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Nick and Marie's move to Seattle |
Still no cows. It’s a wonder where the cheese comes from.
I just killed a spider that was dangling in front of me and I was even able to maintain my composure! If Nick knew, he’d be so proud of me. 😛
Looks like we’ll definitely make it to Minnesota tonight. We’re only 70 miles from the state border. Maybe this will be a 3-day trip after all, hehe. 😉
We’re driving through Wisconsin right now. Nick’s in the Smart Car and Grandma’s driving the Escape. I’m riding shotgun in the Escape to recover after a stressful time in the Chicago area lol. 😛 We haven’t seen a single cow in Wisconsin yet.
Seems like we’ll make it to Minnesota today… or at least pretty close. Woohoo!
Made it to the airport and acquired Grandma. Now to figure out how to get back on the interstate.
I’ve been working in the Marketing department at Wayne State for more than 4 years now. Marie has also been working in Marketing since February, filling in for our content administrator while she was out on maternity leave. So today is our last day working here (together) and it feels so weird. It’s been an easy day so far; I’m just tying up some lose ends and getting ready to delete my user account off this computer *gulp*.
The awesome folks we work with made this for us to remember them by.
The MAC Staff
They printed and matted it so we’ll have to pick up a frame once we get to Seattle. I’m sure going to miss everyone here, but I’ll be in touch on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, instant messenger, email, phone, etc. From what I know so far, it seems like the folks at the UW iSchool are as awesome as my current coworkers, so I think I’ll feel as at home and welcome there there as I do here at Wayne.
Nick and I just left the apartment and we are headed to his mom’s for the next two nights. I’m blogging from the car while Nick drives. 😛
We are so exhausted, sweaty, and achy… definitely looking forward to a shower and a comfy bed. A BIG thank you to everyone who helped load up the relocubes today: Nick’s mom and dad, Harry, and Mike and Cherie. We appreciate it SO much and couldn’t have done it without you.
It’s weird that (almost) all of our things fit in two moving containers. It’ll be a big relief once they arrive at our new apartment in Seattle. Looking for volunteers to help unload in Seattle on July 14 and maybe also July 15. We’ll feed you. 🙂 <3
Tomorrow is our last day of work and we have some cleaning to do at the apartment after we get off work.
Soooo exhausted…!
Our Relocubes from ABF have been delivered! They were scheduled to be delivered yesterday in the afternoon, but the folks at ABF called us up yesterday and let us know that their fleet of 2 delivery trucks was reduced to 1 and our cubes were going to be delayed. They were pretty cool about it though, and the poor guy who was delivering must have been working his butt off. They kept us updated throughout the day and our cubes were finally at our apartment at 11:30pm. It worked out well though since we were at my Dad’s for a going away party from 6-10. He only lives 5 minutes away, so we were ready to leave temporarily to accept delivery should they have been delivered then.
Since I’m such a geek, I setup a webcam pointed out our window that takes pictures on movement detection. (Geek notes: I’m using a mac mini + Periscope + a logitech c910. The picture quality is normally better with that webcam, but it’s behind a screen). Here’s a shot from the cam of the cubes and us (we’re in the smart car) leaving for work this morning. The pictures from the cam are pretty boring… If they were more exciting I think I would have made a time lapse video from them, but I don’t think it’d be worth looking at right now.
Our going away party at Dad’s place went well. Marie and I both had a ton of fun in spite of the Relocube delay. It was great having everyone together, and the weather was perfect. We’ll definitely miss our family and friends here in Michigan, but luckily the internet will make that more bearable than the pre-internet days (seriously, what did people do back then?).
Tonight is loading day so we’ll be packing the cubes and getting them ready to go across the country tonight. We’ve already recruited some helpers and we plan to feed them pizza too. I bet you’re all jealous that you don’t get to help now, aren’t you?
