The Move

Hani has been posting lots of good information on our upcoming wedding, so this post is a little late, but hey, at least it made it.

Last weekend (actually, Friday) I moved from my old apartment to our new place. I say "my" and "our" because my old apartment I picked myself and this new apartment was chosen because it will be a good home for Hani and me together.

For about two weeks before the move I had been spring cleaning, which was convenient as it reduced the amount of junk that had to be cleared out when it came time to pack. For example, I had already reduced my inordinately large collection of computer components, cables, and pieces to this tidy pile.



I began by packing up things like desk supplies and the utility closet - the sort of things that I could easily get back out if I needed. Here is my living room on the first day of packing, with the NFC championship on in the background.



The living room slowly filled with boxes. I like to pack homogeneously - that is, I don't like to have a mix of tiny, small, and large boxes, cardboard, plastic, and loose items. Instead I buy a huge number of identical plastic crates (in a few different sizes) and label them all with notecards. They stack and they're relatively easy to move around, so they're perfect for moving.



I packed most of my clothes into boxes relatively early in the process. Hani would never have let me wear clothes that were wrinkly from being stuffed in a box, but the engineers on campus are less concerned with fashion; if those guys can get to school mostly dressed it's a good day!



The next step was to move the furniture from my bedroom into the living room. It wasn't too bad - most of my furniture is relatively simple (no wrought-iron bed frames!) but the dresser was tough. Here you can see my desk (which, for the time being, I left in the corner of the living room so I had somewhere to sit) hidden behind the growing collection of furniture and boxes.



At this point I realized that I made a mistake - there were piles of boxes separating the door and some of the larger furniture! The furniture had to go in the truck first, so I took a couple hours and moved everything around in an attempt to make the truck-loading process easier. Naturally the TV stayed plugged in!



This process took several days. I was working on campus during the day and my second job at home at night, so I was only able to do a certain amount of packing each day. Since I had dismantled my bed early on and moved the pieces to the living room, I was reduced to sleeping on my mattress on the floor.



I packed up the kitchen next, washing any remaining dishes and clearing out the cupboards. I have quite a few dishes - all told I had 7 boxes of dishes and kitchen equipment, compared to 4 boxes of clothes! By this point I had moved my desk to where I could easily get it out the door, my "office" became my chair and the kitchen counter.



Finally, after several days, I was ready to pack. This isn't everything - there were some boxes in the bedroom and of course the mattress (so I wouldn't have to sleep on the floor the last night) but by and large this is most everything I own.



I went to pick up the truck Thursday afternoon. When I moved from New Jersey to Florida a year and a half ago, my dad and I rented a 10-foot truck. A 10-foot truck is a nice sized truck... it held everything I owned with not much space to spare. I reserved a 10-foot truck for this trip as well, because I don't have that much more than I had last time. When I arrived at the truck rental place, however, I was informed that they were out of 10-foot trucks! Instead I was "upgraded" to a 15-foot truck for the same price.

Now if you're not familiar with trucks, or volume calculations, or you're a metric-user, let me explain. A 15-foot truck doesn't sound that much bigger than a 10-foot truck, right? I mean 5 feet, that's like 1.5 meters. No big deal. But you see, a 10-foot truck is like a really big storage box on the back of a really big oversized pickup-truck. It's big, sure, but when you see it you think "big car". A 15-foot truck, however, is a small semi. It's massive. This truck towered over my apartment building, dwarfed other trucks on the road, and started with an unholy roar. It was diesel and almost too tall to drive through most gas-stations (instead I had to use the trucker-line). This was a monster truck! Here it is parked outside my apartment complex.



I was terrified of driving this thing in heavy traffic so I decided to leave very early Friday morning to beat rush-hour. But first I had to pack it. I originally intended to take more pictures, but it was really difficult to load the truck by myself. Lifting some of this furniture and wheeling box after box down the sidewalk, lifting them onto the pneumatic lift (yes, this truck required a pneumatic lift to get into the back), and then arranging them inside was physically exhausting. But as the afternoon turned to night my apartment slowly emptied.




The next morning I frantically tried to pack the last few things into the truck (mattress, bathroom things, etc) and then got on the road around 5 AM. The plan was to drive the 2-hour trip to the new place, move in, drive the 2-hour trip back, return the truck, and drive my car the 2-hour final trip back to our new home. The interstate was very empty and the weather was clear in the early hours of the day and the drive was actually fairly uneventful. After about an hour on the road I was getting comfortable with the truck and was confident changing lanes, etc. That might sound silly, but if you've never driven a big truck you don't know how intimidating it feels!

At about 7:30 AM I arrived at the bridge from Tampa to St. Petersburg, about 15 minutes away from the new apartment.



The apartment complex office didn't open until 8 so I had about 15 minutes to kill before I could get the keys and begin moving in. I enjoyed the (chilly, but nice) weather and walked around a little, and discovered this truck parked a few doors down. I don't think I'll be getting too friendly with my new neighbors!



Once I had the keys I got in the zone and didn't have time for many pictures. My arms were killing me (I had just loaded the truck the night before and only got a few hours of sleep!) but I persevered and eventually everything was in the new place, if not particularly organized.




Afterwards I closed up the truck and drove back to Gainesville, where I finished cleaning my old apartment and tossed the last few things in my car. I returned the truck and drove another two hours back down south, but this time locking the keys in the apartment behind me and heading off to our new home!

It took a few days but I'm now completely settled. I went to the store and got the necessary things for the house, and (with the notable exception of Hani's "imagination room", which is currently a collection of boxes of computer things and work equipment) everything is where it belongs. Check out the view from the bedroom!




What I like best about this place is the view. I never figured that would be a huge factor in where I live, but man, it really makes a difference to relax and listen to the fountain and look out onto the lake.



So there you have it. It was a long two days, and my arms and back were killing me for the remainder of the week. The new place is great and I think Hani will love it. I like it here but to be honest it's sort of empty without her... it won't be properly ours until she's here with me.

I'll finish this picture-heavy post with a snapshot of an award I won when I was little. I found this in one of the boxes as I was unpacking. Who's the top pumpkin? I am!