Yeah I have been lazy and been mostly using twitter and facebook to do updates and what not. Life in Charlotte is going well. Work and all is all good too. The most major update is we got a Dog back in December (her name is Coraline) and shes probably about a year old at this point. She fitting in well and our kitty Hawkeye is…well dealing as well as can be expected.
I wil try and update here more often…or as much as I can.
So this past weekend was my sisters wedding up on Long Island in New York.
The original plan had been:
Work on Friday.
Drive to, leave our car at, and fly out of the Charlotte Airport Friday night.
Rent a car in NYC and drive to the hotel we were staying at for the wedding.
Attend the wedding Saturday.
Check out, return the rental car, and fly back to Charlotte Sunday night.
Note I say ORIGINAL plan because things didn’t quite work out the way we planned.
The trip up was fine, no problems at the airport or getting into NYC and driving to the hotel. We had to change our room around midnight because the AC was making a really high pitched buzzing noise and after first telling us there were no other rooms, and sending someone up to look at it they did finally find a empty room for us.
Saturday we went out to breakfast with my dad and brother while my mom and the other girls went to get their hair done. (the hotel charges for breakfast…along with wifi and local calls which is pretty lousy given what we were paying a night there). Saturday afternoon we all headed over to Brett (the groom)’s parents house where we took pictures and generally got stuff together for the wedding.
The wedding is self was really nice. They had it at a country club that’s like behind his parents house. There was a short ceremony outside and then dinner and reception after inside, complete with open bar! The food and drinks were really good and everyone seemed to have a fun time.
The issues really started after the wedding when we got back to the hotel. Sunday morning it was raining pretty good which pretty much just seemed to utterly destroy most everything at the hotel. That morning there was a short power loss of about 30 seconds (while I was trying to shower), then later there was no hot water, and the cable tv got knocked out. The biggest problem though were with the 2 elevators they hotel had (for 8 floors worth of guests) they had been flaky/breaking down earlier in the weekend I guess but the weather combined with so many people checking out at once meant we spent 15 minutes waiting for one to take us from the 3rd floor down to the lobby. We finally gave up and figured we would take the stairs but for whatever reason they don’t go to the lobby, instead they just lead outside. We braved the rain with luggage and were able to check out (and got a discount after complaining). Had a late breakfast/brunch with my family and headed to the airport.
Our flight wasn’t scheduled to leave till 4:30 so while we figured we would be there early we didn’t have enough time to do much of anything else after checking out and figured we would just kill time using the free WIFI Jet Blue provides and reading and what not. Well…after getting to JFK and returning our rental we get to the terminal to see our flight was canceled. So we wait in line for a good 30 minutes or so and talk to the customer service woman about what we can do. Seems while they did have other flights to Charlotte that were leaving that day they were all full and the earliest flight they could put us on was at 930pm on Tuesday (mind you this is at about 2pm on Sunday). Well besides the fact that they don’t provide any hotel or other compensation for weather issues we had left the cat home alone with 2 days worth of food, and while he would of survived, he wouldn’t of been happy having to go two more days alone, plus I really didn’t want to miss 2 days of work given I really don’t have any time saved up as of yet.
So we got a refund on our tickets, checked other airlines but no one else had any flights open till later in the week, likely due to the same problems with the weather. At that point we really didn’t have any other good options so I reserved a rental car on line and we headed BACK to the rental car section on the airport and proceeded to pick up our car and begin the 10 hour or so drive from NYC to Charlotte.
Luckily Meg and I were able to take turns driving and MANY hours and miles later we made it to the Charlotte Airport around 430am on Monday. We dropped off the rental, picked up our car out of the long term parking, and headed back to our apartment, finally getting in just a little after 5am. We were exhausted and after feeding the cat and leaving a message for work that I wasn’t going to make it in that day we passed out and slept from like 530 to around 1130 in the morning.
Last few weeks here in Charlotte have been nice, hot, but nice. We are still settling into our new place, have most everything unpacked and the place is looking good. We are still loving our new bed. We were both just tired of the water bed and I think we are both sleeping better now.
Work is going well too. Just about done with my sort of “get up to speed” drug training and should start doing casework again in a week or so. Really wasn’t too involved, given all the training and thousands of cases I did for NYPD this really was just a refresher and learning how their procedures and what not work. Friday night was our interns last day so a small group all met at this bar/restaurant for food and drinks. Meg came along and got to meet some of the people I work with and everyone had a good time.
This weekend is mostly just relaxing and other random things. Hit Trader Joes and Target this morning for food and random things we still needed (I got a nifty canning starter set: big pot, funnel, jar tools and the like, along with a set of jars) I want to first try and make jelly and/or can some pasta sauce I plan to make tomorrow. If I manage not to kill my self in the process I want to try doing some other fruits and vegetables and what not. Yah I am nerd I know. Also made a batch of pierogies to have for dinner tonight (with a batch to freeze for later).
