Took my last look-in before I move. Stuff is getting done but slowly.

I christened the urinal. It was GLORIOUS!

The master bedroom is just about finished so I'm guessing he concentrated on that.

The kitchen is in pretty good shape - good enough to move in. The cabinet that had to be replaced still isn't finished, though. The pendant lights aren't up and it looks like one of the fixtures got tossed accidentally so I'll have to get another one.

The guest bedroom looks ok but the closet hasn't been started.

The laundry room looks almost finished.

The office desk still hasn't been supported. This needs to be put on the top of Javier's list - I'll text him tomorrow.

It's in good enough shape to move in.

Kitchen bar. This is a pretty good pic of the granite.



Master closet

The drive is gonna be a beast. This is the second time in a row there was a wreck on the freeway. Ugh. Took me an hour to get there.

I met one of my neighbors. He was outside fishing. Turns out he and his family moved here from Austin. How great is that. A fisherman from Austin! Really nice guy. His name is Ben and I'm putting that in writing because I suck with names and I want to remember it. The other perk is his wife is a muckety muck at a software company located much closer than where I work now.

I texted Javier about the office countertop. He told me he would get this done today.

That's the last of "must dos" for me.

Work update.

I got a new boss. Woot! She's well liked and I think her team gets 2 work at home days so it seems pretty good.

The weatherman is predicting a tropical storm to form and hit Monday (moving day). Rain chances 90% but likely to move to 100%.

Sort of unbelievable this storm hits the day I plan to move. Oh well.

Called the moving company. They will be here tomorrow morning. I haven't even started packing. Fun times.

Last two times I moved cities and had to drive a a 20' cube van an hour down the highway it was a blizzard. Once it was mid-October, the other mid-November. Even in Canada we're usually not getting any snow that early. GL with the move and I hope it doesn't snow.

Well, that was fun................not

The movers said they would be here between 8:30 and 9:00
Then they would be here between 1:30 and 2:00
Then they would be here around 3:00
Got here about 4:00

We got several bands of heavy rain. Once they got it loaded it took them over an hour to get to my condo.

Then, the guard told me they weren't allowed in. Geez. She was pretty understanding, though and did let them in.

Everything unloaded around 10:00. Ugh. So tired.

Stuff everywhere..............

Javier still has all his stuff here.



Boxes o' crap

My first tropical storm. Weeee.......

High tide predicted for 2:30. The water is already higher than I've ever seen it. Not much seawall left. Fingers crossed.

Water up about 6 inches since last post. Not good.

Waves coming over the seawall.

God damn. What a move in when you have everything on the floor with the threat of water. Flood insurance?

The worst seems to be over. The brunt of the storm hit right at high tide. It was pretty sketchy for a while but the water didn't get close to coming in the condo.

The wind was blowing around 50 for a while and the rain was coming in a few places around doors. One is because they have removed a balcony so it is exposed. I'm going to have to check the other when things blow over. It may just be that it was so extreme that it won't happen during a normal rain.

I'm pretty sure a direct hit from a hurricane will be pretty bad. I think the water could go up another 2 feet and I'd be fine but much more than that and I'm under water.

I'm going to have to recheck but I'm almost positive the condo fees cover the flood insurance.

I went out when the rain slowed down a bit but the wind was still howling. These birds were headed into the wind and pretty much stationary. It was pretty bizarre. I'm not sure what kind of birds they are. They weren't seagulls. They had long scissor like tails.

Back to the boondoggle. Everything is in pretty decent shape. They have a punch list left and there are a couple of add-ons I'm going to request.

The floors, though............. Some of the tiles shift when you step on them. You can't really tell unless you are barefoot. And, there are a few places where the tiles aren't completely even and you can feel a ridge when you step on them. It's not horrible but annoying. I'm not sure if I want to raise a stink about it or not.

I ****ing love my closet. And my giant shower. But most of all I love my urinal.

On another note, I own too much crap.

Any tile movement is completely unacceptable and needs to be fixed.

