All posts by Duf

Yesterday I met up with the installer from the counter place. He took very comprehensive measurements and was helpful in giving me some options/suggestions regarding the install. I also had him measure the bathroom cabinets. I think there is a strong possibility I will have them do them as well with the same cabinet/counter materials to have consistency in the house. I’m excited to get it done.

Last night when I got home I went into task tornado mode. I had ordered a replacement air vent that I wanted to put in place. Several of them look pretty shitty so this was going to be my test subject. Of course, I ordered the wrong size as I based it on the outside measurement instead of the hole in the drywall, my bad. I left the ladder out to install the replacements in a few days.

I then installed an adapter for my Ring doorbell cam. The doorbell placement is on the wall perpendicular to the front door so your field of view sucked, basically the opposing wall. This adapter mounts behind the Ring and allows you to rotate it up to 55 degrees. Install took maybe 15 minutes and provides me with a view where I can actually see who is at the door easily.

My final task was flipping around one of the replacement light switches I installed. This one was in the guest bathroom. Somehow I was asleep at the wheel when I put this one in and mounted it upside down, making it operate differently than every other switch in the house. After removing 4 screws and a 180 degree rotation things were back in order.

My microwave stopped working yesterday which seemed odd. I had my cleaning crew in there yesterday so my first thought was when they were cleaning the microwave they inadvertently hit some buttons they shouldn’t have. Basically when you go to heat something the light turns on and the timer starts to count down but nothing else happens. The turntable doesn’t spin and you don’t hear the magnatron either. After doing some research this morning I am wondering if somehow they activated “demo” mode which could show this behavior. I will try to do a reset tonight, I’m hoping the fix is that simple. I had to prepare my meal on the stovetop last night, gasp…..

So as I mentioned several times, my sciatic pain has been really bad for a number of months. The absolute worst time is getting out of bed in the morning when searing pain makes it hard to even walk. Over the weekend for some reason a thought came into my head. Could this be bed related?

My bed has always felt comfortable to me but at this point it is 7-8 years old I imagine. It’s one of those gel infused foam mattresses. I always sleep on the left side of the bed even when it’s only me, out of habit I guess. The idea that came to me was trying to sleep in the center of the bed where bodies typically have not been. Every night I have done this I have woken up each morning with next to no sciatic pain, wow. My unproven theory is the years of laying in the same spot has compressed that area to a degree where it allows my back to shift into a position that causes the sciatic inflammation overnight. I am going to keep sleeping in the middle of the bed the rest of the week. If I am still waking up without the pain it seems clear it’s time to get a new mattress.

On Friday afternoon I called a countertop place that I was familiar with. I wanted to get some numbers from them to do the work in the kitchen which was obscenely overpriced by FHIA. When I called the woman asked if I had some pictures of the kitchen. I sent her the Zillow link which she said was great. To my surprise less than an hour later she was able to send me an estimate just based on the pictures. The difference was staggering.

Unlike FHIA who was only going to reface the cabinets this was for brand new shaker style cabinets with a quartz countertop. The quote was 13,900 for everything, including a new stainless steel sink. It was less than half of the FHIA numbers. I was excited by this and arranged to stop over at this place on my way home so I could see the cabinets and quartz surface which both looked great to me. I paid a deposit to set up installation which will likely occur in less than two weeks, instead of the two months FHIA was talking about. I was thrilled to get what I actually wanted for a number inline with my mental estimate.

Friday night on my way home I got an urge to go out and see Shazam 2. Just for the heck of it I texted Monique to see if she would want to go on short notice. I was surprised she was good to go. I picked her up a little after 6, we grabbed a quick meal at Panera and made it to the theater a little after 7. We once again went to the Naples Hollywood 20 which is much nicer than it used to be prior to it’s post Hurricane Irma renovation. The movie was entertaining, along the lines of the first film. The Shazam take on super hero life is more light hearted than most. I’d give it a B+.