Figure we may as well take it mostly easy this weekend because next weekend is Chelsea’s wedding so we will be flying back to NY for like a day and a half and then back to NC. Should be a fun, though crazy weekend.
This past weekend we finally made it to Ikea and got the rest of our furniture. We spent a small fortune but seeing as sleeping on the futon in the living room was getting old fast it had to be done.
We totally love our new bed/mattresses, and Meg is really digging her new desk. She is in the midst of getting the spare bedroom set up as a library/office/crafts room. Once we get the rest of our stuff unpacked and put away a bit better I plan to take some pictures to put up on line.
Work is still going well. It really IS amazing how much better a place can be when your supervisor isn’t insane.
We are still in the process of getting settled in the new place. Have to hit Ikea this weekend to get the rest of the furniture and stuff for the new place. The whole move is going to cost a fortune but eh it is what it is. We really like our new apartment, I mean just having 2 floors alone is super novel. Hawkeye is settling in nicely too and I think has already decided that he owns the stairs and like to sit on the higher ones and stick his head through the bars on the railing so he can watch us from his lofty perch. We have also been enjoying having a pool all of a 2 minute walk from our place and getting to sit out on our back patio in the evenings.
Tomorrow we head down to Charlotte, this time to stay. Saturday morning we sign the lease and get the keys for our apartment. Later that day they are supposed to deliver the POD with all our stuff inside, ideally right in front of our apartment unit. After doing a little web searching I found they have companies where you can hire people to come help you load/unload stuff so I decided the 90$ was more then worth it to get 2 people to help us carry heavy stuff into our new place on Sunday. Monday morning I start my new job so have to be downtown er I mean “Uptown” as they call it in Charlotte for 8:30 which will leave Meg to unpack and sort stuff, and be home for when the cable guy comes to set up out internet.
Going to be a long day of driving tomorrow but we are both excited at getting to start out in our new place.
So we are about 50% done with our epic moving adventure. This past Monday the truck with the POD came and with the help of my dad and brother we got all our stuff packed and loaded and on it’s way to Charlotte. We ended up staying in the apartment two more days, mostly to clean and finish up some misc. packing/throwing stuff out. It was…an adventure given after packing the pod we had no furniture other then the waterbed and our laptops. But we made due and on Wednesday we drained and disassembled the bed, packed the last of our stuff in the car, returned the cable box/modem and headed up to our temporary home at my parents in Hartford.
We are using this week in CT to finish up some last minute details of the move to the new place and close out the last of the stuff from the old one (stoping service on the power and gas and what not).
We are also getting in a little mini vacation type week before we have to head down to Charlotte. Thursday we went up to do some shopping in Northampton and also hit the Yankee Candle superstore in northern Mass. and then today we went down to visit the ever popular Book Barn in Niantic, CT. A good time was had by all. No real plans for the holiday weekend. Figure we will do a BBQ here in CT some time this weekend, and we may try and get in some other random visits to favorite New England places before we head down to Charlotte next Friday.
Right…so this past Monday the 20th Meg and I rented our selves a car and headed down to Charlotte to find a place to live. First day of hunting on Tuesday wasn’t so successful, like majorly not successful. As a result we both were a tad stressed that night and spend the time after dinner and before bed combing though lists of possible apartment complexes and other rental sites.
The main problem we had was that we really don’t know the Charlotte metro area that well as of yet, so while finding listings of houses and apartments in our price range wasn’t an issue but how do we actually pick one without having to drive around and visit dozens of places? There are a few apartment review sites on the internet which we used but the problem we ran into with those was that people tend to only go on them to complain about problems they have had and not as many go to say how nice a place is…or are just neutral about it.
(That night, probably due to me stressing out over fining a place for us to live, I had some very odd dreams including one about us going to watch a minor league baseball team named “The Swinging Moose Cocks” which is hilarious and just damned odd…still would be an awesome team name)
In the end we narrowed it down to like 3 complexes to check out and actually only ended up needing to visit one. After speaking with a rental agent at Camden Pinehurst apartments they were able to find us a 2 bedroom townhouse style apartment in our price range with some nice amenities (complex has a pool,tennis court, exercise room, and the apartment it self has central air and a washer drier in the unit, which was a big plus for me). We got to take a tour of the model unit and then went back and filled out the applications and put down our deposits and other fees.
