The Move to Atlanta
I doubt there is anyone that hates moving as much as I do, but for someone that hates moving, I sure do it a lot. Actually, I don't hate moving in the sense of going somewhere new, in fact I'm quite fond of that. But the physical process of moving just plain sucks.
For those that don't already know, I recently took a job with Magenic in Atlanta office . I was pretty much living in Redmond/Bellevue right before coming here and I could definitely get used to Redmond. About the only thing not to like about Redmond is the traffic. Miami had pretty bad traffic, but I lived downtown and it didn't confront me much. As bad as it got though, it seemed nothing compared to Redmond. Seattle traffic seems to pale in comparison to Atlanta traffic. However to some extent I suspect that which is most proximate makes the strongest impression on you. I was commuting for a while but the good folks at Magenic helped me get situated and for now I got a apartment in the Perimeter/Dunwoody area. It's working out pretty nice b/c it's 1/10th of a mile away from my current gig located at the King and Queen .
I pretty much finalized the move last weekend and it was the worst move I've ever had. I got out of work really late on Friday which means that you effectively sit in a parking lot for a few hours trying to get out of the city. I wanted to make up some of the lost time so I got a little happy with the accelerator. I stopped to get gas and got a little lost and low and behold, the 55mph zone magically turned into a 35mph zone with a cop sitting right at the edge of it. So I got a ticket. That took up time which I really didn't have.
Saturday I got cracking first thing in the morning. It was a comedy of errors. I have a Select Comfort mattress which caused a lot of my issues. If you don't have one, you won't understand. They are made in such a way that you can deflate and disassemble them and stick one in the trunk of your car. I forgot about the fact that they deflate when the pump isn't plugged in. So although I tied it down, it flew out of the back of the truck. I got to Atlanta and noticed something was missing. So Kim and I hurried up and unpacked and drove back to Augusta to find it. Low and behold, we found it. The compressor disintegrated on impact but other than that, it was laying on the side of the road unscathed. Now, a Select Comfort matress without the pump is like, in the words of the illustrious Orange Juice Jones, "Kone flake widdout da milk". Fortunately, I live right across the street from Perimeter mall which had a select comfort store. They didn't have a pump but they ordered me one and get this - they actually let me borrow one until it got here. If you don't have a Select Comfort mattress, you don't know what you're missing.
But alas I forgot about the most critical detail of Friday. We don't have to take out or own garbage here, we actually have Valet garbage pickup. Being that the bin is three doors down I usually just take it out myself but figured, what the heck, I'll let the Valet pick it up. Big mistake. When I got home, I got a Door notice with the following highlighted:
- All Trash Bagged and Tied Securely/Placed in container
- No Loose Trash
- Boxes tapen and flat in bundles
- Newspaper and magazines taped in small bundles
I was like, WTF? I had one magazine, three styrofoam takeout boxes , and an empty bottle of Diet Coke in the thing. I could have taken the crap to the garbage shoot in 1/2 the time it took the guy to write me hate note. I know, this sounds so insipid it strains credulity but believe it or not, they actually have a Garbage Valet . Ok, understand that I'm a little biased here after getting my ego crushed by the Garbage Valet but this has to be the stupidest business idea on earth. There's a 12 item checklist, 8 of which I got right without intending to. But if you have to go through a f**cking checklist to save yourself 30 steps, it's counterproductive. So I guess it's a status thing to have a garbage valet but being that I can't bring myself to say "I have a garbage valet" without bursting into laughter, I'm not sure it's going to impress anyone other than people with a garbage fetish. There roof of the building is an entertainment area, tennis courts, barbecues and a bunch of crap like that. I wonder if there's a law against firing water balloons off of the top of buildings in an attempt to get even with the cocky garbage valet.
Anyway, I'm about to go on a few serious tirades about why Access should be outlawed, why using SQL Keywords as object names is a stupid idea and a whole lot of other database snobbery so I wanted to at least make mention of the mess that is my life. If anyone knows where I can get a water ballon launcher, please email me!