CaseyAndKelly.Com

We are all packed up now, the movers left at about 4, taking a little over 4 hours to load everything up. We were commended on our excellent packing skills, and thus making their job easier. Bad news…. the truck won’t make it to DC until the 3rd AT THE EARLIEST.. Good news… we get to spend a couple extra days in Colorado. Yay.

We can’t head out until around noon tomorrow because Casey has to go into work for a half-day. But hopefully we can make it out of LA before evening rush-hour. We are going to stop off in Las Vegas and visit with Aunt Donna for just a bit, and then head on to Colorado.

So tonight we are crashing on the floor in sleeping bags, revisiting our early Los Angeles roots. Tomorrow morning we will pack the car with all the rest of our belongings and a short time later bid farewell to Los Angeles. A great place to visit but I sure wouldn’t want to live there.

3 more days. 3 more days. 3 more days.

Our time in LA is nearly over, Hopefully Tuesday we will be jumping in the car and heading to Colorado for Christmas and then on to Virginia for the new job.

I dropped the car off at a recommended mechanic on Thursday and picked it up yesterday. I had loads of work done to the car to make it road worthy for the long trip ahead of us. After doing a little Mapquesting today I found out that St. Louis is almost EXACTLY halfway between Colo Sprgs and Fairfax (by 3 miles). We have been monitoring the road conditions at the passes in Colorado , but we will decide as to which route we will take .

We also got a new stereo installed in the car (it probably surpasses the value of the car) so it will make being in the car for three days that much easier. I picked up a Sony deck at Best Buy and had 4 new speakers installed since the front two were blown out. The deck is alright it has a bitchin LCD display and it plays MP3s off of CD, and it has an AUX input that I can hook an iPod to.

I have to pack the office up tonight, since we have to be completely packed up by Monday for pickup.(hopefully). Most of everything else is already packed up, except for the office and tand breaking down the bed frame.

I’m really just rambling on (to much alcohol). I should go pack or finish watching Friends Season 8….. hmmmm decisions… decisions.

Today was my last day at Geddes. I think I’m ready to move on since I wasn’t advancing but I really liked the people I worked for so it’s a little bittersweet – I learned a lot while I was there. After work Jen (back from NC) and I went to lunch at the Newsroom Cafe on Robertson and who should walk in but BRITTANY MURPHY!!! Then on our way to Kitson we saw KATE BOSWORTH leaving the Ivy. So today ended up being a pretty good day. I managed to get our utilities etc. turned on/off and now we’re just hanging out watching TiVo.

Six more days, Six more days. Our mantra that has been going through our heads everyday. Tuesday will be our last day in Los Angeles, at least until we come back to visit everyone (The Fam, Justin, Marla). LA is a fun place to visit but I won’t ever be living here again if I can help it. I shouldn’t really say that cause ya never know when a fantastic job could come along, but if I had my choice I would stay out of Los Angeles.

Kelly and I just couldn’t wait until we got to Virginia (or for the insurance money) to pick up a new laptop, so last night we shot down to the Apple store and picked up a new 12inch Powerbook w/SuperDrive for Kelly. She also scored a bright Pink Timbuk2 laptop bag. I think I may wait until we get to DC to pick up my new laptop, but ya never know, I could get jealous of Kelly using her new one and have to get one of my own.

One thing I’m slightly concerned about is with the insurance itself. I spole with our representative this morning and she mentioned something about the “replacement” cost for laptops, or in other words what she can purchase a similar laptop for. Now I’m hoping that this doesn’t mean purcahsing second-hand laptops or buying off of Ebay or something along those lines. Apple keeps a tight hold over the prices of their equipment so hopefully that will benefit us in the getting a good replacement price for at least two of our laptops. Now as far and my Windoze laptop I’m sure I will only get about 300 dollars or so for it, since PeeCees don’t hold their value at all.

We finally have the move finalized, so now we must finish packing and get everything ready for Monday when the movers should arrive to pack everything into the truck. The good thing is now that the movers have come down in price I won’t even see a bill for the move, everything will go right to my company and they will be picking up the tab…. how great is that?

