuff back from the movers.
4:00 pm : After unsuccessfully trying to negotiate a larger advance from work, I call my father and ask him for the money we need. It isn’t anymore than the work advance, but we won’t have to pay the 8% interest work wants on the “loan” either.
4:10 pm : Ernesto calls to inform me that he can’t get a truck for Saturday, he wants to come by the house on Monday at noon. With my chances of getting our stuff back hanging by a thread I put him off saying I’ll call him back later.
4:15 pm : We talk to the Allied dispatcher and make the first two payments; one that will nearly wipe out our Springfield account, and one on my father’s credit card. The remainder will be paid in cash from our Overland Park account.
5:05 pm : While at Budget Rental getting the small truck we reserved for the weekend to move overflow items from the apartment to our storage locker, Allied calls and says that the charge against our Springfield account was denied.
5:10 pm : Since I was in the middle of the truck transaction I had asked to called Allied back. I suspect that there is a hold on some money due to other transactions against our account that haven’t cleared yet. I called Allied back and ask her to try an amount $200 less. After a minute on hold she returns to say the charge cleared.
5:15 pm : I am now so stressed that I can’t find my way home; missing the turn on to our street and having to find a parking lot to turn around in, with Michele following me in the car.
5:30 pm : Back at the house we are both emotional and exhausted and ready to quit. After breaking down and having a good cry I manage to explain about the pending stock for cash exchange. While our account is down to $500 dollars today, we’ll be depositing via wire, nearly $3000 on Tuesday. The giddy relief that my spur-of-the-moment foresight the previous week provides us is tremendous.
6:00 pm : We are still wiped out emotionally and mentally from all the stress of the afternoon. But at least we are confident that we’ll get our belongings back in the morning.
Epilog added 7.11.2004 @ 4:45 am Saturday, July 10th 6:30 am : We are both up and ready for the movers. Of course they aren’t scheduled to arrive until 8:30 am.
8:00 am : We call the local credit union to find out what their Saturday hours are and discover they aren’t open until 9:00. Michele agrees to go there while I deal with the movers.
8:30 am : The Allied truck arrives. The driver and his assistant begin to setup to deliver our stuff.
8:45 am : Michele leaves for the bank.
9:15 am : Michele returns from the bank. When I walk over to her she says that she doesn’t have the check. That the bank didn’t show the money in our account. For about 3 seconds my heart stops beating and my ears roar.
9:16 am : Michele breaks into a huge smile and pulls the check from her purse, just kidding she says. The line is perfectly delivered and the resulting laugh helps to pop the bubble of tension we both had about the day.
12:00 pm : All our stuff is off the truck, the garage is full of boxes to open, the storage locker is nearly full.
6:00 pm : We’ve managed to complete the setup on our office area and our bedroom. Since we brought enough kitchen with us two weeks ago we can skip the chore of unpacking it today.