We are set to move in July 9th, which works out alright since our furniture is getting packed in a POD moving container and wont be available till July 6 anyway. Right now our plan is to load up the POD on Monday and then finish up a few things here at the apartment in Queens, then stay at my parents for a week or so and drive down to Charlotte Friday July 8th. We will stay overnight in a hotel (with Hawkeye) and then go and do the final paperwork and get the keys for our new place. Depending on how/when they can deliver the POD we may be living with little to nothing for a few days but it will be do able. Really as long as we have a place to live and I am able to make it to work Monday the 11th for my first day we can deal with most anything else.
So a little more then seven years ago I posted this: Day 1 which recounted my first day as a member of the NYPD Crime Lab. Today I am sitting here sipping some expensive celebratory whisky toasting to my last day with the NYPD. As you could expect I didn’t really do THAT much. Had a report to finish reviewing for someone and then just sort of finished up packing and cleaning my desk, and visiting people to say good bye. As excited as I am to start this new chapter it still was a little sad to have to say to goodbye to people, some of whom I have known for the last 7 years. I am still sure leaving for Charlotte was the right move for a number of reasons, but still…And I will get to see some of them again next year when I come back to the area for Alison and Ted’s wedding.
I am also now free to start working on my tell all book “Inside the NYPD Lab” (just kidding…..probably) Though if I did it would probably end up in the fiction section since no one would believe it 
On move related topics I did some more packing of the kitchen stuff, and got a good half of it squared away. Tomorrow we head up to CT with Hawkeye for a short visit and then its off to Charlotte Monday to hunt for a new place to live! I ended up deciding to go with PODS for moving our stuff down there. It was a bit more expensive then going the UHAUL route I was originally planning but the extra cost is more then worth it given the number of problems having someone else move our stuff solves.
So long NYPD Lab….and thanks for all the fish.
One more day left at work. Sort of hard to believe I am really leaving after all this time. No regrets mind you just still a big change.
On a related note I ended up opting to go with PODS to move our stuff down to NC. Its a bit more pricey then going the UHAUL route I had been planing on but in the end the extra cost it worth it in my eyes because it solves a bunch of logistical problems with how we can get out stuff, car, cat, and selves all from NYC to NC in a sane manner. This way we load our stuff in a container on their truck and they ship and store it till we are ready to unpack it in Charlotte. Granted we need to find a new appt. first but either way our stuff needs to be out of here by the end of the month so this way worst case we can live out of a cheap hotel for a few weeks till we get a permeant place. Not that I am that worried, seems to be plenty of places in Charlotte for rent, just a matter of finding one in a place we like.
Thanks to my co-workers for a congratulations/going away party cake today at work.
I was tempted to quote Bilbo Baggins from Lord of the Rings:
“I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.”
But I restrained my self. And to their credit it was actually a surprise, all the way up to when Alison needed me to come to the caff with her to get a drink of water….because you know thats a two person job
Two days left to go. In principle I really have no reason to go into work tomorrow, I am pretty much totally finished with…well everything. I got a few cases to return and stuff to pack but it is coming down to the wire!
Twenty-twenty-twenty four hours to go… »« …this position I have held….
Three more work days to go till I am done at NYPD. Going to be sort of weird not working there any more. At 7 years its the longest I have ever been at one place (I guess not counting the movie theater but that was very part time and fragmented). I am just about done with my work there, have a few odds and ends to finish up tomorrow and that will be about it. Then its a quick trip to CT and then down to Charlotte to find a place to live.
Going to be a crazy next few weeks but we will survive some how
Just one more week to go at the NYPD. Well less than that even what with me taking Monday off and all. We went to see Super 8 Saturday. It was alright….sort of what ET would of been had they made it today. Also stopped to see Chelsea to get some boxes she had been saving for us from her job.
Today was hardcore packing. We got pretty much all the books done and all the stuff from Meg’s closet and desk. It was a bit crazy for a while with boxes piled up everywhere but once we got the closet cleaned out and were able to stack up a bunch of the boxes in there stuff got a bit more reasonable.
Tomorrow will probably involve a bit more packing but not a ton because really all thats left is out clothing we wear daily and the kitchen stuff that we still need to use to eat. After my last day of work Friday we will head up to CT to drop off the cat at my parents and plan to rent a SUV size rental car for our appt. hunting trip to Charlotte (getting the big car so we can cram some of our boxes in it, and then throw them into storage once we get to NC). Once we have a place nailed down its a bit more packing and then figuring out how we will get our stuff, car, cat, and selves all down to Charlotte. …um…whee?!?
Going to try and start updating this more again…with the upcoming move to NC and new job and all I should have stuff worth posting about.
Yesterday afternoon/evening I dug out some boxes from the closet/behind the dresser (have had them saved since I first moved in) and started boxing up some of our books and dvd’s. So far I have like 6 boxes done already and while it has cleared off most of our book/dvd shelves it really doesn’t make much of a dent in the rest of the stuff in the appt. Still it’s a start I suppose.