One of the guys in the shop here has just recently moved from the D.C. area to LA and he handed me 100 dollars in Metro fare that I can transfer to my SmartTrip card, that should last me at least a month or so. Plus I will have to look into getting my company to reimburse so money for using public transportation.

Matt’s Birthday was yesterday and once again Kelly and I want to wish him a happy birthday (the gifts are in the mail). Hopefully I will get to spend an evening with Matt and Julie on the 27th as I’m on my way to D.C from the Springs.

I was FINALLY able to get my Desktop PC to boot from those damn 200GB hard drives that I purchased on Black Friday. I finally forced the drives into LBA mode and ran a fixboot and a fixmbr from the Recovery Console at that seemed to work. So hopefully when I get home I will have a working Windwos SP2 system installed from my Unattended DVD. Hopefully……

OK its about lunch time and I need to find some grub, maybe just a sammich or something.

UPDATE:

It would seem that I need to stick with a post and finish it, instead of taking about 4 hours or more to finally post it. Not only was Kelly able to post EVERYTHING that I did, but we had the same damn title for the post. Eh.

In 6 days and a wakeup (can you tell we’re anxious), we’ll be on our way out of this God-forsaken city and on the road to a better life. A CSI guy FINALLY showed up unannounced Sunday evening to take fingerprints. Well life can’t stop because of what happened and we have a lot to do in a short period so if there were prints, they’re all smudged now. He DID however find TWO fingerprints. One on my unmentionables drawer and one on the front of the DVD player (didn’t know what they were missing by not stealing that, thank God). I guess then he takes it back to the station and they put it through their database and if anyone has a prior criminal record than it’ll pinpoint them and they will give us a call with a name and continue the investigation. This whole ordeal has just been nerve racking, I’ve been alternating between states of rage and despair and I don’t this is the most healthy way to be heading into the holidays. I can get over the fact that they took material possessions, it’s what was on our computers (pictures, financial and personal information) that really upsets me. I dropped off a completed list of what was missing to the police station yesterday so when they “get around to it” all of the information is there. So I’m trying not to get my hopes up but we were given a glimmer of hope.

We got one of our credit cards reissued by UPS yesterday (that’s fast) but it was an ordeal to track it down since I wasn’t there when they showed up but by 7pm last night we had it in hand and activated. We drove straight to the Apple store and picked up a replacement 12″ Powerbook with superdrive for me along with a pink carrying bag (they stole my old backpack too) and AppleCare (which unfortunately doesn’t protect against theft). We *did* find out that we can call the genuises at Apple and give them our serial numbers so that when the bastards take it in to be serviced (my optical drive is flakey) that they can flag it in their system. More good news!

We finally got our movers nailed down yesterday too. They’re picking our stuff up a day early so the day we leave for Colorado, we can just get in the car and go! We’re making good progress cleaning stuff up, I have another car load to take to Goodwill before we leave (tax deductions!) and deep cleaning to do. We still haven’t found out if our apartment has been rented yet. I’m hoping it does rent so they can’t screw us anymore than they already have. I don’t think we should have to pay when our safety was put in jeopardy but we need something in writing from him – I don’t trust this guy.

My priority today is to schedule utility turnoffs here and schedule them to be turned on in VA. We don’t want another LA situtation where we’re in a non-liveable abode but at least this time we have a welcome place to stay in that event.

My finals were Sunday. I have 2 of my 3 grades in and they’re not too bad considering how distracted I’ve been. I got an A and a B and I’m anxiously awaiting what the $@#!%& is gonna give me in my microeconomics class (he’s been on my case all year) so at least the stress of school is over (for the rest of this year at least).

The Survivor Finale: I have to say this has been one of the worst seasons (I’ve only been watching since Pearl Islands). I really liked Amy (CO girl and a strong player) and Brady (strong player, FBI guy, and voted out for the wrong reasons) but of the final four I really wanted Eliza to win even though I didn’t like her much at first. Of the final two I think Chris deserved it because I couldn’t STAND Twila. There were no Jerry incidents this year so it was a pretty boring reunion show (no proposals either). Can’t wait for the new one to start, it’s gotta be better than this one.

