Moving Day x 2

I thought I should get out here and post before I perish of my infrimity. They say the mind is the first thing to go, and in my case it's true. I just wish my mental capacity had peaked a little later than the fifth grade.

Anyways there hasn't been much exciting to report lately. Adjusting to a very loud life once again as my parents have returned. I spent a couple of afternoons last week assisting my dad as he replaced the struts and tie rod ends in my car. For a while now there has been a strange clunking under the hood of my car whenever I go over a bump, and lately it got much worse. I took it in to the Chrysler dealership, and they very quickly found a few problems with it that would cost some big money. Now while I have that kind of money I don't have a lot of it, and the bank would have ended up broken. We took it to another place that wanted even more money for the repairs so my Dad decided that he would do it with my help.

"Help" here is a very subjective term as what I do is more like stand around as my Dad doesn't let me touch anything. He knows a lot about mechanical stuff though so I think he gets impatient with my complete ignorance. It's unfortunate that he never had the patience to teach me that stuff, and that I neve rhad the inclination to learn because I see how much money you could save just by doing a few things yourself. We fixed it anyways, and it kind of looked like the clanking was caused my something completely different anyways.

I guess the other thing was a smallish halloween party at a friend's place Friday night. I wore my usual standby ninja costume as I remained a long away from inspired. It was nice to chat and hang out with friends, but it wasn't terribly exciting and I was in a grumpy mood.

On Saturday it was time for the usual shenanigans as Shani had to be moved out of the house she was renting early so others could move in I guess. I was kind of glad that she was moving because I've never liked that house. It was in a bad area of town, the carpets were really ugly, it had no shower (there was a large jetted tub which Shani liked), and it necessitated having roommates to share it. The last part was the real problem for her as that place apparently had a revolving door. Quite a few different people lived there, very few of them stable, financially or otherwise. The common factor between them though was that none of them had the slightest notion of cleanliness. Not to air our dirty laundry (literally), but Shani is one of the messiest people I've ever met, which is scary considering she's a woman. I thought girls were supposed to be the clean ones.

There was some confusion with her new job so she didn't end up getting an apartment with them like she expected. So she quickly found a bachelor apartment in another bad part of town in a building that is populated by gamers. Unfortunately she couldn't move in there till the 1st of the month so her solution was to store her stuff at my place till then. We had the room so that wasn't really a problem, it was just the idea if moving her twice across the city that didn't excite me.

Shani had reassured me saying that everything would be organized for the move, but apparently everything fell apart as I was the only one assisting with my car for the most part. Eventually her Dad showed up with his van and four trips later for me we had all of her stuff at my house. At least she had most of her stuff semi-organized and together so I didn't have to wait around while she packed.

I'm going to take this opportunity to speak about moving friends, and family in general. Now don't get me wrong I like to help people, and moving can often be a fun social experience, but I've done it so many times that I'm getting a little sick of it. As I'm practically a professional in the field I thought I'd write out some guidelines for moving.

A. Have your stuff organized and packed before people come to help you. It saves time, and makes it much easier to move your stuff. This way you can also be helping move instead of putting stuff into boxes frantically at the last minute.

(Although this list isn't in any particular order this one is my major pet peeves of moving.)

B. Don't lose your temper or order around the people who are helping you move. Remember these people are probably your friends and are no doubt volunteers. If you can't pull that stuff at work you probably shouldn't be doing it with people that are helping you move.

a. An addendum to this is that you really shouldn't blame your helpers if any of your stuff gets broken.

C. Don't move in the Winter in Edmonton. This one is really self-explanatory, but it's amazing how many people fail to grasp the concept.

D. Don't move at night. That's when it's dark. Take the day off work for the love of God.

E. Don't live in a fourth floor walk up and have lots of heavy antique furniture (you know who you are Maria.)

F. Make sure you have enough people there to help. A large group of people can turn an onerous task into a social occasion.

G. Similar to the above, make sure you have enough transportation to move all of your junk. While it's nice to have lots of friends with trucks it's probably a real hassle for them as people probably ask them every week to help them move. I would personally recommend renting a Uhaul if at all possible.

H. Please make sure your elevators in your building work. There's nothing worse than moving and getting stuck in a elevator, and then having to risk life and limb to escape.

There's undoubtedly many more, but I think this will do for now. Feel free to add your own while I get ready to move Shani into her apartment tonight.