My new view
Posted on June 27, 2005
Filed Under Relocating | Leave a Comment
In Stamford, the view out my office window was the street. Nice to see who’s coming and going, not very picturesque. Now my office window overlooks a large wooded area. A very small patch of grass (that I don’t have to maintain, thank you condo living) and then nothing but trees. This morning I looked out and watched a family of bunnies playing together. Then a few minutes later a deer meandered by. Nice.
Settling In
Posted on June 27, 2005
Filed Under Relocating | 3 Comments
We’re making good progress. We’re moving quickly since Eric will be out of town next week starting his new job. The kids are coming back tomorrow, so today is the last day to work in the house consistently without interuption. I’m sore as my schlepping muscles have about had it. We’ve met a few of our new neighbors and everyone seems nice. Today we’re making an attempt at getting New Jersey driver’s licenses.
My office is 95% set up. It’s nice to be back on my comfy external keyboard. I had the movers relocate my keyboard tray to a different corner of my “U” shaped desk so the layout is more functional here than it was in Connecticut. Everything I need is within reach and I have more clear desk space than I did before. I even did a better job of organizing the maze of wire under the desk. The G5 is hooked up but since it doesn’t have Airport it won’t be able to connect to the Internet until later today when Comcast comes and does their thing. Our cable works for watching basic TV and the modem syncs up but Comcast doesn’t recognize it yet so it doesn’t get past the [Comcast](http://www.comcast.net) “activate me” screen.
The only casualty of the move appears to be my [Maxtor](http://www.maxtor.com) external 80GB OneTouch USB drive. I used it to backup my PC. Ironically, this is one of the items I kept with me since I was concerned about anything happening to it if the movers packed it. I plugged it in and the blue light goes on, but it doesn’t mount or appear to exist to either the PC or the Mac. I switched out the cable with the one that works with my HP printer. No go. The cable with the drive works with the printer. So that rules out a cable problem. Blue light means it’s not a power issue, so there’s something with the drive itself. I emailed Maxtor support to see if they have any ideas, otherwise it looks like I have to replace it. In the meantime, I’m backing up the PC to DVD-R. What usually happens overnight with no fuss is now hours of CD swapping. Not fun.
The girls have their new [Mac Mini](http://www.apple.com/macmini/) on the desk in their room. We maxxed the RAM and put in an Airport card. Or rather, we had the store do it since the Mini isn’t designed for end user upgrades. Went to Best Buy to get a monitor and keyboard/mouse. They had a Kensington wireless USB mouse/keyboard marked on the shelf for $49.95 after $10 rebate. Grabbed a basic 17″ LCD VGA display. Sounds good. Went to the end cap computer to pay for it, printer had no toner. Salesman had us go to customer service to get printed receipt. He noticed that the receipt didn’t have the rebate, so he went looking for a hard copy. Turns out, the rebate expired 2 weeks ago (6/11). The product was marked as $49.95 and that is what I expected to pay. The salesman agreed and called the store manager who told the salesman over the phone that the best he could do was offer $5 back, not the full $10. I returned the keyboard *and* the monitor we had just purchased there. I bought the item under the fair assumption that it was on sale after store rebate and the store should have stood by its marked price. We ended up buying the keyboard/mouse and monitor at CompUSA. We spent the $60 on the keyboard/mouse, but got a monitor for $249 instead of the $299 we paid at Best Buy so we ended up slightly ahead. I would have purchased the items online to save more money, but we wanted the computer set up and ready for the girls when they come home tomrorow. I know Apple makes wonderful, quality products that are more than worth their price, but I couldn’t justify spending $800 on a 20″ display when a 15-17″ display will do nicely.
This isn’t going to end well
Posted on June 24, 2005
Filed Under Relocating | 3 Comments
You know when you get that feeling? I shouldn’t have blogged about how smoothly it was going.
[Bob's Furniture](http://www.mybobs.com) called about 30 minutes ago to tell me that the driver was stuck in traffic. Would be a little while longer. I know that the NJ Turnpike can be an adventure, so that’s fine. A few minutes ago the driver called me. He wants to know how to get to my house from Route 1/Exit 9 on the Turnpike. He explains that since it’s a Connecticut company, they don’t know how to get around New Jersey. He then tells me that they don’t have a map in the truck. Hello? How can you send a driver to a state they’ve never been with an address and no directions?
When I blog about this, and I will…
Posted on June 24, 2005
Filed Under Relocating | Leave a Comment
I’m sitting here waiting on [Bob's Discount Furniture](http://www.mybobs.com) to deliver our bedroom sets and family room furniture. I want to go out and explore the neighborhood and stuff I need for the house, but I’m stuck here with not a lot to do. I know next week at this time, when I’ll be surrounded by boxes I’ll wish for a moment like this. I’d like to say leaving Stamford, CT was hassle-free, but it wasn’t. At least I can now blog/vent in the clear. I am a very careful blogger, and if there’s a chance that a party will read my blog and it will change the outcome of a project (or home sale) I’ll self-censor. Never lost anything that mattered to me because of a blog post, don’t intend to start now.
Read more
Condo Sweet Condo
Posted on June 23, 2005
Filed Under Relocating | Leave a Comment
I’m sitting here in my new kitchen, at my new dinette table from [Raymour & Flanagan](http://www.raymourandflanagan.com), “borrowing” the ‘net connection from one of my new neighbors. Note to self: When cable is hooked up on Monday, use WEP/WAP security. Handyman is here doing his thing, as are the closet installation guys.
The closing went smoothly yesterday. The sellers weren’t even there, a few thousand signatures and here we are.
Looks like our biggest obstacle will be getting our New Jersey driver’s license. People are warning us that it’s a big pain. As it is, neither Eric or I can remember where we put our social security cards, so we have to dig up some tax returns. Not a problem, since of course we have everything saved for the last 5 years…but in which box?!?