Saturday morning I slept late thanks to a delayed bed time and Unisom. I did not roll out of bed until 8:30, crazy. I did zero yard work as my lawn crew was there knocking out the mowing and weed whacking as scheduled, it’s amazing. Instead I ran to get some groceries and Costco. At Costco I went a little nuts, buying two pair of LED sconce lights for the exterior of the house as well as a new smart garage door opener, more on this later.

When I got home I turned my attention to my big to do for the day, a range test on the EX30 EUC I am evaluating. A subscriber made an interesting suggestion that I ride the wheel from the new house to the old house and back. That sounds like quite the haul but when I did the math it was totally doable with the large battery this wheel has. I headed out after eating lunch.

The 65 mile ride was long. In total I was on the wheel for over three and a half hours. It was cool taking a path that was much more diverse in terrain and visuals. I literally rode all the way to my old house. I saw they added a couple chairs to the front landing and I saw what almost looked like jet ski’s on the side of the house. Both sheds were open and the tractor was out in the yard. I thought to myself about how much work they had to do and then compared it to my new normal. I can’t say I felt like I missed the house but it was weird seeing the place I have lived in since 2001 with another set of human beings in it.

Saturday night I played pickleball with a woman I met from playing volleyball. We went over to the East Naples park which was surprisingly empty. We had to play singles for a little while before we could even find anyone available to play doubles. It was fun, she is competitive like me. We stopped after a couple hours as the bugs were really getting bad.

Sometimes I forget just how many things are different where I live now. Taking Elsa for a walk from the front door of the old house was a no go with no sidewalks and traffic flying by on a narrow street. On Sunday I leashed her up and took her around the neighborhood. It was great. As we walked I really appreciated being in this scenario and wondered why I waited so long to pull the trigger. I really don’t think I could have picked a better spot for me to land.

A good portion of the day was dedicated to getting the new LED sconce lights hung. There were a few technical challenges along the way but I was able to plow through them. I love the way the new lights look. They are also “smart” and have the ability to display any color I want which could be cool around various holidays. I got a great deal on them from Costco.

I also was able to get the mystery switches on the far wall of the garage figured out and replaced. One of the switches was a three way which controls the overhead fluorescent light in the garage, the other controls a side light which did not work. I replaced that side light with one of the new sconces as well, a sweet upgrade.

Last night before bed I hopped on the One Wheel and rode some of the streets around the neighborhood. They were basically empty allowing me to do big slow carves back and forth as I admired the homes around me. Did I mention how much I love where I live now…..

Yesterday while I was at the gym my phone rang. Since it didn’t show as a spam risk and I have various house related services going on I answered it. It was a guy I talked to around a month ago regarding the one remaining piece of land I own in Lehigh Acres. His company specializes in buying these parcels. A month ago he threw out a figure that I turned down. I countered and he said he would let me know. Well yesterday he was letting me know.

He offered me $1000 less than my counter. I split the difference again and we agreed to $500 less than my original counter. Unlike the sale of my other lot where I split closing costs with the buyer, which were close to 1k, this deal was the buyers company absorbed all of the closing costs, which is why I accepted the deal. It makes it very easy for me.

I bought this lot way back in 2003, thinking I was going to cash in on the rampant price escalation in that area back then. If I wasn’t greedy I could have sold it at one point for double what I paid for it. Instead I held onto it too long and once the market crashed I was dead in the water. For the last two decades I have been holding on, hoping the rise of real estate prices would resuscitate my failed investment. I am selling it for three times what it was at the bottom of the barrel but I still am only recouping a little more than third of my original cost.

I have spent thousands of dollars on taxes over the last 20 years on those lots, further deepening the financial misery they have become. So even though I would have liked to get more cash, it will finally remove the burden from my back and give me a some more funds I can apply to doing things at the new place. Within 2-3 weeks it should all be done and I don’t have to do much more than a few electronic signatures to complete the transaction on my end, good riddance.

Last night my task of choice was replacing the last remaining switches in the house that were old with new rocker style replacements. Once again I had to make an Ace Hardware store stop to get a 3 way switch when I discovered the garage light utilized that type instead of a 2 pole. There is a two gang set of switches on the far wall in the garage which I have not been able to determine what they control. One of the two switches is broken. When I pulled the face plate off and measured the voltage across one of the switches I was getting 75 volts, which is odd. I may have to get an electrician involved on that one if I can’t get it figured out on my own.