Lippage (that's the fancy term for those ridges) is always a problem with large format tiles like you have, even more so if you have small grout lines. That's why they were spending so much time trying to level everything out. If we're talking 1/16th of an inch or less, that's about as good as you're going to get.

Yeah, it's less than 1/16th. I'm getting used to it. It isn't horrible. I'm still not completely sure there is movement or if it's my imagination.

I'm taking a small break while I wait on my POD. I've been going nonstop since Saturday. So much to do (and so much to spend).

I really have no idea what is in my POD. It's been almost a year and a half. Should be fun.

So much stuff...................

I might make a huge tl;dr moving adventure post later. I'll keep this one to the remodel.

Javier finally got his crap out of here yesterday. Good timing since the pod arrived about an hour later.

I had to make a few runs to Lowe's for "stuff'.

Priority one was getting my washer/dryer hooked up. Of course, nothing is easy. The electrician wired a 4 prong receptacle and my dryer had a 3 pronged plug. So, on to Lowe's. I also needed a clamp for the dryer vent tube.

I got the plug and clamp and started to put things together. There is almost no room to work in the laundry room. We left about 8 inches behind the washer dryer but on the sides there is less than 2 inches. So, I either have to climb on top or underneath (they are on a table I made). Super hard either way.

Anyway, got the plug on pretty easily. But, they installed a dryer vent thingy with an oval opening. Ugh. Back to Lowe's to get an adapater. I also discovered they removed my AC filter so I figured I'd get one of those too.

Got to Lowe's. No oval to round adapater. In fact, not one but two employees who were trying to help seemed pretty clueless about the oval opening. I assured them it was oval and not round. Also, they didn't have the right size ac filter (18x20). I had the same issue in my old house. Why can't I have normal stuff?

I called Javier to find out wtf was up with the oval dryer opening. He said he would have to call the AC guy.

There is a home depot across the street from lowe's so I figured I'd give it a shot. Wow. I think it is the biggest Home Depot I've ever been in. You know how there is usually a center aisle that separates the store in half. Well, there were 2 of them. This place was enormous. Anyway, they had the oval to round adapter AND the air filter. Score!

Got back and hooked everything up. Now washing my first load of clothes in my new place.

I have no place to put all my tools and I can't think of any reason I would ever need most of them. Like, when will I need a nail gun? Probably never.

I put them all on craigslist but I did an all or nothing deal. I really don't want to spend a ton of time dealing with craigslist nonsense and I doubt it would be worth what I would be able to sell them for.

So......................... I decided to donate them to Habitat for Humanity. They were super happy to get this. I had a ton of misc. nails and screws and they loved that too.

Here's what I gave them.



Also, I have this I have to get rid of. I'll probably take it apart and dump it. It has served me well.

I can't get a good signal on my phone. I can't even talk inside my condo or on the back porch. I have to walk out front to use it.

I called Virgin Mobile and talked to 3 different non-english speaking folks to try to sort this out. It involved punching in a bunch of numbers and restarting my phone a few times. No help.

Finally a guy admits to me that I get "moderate" service in my location. Which really means "sucks". He said he would file a report to their engineers to adjust the tower. That sounds like total BS to me but wtfdik?

I really don't want to change carriers. I like Virgin Mobile. But I like being able to actually use my phone more. I need a new phone anyways. We'll see.

Shoutout to shaft.

I love this granite but it seems sort of "dull". Almost like there is a soap film on it or something. I'm not sure I can describe it properly.

Is there something I can put on it to sort of "bring out" the stone?

Just because of habit or are they better than others with some features?

They are cheap. That's about it.

Mike called. He wanted to schedule the inspections. He wasn't aware Keith was coming tomorrow to do a walkthrough. None of these guys talk to each other.

I was kind of hoping to do some furniture shopping tomorrow but I guess I'll be here all day waiting for various inspectors.

Mike called me back to say everything was scheduled for tomorrow but the fire inspector requires me to have a fire extinguisher (which I don't). I told Mike I don't know how I'm going to get away if I have to wait around so he said he would buy one and drop it off.