Attention all: Christmas cards went out yesterday!

The time is drawing near, Kelly and I are still counting the days until we can get out of LA safely. Everytime we leave the apartment I think its either going to get robbed again or is going to burn down, because that is how our luck would be. Kelly finished the list of items that were stolen and we are looking at about half of our renters insurance total coverage value. I have realized that we have a lot of expensive stuff and really need to bump our total coverage up. When I talked to USAA they seemed to baulk at the fact that Kelly and I had THREE laptops, while most of the people who read this site know that I am a geek who likes his toys would not think anything of the fact that we own three laptops. Anyway back to the point, USAA immeadiatley thought that we were trying to pull something over on them. So here is the deal, we have to provide some kind of proof that we own the stuff that we are claiming, photographic or otherwise, no big deal right? EXCEPT that all of our photos went with the laptops. Luckily Kelly has most of the recipets for our big ticket items. I can only imagine how it would have been trying to convince USAA that 700+ DVDs had been stolen, they would have called “Bullshit”. So as soon as we get everything replaced we are going to make a video of EVERYTHING that we have and place it in a safe-deposit box, and hopefully if this ever happens again we can avoid these hassels.

We are still slowly packing up, we need to pick up some more bubble-wrap to pack up our posters and tabletops, but other then those and clothes we are mostly done. Hopefully I will hear something from the moving company this week, and we can get this show on the road.

I borrowed a laptop from work and am using the wireless USB adapter that is off of my TiVo to post right now while Kelly is using the desktop computer. Luckily the robbers didn’t steal my Airport Express so after picking up a cable modem at the local Adelphia office Kelly and I once again we were able to rejoin normal society.

I don’t know if I posted this in my previous post but LAPD has to be the WORST police force in the US. They took 6 hours to respond to our call of the break-in. WE ONLY LIVE THREE BLOCKS FROM THE STATION!!!!!! I could h ave ran over there and punched the first cop I saw and ran back to the apartment and recieved a better response time. Now I know this is LA and shouln’t expect to much but damn, 6 hours…… We were actually able to get our door replaced before the cops showed up. The said they were going to send out a fingerprint unit but that hasn’t happened yet, and I’m not expecting it to. I have resigned myself to the fact that our stuff is gone and even though we have the serial numbers from our laptops and such, it isn’t likely that the cops or anybody else will recover them. Sigh…….

Kelly and I went to go see Ocean’s Twelve last night. Very Good, but again not as good as the original, but that is to be expected. I highly recommend it. I still would like to go see Blade Trinity, but Kelly isn’t a fan, so that may have to wait for DVD. LOTR:ROTK comes out on Tuesday, so I will pick that up but probably wait until we get to Kelly’s folks house to watch it, so I can watch it on Jim’s TV and Surround Sound system.

OK I’m done for now, I have to run to work and make copies of all of these reciepts to fax to the insurance tomorrow.

And not a moment to soon.

For those that don’t already know our apartment was robbed yesterday. They got all of our laptops (3), Xbox, Playstation, iPods, Cameras (camcorder, digicam), Jewelry, Luggage (gotta carry all that heavy stuff), 4 dollars worth of wine, ALL of our audio CDs and software CDs that I had in binders, all totaled equals a small fortune. The robbers where VERY brave, breaking into our apartment during the day especially with all the neighbors that we have. The sad thing is that these people had probably been in our apartment at one time or another either coming in to view the apartment over the last couple of days for renting purposes, or the countless work crews that have came through working on various things. Either way I’m blaming our building management for the lack of security, and the improper installation of the locks on our doors. If all the security measures where in place that they had promised where to be installed this probably wouldn’t have happened.

On the bright side we have less stuff to pack now, so we should come in under our weight limit. And my relocation allowance got bumped up so now I shoudln’t even recieve a bill for the moving expenses, my company should handle all of that. Now if only they would throw the car in for free everything would be great.