I also am in the dark, pun intended, about how some of the exterior lighting works. I actually asked my realtor to see if she could ask the sellers for any information regarding the switch control. There is some weird wiring in there.

This weekend I need to get some more testing in on the EX30, specifically a range test. A subscriber suggested I try riding from my new house to my old house and back, which is actually doable on this wheel. Supposedly there is also a block party in my new neighborhood tomorrow so that would be interesting to check out and a good opportunity to meet more people around me. I have plenty of things to fill in any unoccupied time as always.

I really could use some more quality social interaction to break me out of a mental funk where circular negative thoughts just keep punishing me. I’ll get there.

Yesterday morning I ran home to meet a sales rep from FHIA, the company that installed my impact windows at the old house. I was surprised to see it was the same sales rep that sold me the windows, a nice guy named Doug. So I explained to him that although I only mentioned the kitchen upgrade when I called in, I am also looking at having work done in both bathrooms as well.

FHIA does not rip out cabinetry, they reface it. My cabinet boxes are in good shape so I thought this could be a more affordable way to update the kitchen. I also indicated I wanted to go with a quartz countertop. Doug said they could also reface the bathroom cabinets and do the countertops to make everything look similar, an idea that appealed to me.

So after he took measurements of everything he pulled out his samples. He had samples of different cabinet style doors/colors. His quartz surface samples were numerous as well. I admittedly am not good at color/style matching but I came up with a cabinet door style and quartz combo I liked.

Doug got out his calculator and started adding up numbers. When he showed me the total my eyes got wide, damn close to 50k. You have to be kidding me. I was not shy about expressing my feelings about that quote, it was way, way more than I envisioned.

Doug immediately started in with ways to cut costs. His first suggestion was to have someone else do the counters, he estimated I could probably get them done for 5-7k less. It’s convenient when you have one place do everything but there are extra layers of profit taking in there as well from subs. He reran the numbers without the quartz counters in there and it was still more than 23K, which is more in line what I thought the initial quote might be, for everything.

Well these estimates were unexpected. My idea was I could get EVERYTHING I want updated on the house done for around 50K. I told Doug I would need to rethink my plan which in code meant “your pricing sucks”. I also wanted to get some work done to the master bathroom shower, the rough estimate he gave me for that alone was more than 25K, get the f out of here, that is ridiculous.

So I know have various courses of action going through my head. I went on to Angi.com, a site where established contractors can be contacted for estimates. I obviously need to speak to other contractors. I then also considered the idea of doing some of the work myself which would actually be me asking one of my friends who has a lot of handyman experience to help me. I would much rather just pay someone to do the work but I am not going to get raped financially for that convenience. The reality is the home is 100% functional as it sits now so there is no crushing need to do anything right away, if I don’t want to.

Originally last night I planned on taking a shot at putting together the stand alone pantry cabinet I bought from Amazon, two very heavy boxes were delivered to my door Tuesday evening. However towards the end of my day my friend from work that I play pickleball with asked if I wanted to go play at East Naples after work. Sure, why not, having the ability to do something spontaneously likes that, easily was part of the appeal of living where I now do.

Rich first came to the house since he never saw it. I gave him the 5 minute tour before we headed out, he liked it. When we got to the pickleball facility it was not full at all, a pleasant surprise. Rich has been recovering from an injury for 3 months so this was first time he had been back to the park in a long time. We wound up playing a total of 6-7 games. Rich was rusty at first but got better the more we played. Our last 4 games we played with two women where we rotated partners every game, it was fun. I really enjoy having the flexibility to do something like that.

So although I originally thought that deciding to play pickleball would make building the pantry a no go, I decided to crack the boxes open a little before 8PM just to see what I was looking at. I figured with 2 big boxes it was going to be quite the task.

