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I was unfortunate enough to be driving along I880 on Monday at 2:00am. Why you may ask? That’s another story I gave Tyler cough medicine at 10:30 after he woke up coughing, something in it caused him to remain awake until 4:00am. I took him in the car to try to get him to go to sleep. It didn’t work.

So anyway here I am driving along I880. As I pass the Southland Mall I see about 15 or so cars parked sporadically in the parking lot. As I kept driving I saw the same thing in the parking lot at Best Buy and a few other places.

Where are these people? The malls have all been closed for a long time now. Did they get trapped inside? Were they in the bathroom taking care of business when the lights went out and they haven’t been able to feel their way out yet? Are some gathered in Sporting Goods using the tents as shelter and barbequing dinner? Seriously where are these people? I don’t know about you but when I drive my car to the mall I always drive it back home. Okay, maybe a couple of them have dead batteries, but 20? I don’t think so.

Maybe the mall parking lot is a meeting place for people going on a long road trip. It might go something like this, “Ok, I’ll drive the van to Disneyland. Let’s meet and Sears and you guys can park your cars in the parking lot for two weeks. It will be safe there.” Who does that?

Did the owners of the cars spend too much money at the mall that they could not afford the trip home? Or maybe the item they purchased was too large and a friend brought a truck and they just forgot to drive the car too? Do these cars belong to the people who can never remember where they parked?

If anybody reading this has ever left their car parked in the mall parking lot overnight please let me know why, so the next time I am driving around at 2:00am I will not have the urge to pull over and help those poor people camped out in Sporting Goods.

We recently got back from our vacation at Twain Harte. Check out the pictures.

Emily and I celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary on March 10th. This year we went out to dinner at Scott’s in Jack London Square. This happens to be where we had our rehearsal dinner three years ago. Aside from the loud talking guy at the table next us it was a pleasant experience. Then we walked down to the theater and watched Starsky & Hutch. We don’t get out to the movie theater much these days so it was a special treat for us. In fact, the last movie we saw in a theater was Along Came Poly, also with Ben Stiller. Anyway, Starsky & Hutch was hilarious as expected. Favorite Joke: “Strasky, that’s a hand towel! The big towels are over there.”

For the move last weekend I reserved a 20′ foot truck with a lift on the back so we could load large appliances easily. When I got to the Ryder location they told me they were all out of 20′ trucks and would be happy to upgrade me to a 24′ truck at no extra charge. “Um, do you have anything smaller”, I asked. They didn’t. So I got to drive a big honking 24′ truck last weekend.

It actually wasn’t as hard to drive as I originally feared. As long as you take your turns wide enough it’s pretty easy going. The beast is over 12′ high and I did end up shearing off a large branch from a tree on our neighbors’ curb. We actually talked to them a couple of days later and they didn’t seem all that upset about it.

I rented the truck on a Saturday and we used it all day long for moving. They were closed on Sunday so I had to return it Monday morning. This means, when I went out to go to work on Monday morning I had to walk out with my laptop case and jump into the cab of this huge truck. Not exactly how I ordinarily start my work days.

Moving week ended with an extremely busy and tiring weekend. We had a lot of help without which I’m not sure we could have made the move without. Special props have to go to Donnie Langdale. The guy just gets it done whether it’s disconnecting the water line from the refrigerator or re-installing the wooden gate on our new backyard. Everyone who helped out last weekend made an invaluable contribution. Let me see if I can remember everyone.

Brent Atkinson
Ron Atkinson
Danny Fitleson
Donnie Langdale
Lisa Langdale
Daniel Livsey
Cheryl Hultgren
Kevin Hultgren
Art Matthews

I sure hope I didn’t leave anyone out of the list. Also I finally have a picture of the new house. That paper stuck next to the front door is just the permit required to repair the garage roof.

There seemed to be a bit of confusion today about who is going to pay to have the hardwood floors fixed. Remember they were scratched up when the previous owner moved his refrigerator out. Let me try to summarize several hours worth of dialog and phone calls.

US: Dude, you scratched the hardwood floors with your refrigerator. We saw the lines going right from the kitchen and through the dining room. You need to pay to have the floors repaired.

HIM: No I didn’t. Your electrician made those scratches. If you want me to pay for the floor you’re going to have to take me to small claims court.