Speaking of the car, we got it back from the body shop and it looks really good, they even cleaned the inside, so as a reward to the car I’m going to drive it from LA to DC. The estimates that we have been getting for the car has been in the neighborhood of around $1000 and I figured that I could drive out there on about $250 dollars or so, plus I can load the car up and save on the weight or the rest of the move. So Kelly and I are probably gonna drive to CO for Christmas, and then I’m going to drive from there to DC while Kelly flys on ahead. So hopefully I will get to stay the night in St. Louis and visit Matt’s place before making the second leg of the trip.

OK I should probably try and get some work done today.

It has been a long time since we have updated, and a lot has happened (looking back to see what the last post was about). OK where to start.

So Kelly and I are moving to DC, yes tis true. We will have been in Los Angeles just 7 days shy of one year, but we are both excited to move and to start a new job. Although for the second year in a row I will be unpacking boxes on my birthday. Kelly and I have secured a nice apartment that is a five minute walk to the Metro station, and it will be sure to have power and water by the time we get there. &ltwink>

Justin is going to be moving out here to take my position, but he will probably be sitting around his pad for a month or two drawing a paycheck, what a great deal that is. I really think my new position is going to be great, it is going to be a complete upgrade for the DOJ from NT4 to 2K3 including the installation of a large SAN, and the deployment of about 11-1200 desktops. I won’t be doing the desktops, just the servers and such, but you get the idea.

OK I gotta go to work, maybe more of an update when I get there.

It became official Sunday afternoon after returning home from Missouri that Casey has the job in DC! This is a huge stress reliever but new stresses have replaced it – like moving, packing, travel, selling the 4-Runner, etc. We ARE getting movers this time and having the Civic towed, no more of the U-haul businesss. We leave Thursday morning (day after tomorrow) for an apartment hunting trip (I wish these were tax-deductible) and return Sunday night. We’re in for a busy reaminder to 2004.

Hopefully we can find out today who the list of approved movers are and get that part of it squared away. We also found out yesterday after the apartment ordeal for the first 3 months we were here that the owner is NOT going to let us out of our lease (he changed it to reflect the date that it was actually liveable) so we have 3 more months to pay on that even though we’ve technically been here for a year as of the 29th. We’re responsible for paying rent until someone else has moved in. I guess the owner is going to be advertising it in the paper. I wrote up a description last night so we can be proactive and list it in a couple of other places too.

Then we’ll list the 4-runner for sale today or tomorrow too. Hopefully that’ll offset at least one of the months we might have to pay for rent when we won’t be living here. So if anyone’s interested in a 1991 Toytota 4-Runner – $2500 OBO, new engine, transmission, and lots of new parts – tell your friends.

I *should* be able to start registering for my online classes at CSU as of today because I finally got my advising code. I’m trying to decide how best to knock out those last 35 credit – in 2 semesters or 3. Gotta wait and see how things go I guess, faster is better though.

Gotta get ready for work now but I may or may not have more to say so stay tuned.

Or happy turkey murder day as Marla would say. 😉 We’re sitting here watching the news and waiting for the food to finish up so we can EAT! I made a homemade pecan pie for today and green bean casserole – look at me, the gourmet cheef. Matt & Julie are supposed to be coming by in a few hours so it’ll be good to see them again. We’re talking about going to the riverboats again for a little gambling but I forgot our players’ cards so we’ll have the whole ordeal again but it’ll be worth it so who knows what we’re doing for the rest of the day. Tomorrow we plan on getting some Black Friday shopping in cause there are some good deals this year. Sara and Camryn will be here tomorrow afternoon and are staying till Sunday when we leave so it’ll be good to see them too. Tuesday we had a good flight coming in and the airport was surprisingly calm (big change from the pics I saw online yetserday) BUT we didn’t get an exit row cause the lady at the frontier calendar didn’t believe I met the requirements (discrimination?). When we started decending into KCI, it began snowing and was a full on storm by the time we got out of the terminal (Casey said the flakes were the size of mexicans’ heads). We rented a Toyota Corolla and made the 2.5 hour trip to Casey’s parents house (no 4WD for the snow*). So we’re just enjoying the break with family and friends and animals, the change of seasons and the peaceful sleeps. Time for turkey!!!