Once I had everything out I figured it couldn’t hurt anything to start putting some of it together. As I did I realized it was actually going relatively quickly so I kept going. 90 minutes later the build was done and I had more than doubled my available kitchen pantry space. It was a very productive and fun Wednesday evening.

Yesterday I had the company that used to do the annual subterranean termite treatment at my old house out to my new place. I was interested in getting a quote to do the same for my new place as it is good peace of mind, subterranean termites can be very destructive. I have had the service for over 20 years and it cost me $350 a year to renew so I figured that was what it would cost me to get the service installed at the new place. I was wrong.

The upfront install price was $1000 plus which made me cringe. I pushed back on the guy telling him that was way more than I was expecting based on what I had been historically paying. He explained that the upfront install price is more, once I would start renewing every year the price would drop back down. I still pushed, asking if there was anything that could be done since I have been a customer for over 20 years. He said he would call his manager and see. After a very, very long time he came back in and offered me $100 off, not as much as I was hoping but it was at least something. I signed up and will have the protection installed later on today.

I also contacted FHIA yesterday, the company that installed my impact windows at the old house. I got an email about the kitchen and bath remodeling services they provide. I was more or less happy with the work they did on the windows so I figured I would get some numbers from them on doing the kitchen where I would have them reface the cabinets, install new countertops and backsplash. While the guy is there I may have him give me numbers for the work I want done in the bathrooms as well, can’t hurt.

Last night I played volleyball and had my best session so far since returning. I would dare say I played well. All of my core skills were solid. My team only lost one game out of the 6 or 7 we played. It felt good to not only perform at a decent level but also emerge without any significant physical ramifications. I play hard, despite a lot of the other players being more novice. No one comes off the court sandier than I am, ever.

Yesterday the wife of the couple that bought my house stopped in the office to grab the two garage remotes I had along with a spare key. I asked her how the move went and she said quite well. She said they are both very happy and their two huge dogs love the property as well which I was happy to hear. It makes me feel good how things have worked out all around. I said on my Friday night live stream if I wrote a script regarding how all of this worked out I don’t think I could have had a more optimal outcome. Well almost, if I am being honest.

I have a very long history of being in long term relationships for almost the entirety of my adult life, as anyone who is a regular reader of this blog already knows. In those relationships I have had many ups and downs with many issues being tied to my own actions, thoughts or behavior. I am far from perfect. However one thing I have never done is try to play games with people. Games are something I play online, not with other human beings feelings or emotions.

Over the last couple years I have been taught a lot of lessons from the school of hard knocks. The lessons keep coming, it’s a matter of me responding appropriately to what is being taught, regardless of how it pushes against my boundaries of comfort and my basic premise of doing onto others as you would want done to yourself.

I need to revel in my successful home transition, the opportunities that are ahead of me and a bright future. I don’t have the time or desire for games of that nature.

With the majority of boxes being unpacked this weekend I could turn my attention more towards upgrading and/or fixing things. Since the yard crew took care of mowing my grass and weed whacking Saturday morning I was free to get started earlier. I did the most physically demanding repair of the weekend first, which is my normal preference, replacing the garage door rubber seal.

The seal that was on there looked ancient, it was rock hard and had shrunk to the point where there was almost a foot wide gap on either side of the door when closed. After using some WD40 and pliers to get the old seal out I tried to insert the new rubber I had bought previously. Despite my struggle I could not get it in. When I grabbed a step ladder and got a close look I realized why. The old seal had a singular round bead channel, the replacement I bought was an I configuration which is what most modern doors use, shit.

So I went back to Home Depot to see if they sold a seal with the round bead, they didn’t. However what they did sell was a kit that included new aluminum rails with an I style frame with seal that is designed for this scenario. When I got home I was able to remove the old seal frame which was held on with a bunch of sheet metal screws and installed the new aluminum replacement. The new frame came in sections that you had to careful align, the last section had to be cut to length. Once the frame was installed the unfun part began, pulling the rubber seal through it.

