Well, it's started -- the big five-person move to San Francisco. The car shipper guy came this morning to pick up our cars.. after the big inland hurricane last night left trees down and roads flooded all over Chicago, I wasn't so sure they'd be here; but they were -- ninety minutes early! The phone rang at 6:30am.
It's fun when all the neighbors think your cars are being repossessed... I can only imagine what they were thinking -- "Why is he standing there, talking to that repo man as he puts the cars on the truck? Why isn't he mad?"
The company that we're using to move cars is eBay Motors' "preferred" car shipper, so the driver had lots of fun stories to tell about cars he delivered to people who'd never seen them, and the reactions that they give. He told about one guy who'd ordered a 70's-era Charger. This car looked mint in the pictures, but when it actually arrived, it apparently was a different story. It'd been in some kind of accident, the firewall was all jacked, axle kind of bent, etc. The sad thing is, once you get to that point, you've already purchased the car so you're kind of screwed. The guy who bought it didn't even want to sign for it, but he had to; he owned it so he was responsible for it. After delivery, you have to fight it out with the seller and eBay. Good luck with that!
Next on the hit parade -- packing, which starts Monday. We all will move into a hotel while this process is going on. Our place is way too small for five people and eight million half-packed boxes.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Sunday, August 5, 2007
The new gig.
I started at the new place in San Francisco last week... so far, so good. There's quite a lot of travel, especially at first; the family is all back in Chicago so I'm doing a fair amount of 1,800-mile commuting via American Airlines. Everyone's moving the last week in August, so it won't be for long.
Much electronic ink has been spilled over the bridge collapse in Minneapolis. Fortunately, to the best of my knowledge, no one I know was on the bridge or around it when it happened. It's kind of disconcerting to see the bridge in the river, knowing that I have been over that thing probably 500 times in my life. I was in San Francisco when it happened, driving out to our new house in Oakley, and they broke into the radio newscast to announce that it'd happened.
This week, I'm in New York City. We stay in downtown, not far from Ground Zero, because the bank's offices are on Wall Street. One of the ways to coming into Manhattan from LaGuardia Airport is via the FDR Drive.. of course, Manhattan is an island, and how do you get onto islands? Bridges. The FDR runs along the eastern shore of Manhattan and not only did we pass over a bridge to get to the FDR, it runs under every bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn/Queens from 113th Street south. Check the google map -- there are probably 20 of them, all told.
Not to mention that every time I've been to NYC -- and this time is certainly not excluded -- all of the bridges seem to be under some kind of repair.
No one seems to know what happened in Minneapolis.. whether it was the repair, whether it was as stress cracks, the deicing system installed several years ago, whatever; but it makes you think. I'd always been a "no-fear" bridge guy -- I did the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Walk, even -- but I thought twice passing under all of the bridges on the FDR.
Of course, chances are the guy driving the black car was going to kill me long before any crappy NYC bridge fell on my head... but there it is.
Much electronic ink has been spilled over the bridge collapse in Minneapolis. Fortunately, to the best of my knowledge, no one I know was on the bridge or around it when it happened. It's kind of disconcerting to see the bridge in the river, knowing that I have been over that thing probably 500 times in my life. I was in San Francisco when it happened, driving out to our new house in Oakley, and they broke into the radio newscast to announce that it'd happened.
This week, I'm in New York City. We stay in downtown, not far from Ground Zero, because the bank's offices are on Wall Street. One of the ways to coming into Manhattan from LaGuardia Airport is via the FDR Drive.. of course, Manhattan is an island, and how do you get onto islands? Bridges. The FDR runs along the eastern shore of Manhattan and not only did we pass over a bridge to get to the FDR, it runs under every bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn/Queens from 113th Street south. Check the google map -- there are probably 20 of them, all told.
Not to mention that every time I've been to NYC -- and this time is certainly not excluded -- all of the bridges seem to be under some kind of repair.
No one seems to know what happened in Minneapolis.. whether it was the repair, whether it was as stress cracks, the deicing system installed several years ago, whatever; but it makes you think. I'd always been a "no-fear" bridge guy -- I did the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Walk, even -- but I thought twice passing under all of the bridges on the FDR.
Of course, chances are the guy driving the black car was going to kill me long before any crappy NYC bridge fell on my head... but there it is.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)