US: You’re kidding, right? Seriously. Our electrician doesn’t even have anything heavy enough to make those scratches. It’s plainly obvious to anyone with a pair of eyes and a brain those scratches were made by moving the refrigerator. If you want to do the court thing then we’ll do it. We have signed documents from you saying you will leave the house in the same condition we bought it in and there is clear evidence you did in fact wreck the hardwood floors.

HIM: Uh, maybe I need to take a look at the scratches you’re talking about.

[Later That Day. . . ]

HIM: Okay, I’ll pay to have the floors fixed.

Of course when I say “We” I mean Emily, our agent and I. And by “him” I mean the seller and his agent. The actual work on the floor will take place Friday and should be ready to be walked on Saturday morning. Good thing since we’ll be moving in that day.

Today’s moving activities consisted of two things. First, we gathered up all of our large trash items in the garage and backyard and placed them at the curb in front of our house for a bulk garbage pick up. Emily’s dad stopped by to help us take things out. Second, we went to the new house to clean up a place for the piano. Professional piano movers will move the piano Thursday morning.

On the drive back from the new house Emily I formulated a plan of attack for the rest of the move. Friday evening we have a few friends coming over to help pack things. Since the house will have been cleaned during the day Friday we will start moving stuff over Friday evening. The plan is to move everything in the kitchen to the new house. When I say everything I mean everything single thing in the kitchen except for the refrigerator. That will go on Saturday.

On Saturday we’ll have a 20′ truck with a lift plus a few friends with pickup trucks. On the first run we will pack as much furniture and appliances as possible. After all the large items have been moved we will move room to room clearing them completely until every room is totally empty.

This should leave us with all day Sunday for cleaning up so the house is nice and neat for the new owners.

I’m a liar. I said I was going to have pictures but I don’t. One of the reason’s I don’t have pictures is because the house is such a mess. Remember when I said the current resident wasn’t complete moved out on Monday? Well, on Tuesday he told us he was moved out but he left the house a mess. There’s a ton of garbage in the carport. There’s a weird parachute-like thing in the back yard. For some reason birdseed is all over the garage floor and back patio. Nothing inside the house was vacuumed. There are little odds and end still lying around. But the worst thing is the hardwood floor was scratched when he moved his refrigerator out!

We did manage to move some of our china into the china cabinet and a few boxes into the master bedroom. Unfortunately, we can’t really move anything else in until the place is cleaned up a bit better.

Our real estate agent volunteered the services of her daughter’s professional house cleaning business free of charge. Isn’t that a great real estate agent? The cleaning is supposed to take place on Friday.

I was really hoping to be able to move as much stuff as possible during the week but it looks like Saturday’s move is going to be a tad more labor intensive that I had originally thought.

Today was supposed to be the first day of moving for us. In case you don’t know Emily and I recently sold our house in San Leandro and bought a new one in Alameda. Of course when I say “new” house I mean one that was built in 1925.

The reason why we did not begin moving today is because the current resident isn’t completely moved out yet. If everything goes according to plan we will be moving some stuff over Tuesday. We also plan to take some pictures of the empty house to post online here so ya’ll can see.

Saturday will be the big moving day when we’ll have a 20′ truck and will move the bulk of our stuff but we do want to get a head start on some of the smaller items before this weekend.

I was driving to work this morning when all of a sudden my driver’s side window completely shatters. I heard a loud “POP!” and the window next to me shatters and falls in a thousand little pieces. I’m okay and didn’t get cut at all but I was very scared. Immediately I thought either a rock had hit the window or someone had shot at me. Hey, it’s not all that far fetched. In case it was the latter there was no way I was going to pull over and stop. I was almost to work anyway so I just kept driving occaisionally looking at all the glass in my lap and thinking “What just happened?!”.

The first thing I do is call my insurance company. They refer me to a glass company who will be out later today to replace the window. Then I called to police to report what had happened. They said it’s actually fairly common for rocks around construction zones to be kicked up from someone else’s tires and shatter a window. There had been no other reports of shattered windows or thrown rocks in that area so it had to have been just a freak accident. Since I was driving through an area where a lot of construction is taking place I figured a truck ahead of me kicked up a rock in my direction and it had just the right speed and trajectory to shatter my window.

I grabbed a few pictures of with our company’s digital camera. Take a look.