I have done this task a couple times before but that experience didn’t make it go any faster. After feeding the first couple feet in easily it becomes a back and forth tug of war where you stuff some in the entry side and then pull on the other side. Each push and pull only moves the seal maybe a half foot at best. Since you need to cover 17-18 feet it takes awhile. I kept plugging away until the seal was covering the full length of the door. I was sweated through my shirt by the time I did my last pull.

Saturday afternoon I thought I would tackle installing the upgraded Xfinity X1 gateway that promised 10G wireless service. I have upgraded my gateway once before and it was literally plug and play. This was far from that. I initially tried activating it through an online chat. For some reason the Indian support rep just could not get it to work. After a frustrating 45 minutes I asked if a phone call would be better. He arranged to have his supervisor call me.

The supervisor had no better luck getting the gateway online after wasting another 30 minutes. During this phone call he revealed that unlike my previous upgrade, the 10G gateway would require me to redo every wifi connection I have in the house. The inability of the rep to get me online combined with this news drove me to tell him to just forget it, I would keep what I have. He was happy to oblige that request. I returned the brand new modem to the Xfinity store prior to going out to dinner. What a cluster F.

Late Saturday I also took the EX30 wheel out for it’s maiden voyage, a ride to the Dunkin Donuts. I took the back way for the first time which is likely the path I will take when I decide to take an EUC to work. It’s more scenic with less traffic albeit slightly longer. It was a great ride.

My sciatic pain was very problematic this weekend. I have become accustomed to my first 15 minutes being painful when I get out of bed during the morning but the last few days I have had pain off and on all day which is worrisome. I have been making sure to get in more of the stretching and exercises the chiropractor gave me. I think with moving I have not been able to focus on doing that. Now that I have a “normal” week I am hoping I can beat the pain down once again. It is intense when it is at it’s worst.

Sunday I again worked around the house, adding some automation. I replaced the switch that controls the exterior lights with a smart switch which allows me to put them on a schedule. I like the way the exterior lights look but having to rely on me remembering to flip a switch on and off every night just was not going to work. I also added a smart switch to control the kitchen recessed lighting which is great because I now can voice control them. I will add some more “intelligence” to the house as I find the need. I’m still in the dark regarding what some of the switches in the house control.

Later in the afternoon I loaded the EX30 up for a ride down to Marco to do some hill testing in the Indian Hill area, it was nice having the drive take half the time it used to. I did a total of 22 hills going over and back Indian Hill. The EX30 performed very well, as I expected it to.

The rest of my evening was chill, Elsa and I watched some Picard while I ate dinner as I reveled in how much I am enjoying this reboot of my everyday life experiences.

I did get an email from the new owners of my house on Friday. Evidently they wanted to fill the pool which was several inches low due to lack of rain and evaporation. Whenever I filled the pool I used water straight from the well which is smelly and has tanins which you correct with a lot of liquid chlorine. However the new owner did not know that and he instead used the hose connected to the RO system. The end result was he emptied the 300 gallon RO tank and had no water left for the house.

I apologized for not mentioning that to him during his orientation with me and filled him in on how it was supposed to go. I have a feeling it won’t be the last set of questions I get.

Last night I had the Tesla in the garage. The first time I did this I had it parked in front of the washer and dryer but the clearance is too tight. It needs to be to the left of the washer or dryer to fit comfortably. I am still using the Y splitter off my dryer outlet to charge the car and will continue to do so for now. It works fine, as long as I am not drying clothes and charging at the same time.

I have now put away enough stuff that I feel comfortable working on small upgrades/repairs. Yesterday I replaced the original doorbell with a sleek and low profile Ring doorbell. I plan to add a bunch of tech to the home over the next few months. I am still at the discovery stage however, I am not sure how everything works. There are switches in the house that I have no idea what they control. Trial and error will sort that out. I also bought a free standing kitchen pantry cabinet to ease some of the storage strain until a permanent pantry is built down the line.

My new proximity to work and the commuting time it saves me has some amazing benefits. I now get to sleep almost an hour later in the morning. Getting home nearly an hour earlier also makes me much more productive at night. I did the Ring install and a bunch of other small tasks before it was even 6:30. It’s such a game changer across different aspects of my existence.

When I was out in the yard with Elsa last night I spotted this baby bunny. It stayed as still as a statue which is how Elsa did not even notice it. I went back outside to get closer and take the picture, it didn’t move an inch, so cute.

Around 8PM, after a very productive evening I decided to take my OneWheel GT out for the first time in months. I rode up to the greenway path nearby which is not all that scenic and has no lighting. However the GT has a bright headlight and the wide path is great for big and slow carving. I rode more than 7 miles and really enjoyed it.

Yesterday I signed the paperwork related to the sale of my house. Unlike buying a house, selling one only required maybe 10 signatures, instead of 50. The actual closing occurs this morning. If all things go as planned the number in my savings account will grow exponentially by sometime this afternoon.

This weekend I plan to keep plugging away at new home related to do’s which will likely be the course of action for awhile. The difference with these to do’s are they are things I want to do instead of have to do. At this point I have everything in place I need to function normally. It’s awesome.

Yesterday was my last day off from my week long house transition “vacation”. During the morning I took what now seems like a long drive out to the old house to drop off some empty containers and boxes. I also wanted to just take a peek around the house to make sure everything was in good shape, it was.

For the second day in a row I played pickleball at lunch with my buddy Juan. Both days we have played singles which is much more physically demanding but my body held up thankfully. It took me 5 minutes to get there.

During the afternoon I packed up and shipped out the massive EX20S EUC that I have been trying to sell for awhile. I got less than I hoped for it but it still is a nice little chunk of money to put towards new home improvements/expenses. The box for the thing weighed 120lbs. Because of the size of the box there was no good way to lift it without putting a lot of pressure on my back.

During the down times during the day I worked on more unpacking. At this point I bet I have less than 10 boxes to empty which is incredible. I am still finding stuff to throw out, despite it making the journey to the new address. I am really pleased with the condition the house is in 5 days after moving in. I remember when Ali and I moved into the house we built, we had boxes in the garage for months.

My sciatic pain has been worsening the last few weeks. The first 15 minutes after getting out of bed is the most excruciating. I walk around like a cripple until it loosens up. Last night I had to get up to pee and wound up on my knees with my head on the rug for a few minutes to let that area relax, it’s out of hand.

Part of this is because I have been away from my normal daily routine which includes visits to the gym. Normally every day I am doing stretching which includes stretches for this issue. For whatever reason when I am not at work I find it very challenging to make myself set aside the time to do the stretching. I need to fix that as the level of pain in the morning is unreal at times. Once I am up and moving it subsides and as documented here I am still able to do things like play pickleball and volleyball. However I dread getting out of bed now. I am hoping returning to work and my new normal routine along with additional stretching at home will beat the pain back. If not I will schedule another visit with the chiropractor for some more extreme solutions.

Today I am signing the paperwork for the sale of my home. The closing is technically tomorrow but I am allowed to sign early so I am doing that today. By doing so I should be performing the last step in completing the sale of my home of 22 years which will be celebrated by a chunk of money getting wired into my savings account sometime tomorrow.

I can’t go into minutia about the move as there is a lot of blurring of timelines, so much has transpired in the last 5 days or so. Those of you that like to skip to the end, let’s just say it went well.

Thursday and Friday were a dash to get as many things ready to go as possible, both at my old house and the new one. All week I had been making shuttle runs with the truck getting smaller items that filled spaces like the kitchen, the bathrooms, and the closet already staged and ready to go. Friday all remaining tech was pulled down including the TV’s, the house was ready to go.

The plumbing was also fixed on Friday but I still had a big hole in the wall to fix. I talked to my neighbor about the repair, he has more drywall fixing experience than I did. The other issue was almost all of my tools were packed so we used a combination of my stuff, what I had left, and stuff I bought from the local hardware store AND Home Depot.

I used measurements to cut a piece that was approximately the right size and shape. I had to get the drywall from Home Depot. I was thrilled to see they sold 2′ x 2′ sections just for repairs instead of my having to buy a big huge sheet of drywall. Walt did the taping and mudding of the joint, which he did a total of three times. I did the finish work, sanding it down and eventually painting it. Because of some shitty things the builder did, the piece had a bit of a bow to it but we managed to hide it pretty well. The fact that it’s behind the washer makes it even less significant.

Walt also helped me get the washer and dryer from the old house in place. The dryer was actually wider than my Samsung dryer, requiring us to remove the laundry room door to squeeze in place. We eventually got it all in, reconnected, and tested, thank goodness.

I set my alarm for 6AM Saturday. The movers were supposed to arrive between 8:30 and 9:30. I zipped around the house, stripping the bed and grabbing the few remaining items I could see. As I walked around I paused for a few moments and tried to wrap my head around the idea that I would never sleep in this house again. The reality felt strange.

I heard the big truck pull up somewhere close to 9. Three guys hopped out, the crew lead Dante with two younger guys, Anthony and “A”. I took them around the house, showing them what was staying and going. They seemed pleased that a lot of the stuff was staying put, I didn’t blame them. They got busy, prior to moving a piece they enclosed it in a blanket and then used plastic wrap to seal it in which was nice. While they moved furniture I resumed my quest to button up anything that was left to do.

I assumed they would have a lift gate on the truck but they did not. Instead they just had a long ramp that they carted everything on, it seemed to work out well. The crew worked fast and in less than two hours the truck was loaded and ready to go. They said they would meet me there.

On the way to the new house I stopped at an ATM to grab cash to tip them which I assumed was customary. When I got to my house they were already there, setting up the ramp to unload. Once again I played traffic cop showing them where each piece was going as it came off. Unloading took less time than loading which was great. The other great thing is because things went so quickly my bill came in more than a third less than I was originally quoted, awesome.

Right as the movers were winding up Don showed up. He was going to drive me back to the old house so I could pick up my truck, I drove the Tesla to meet the movers. He did a quick walk through of the new place and understood why I like it. I told him I would buy him lunch for the favor so we stopped at Tacos and Tequilla on the way to the old house. It was a well needed break in the action. While we were at the house we loaded another set of smaller boxes into the back of Don’s Jeep which left enough stuff that I could grab in one more visit.

We unloaded at the new house and I told Don I was good to go, only I could really do the unpacking and make the decisions of what went where. I thanked him for his help and told him I will have him back over to hang once I am all settled in.

The next few days were just a constant stream of tasks. I tried to be somewhat focused, trying to handle one space at a time. The bathrooms and bedrooms were pretty straightforward. The garage was the staging ground where all of the boxes went, I just started pulling and emptying.

The most challenging room was the new hobby room/office. Not only was I combining functionality that was split across two rooms at the old house, I was putting it all into a room that is a smaller than either of those rooms at the old place, quite the challenge. It took some trial and error but eventually I came up with what you see in the picture and I am quite happy with it. I have one left over 6 foot workbench that I will wind up giving away but I should be able to do what I need to do.

I ran to Ace Hardware multiple times to grab things, it’s amazing to have it less than a mile from the house. This is a theme that has repeated itself many, many times over since I have been here, the joy of having everything I need in my nearby proximity. My first night sleeping here on Saturday went well, really well. I didn’t wake up until 8:30 from a combination of exhaustion and Unisom.

The work has continued at a steady but not frantic pace. The consistent effort has resulted in my being much further ahead in the task than I expected. Even the garage is looking pretty damn good at this point. I hung pegboard yesterday and cleaned up the rolling chest.

To charge the Tesla I am using a splitter cord off the dryer outlet for now until I get a permanent solution installed, it works which is all that matters, for now.

I even found the time to go out on a brief ride on my Sherman S. I had a ton of comments from viewers saying they can tell how happy I am. I’m glad it shows.

Yesterday I met my buddy at lunch to play pickleball, it took me 5 minutes to get there. I then played volleyball last night, it took less than 15 minutes to get there. You see the pattern. Tomorrow I am signing the papers for the sale of my house and then that’s that. It’s time to close the book on one two decade long chapter and begin a new one. 2023 is going to be great.