Yesterday, we visited Nick’s aunt and cousins. We talked about the move and what life is going to be like in Seattle. Hopefully, they’ll come visit us in Seattle soon. 🙂
Bulgogi at Wasabi
Today, we had our farewell lunch at Wasabi (Korean & Japanese restaurant in Detroit) with our Marketing coworkers. My Computer Science friends introduced me to Wasabi’s awesomeness while I was still in school and it’s within walking distance of Marketing, so it was an obvious choice for our farewell lunch. Nick and I got bulgogi, which is Korean barbecued beef. It was served with miso soup, fried rice, fresh fruit, two gyozas, and 3 California rolls. Om nom nom! It’s hard to believe that we’re only going to be at work for another two days (we both have tomorrow off). We’ll be driving out to Seattle before we know it!
Marie and her Computer Science buddies at Buddy's Pizza
After work, we headed to Buddy’s Pizza to meet with some of my Computer Science friends. Buddy’s Pizza is “Detroit’s #1 square pizza since 1946” and my friend, Yuk, was probably going to kill me if I didn’t try it before we left. We split a Detroiter pizza (cheese, pepperoni, tomato basil sauce, parmesan cheese, and spices) and a Super pizza (cheese, pepperoni, onions, green peppers, mushrooms, and ham) between the six of us. Very yummy. 🙂 Time sure flew while we were there, though; we spent four hours chatting at Buddy’s. 😛
Marie and Nick at Buddy's Pizza
In other news, it seems almost certain that we will need two relocubes in order to fit all of our stuff. We have more things than we thought we did! At least with two relocubes, we’ll be able to bring things with us that we though we’d have to leave behind (like our couch, the TV stand, maybe our coffee table, etc.).
Nick and I still have a bit of packing to do and we have to clean our apartment before we leave, so I’m glad we have tomorrow off. We’re going to be busy! Tomorrow night, we’re going to Nick’s dad’s for dinner with all of Nick’s family.
We have more stuff than I realized. My mom gave us a bunch of boxes last weekend when we were over at her place going through some of my old stuff, but it turns out that wasn’t enough.
So, we were lucky enough to get some more boxes from Paul, over at CMP. He hooked us up with some nice boxes and packing tape and now I think we’ll have enough boxes. Getting free boxes has certainly helped make this less painful. Thanks go out to both my mom and Paul!
We have stacks of boxes all over our apartment, our walls are nearly bare and our bookshelf is eerily empty. It’s weird to see our apartment in such disarray. I can’t wait to get on the other side and start the unpacking.
In other news, we ran the oven through the cleaning cycle and while I was out picking up some other packing supplies. Marie had to deal with a smoke detector that kept going off and she couldn’t reach to unplug it (we’ve already disassembled our chairs). She fanned it with an unassembled cardboard box to get it to stop.
We packed up everything in the kitchen today, so from now on we’ll be eating out. We have plans already most nights so it shouldn’t be a problem. We also put the old door knobs back on our bedroom and bathroom doors. They were originally crappy plastic ones that we had replaced with some nice stylish door knobs we picked up Home Depot. I also put the crappy old thermostat back on and packed our nice programmable one.
So overall now I’d say we’re 85% packed. We’ll have Wednesday to finish up and get everything ready to load into the Relocubes on Thursday. Already recruited some helpers for that; thanks Mom, Dad, Harry, Mike & Cherie.
One last note, I added an email subscription widget (over on the right). Just stick your email address in there and you can subscribe to get updates when we make new posts.
There are a few funny things about Michigan that I’ve learned about since moving here. Here are just a few. 🙂
Fish flies
Well, we sure aren’t going to miss fish flies. Most of you probably don’t know what a fish fly is, so I’ll get to that in a minute.
Today, we went to Sammy’s (Paul’s daughter’s) graduation party with Nick’s mom and her boyfriend, Harry. Paul always throws great parties and this one had a Chinese theme.
The bugs in the picture are called fish flies (or, apparently, mayflies). They come around in swarms for a few weeks at the beginning of summer each year. Each fish fly only lives for a day or two. They don’t sting or bite, but they sure get everywhere. Nick’s mom tells a story about driving on a road covered in dead fish flies and hearing an unending “crunch, crunch, crunch.” Ick!
Nick and I live (at least for another week!) just far enough away from the water that we don’t encounter fish flies, but Paul lives right on the water, so he gets a ton of them at his place. They weren’t as bad today as they have been in years past, but there were still plenty of fish flies at the party today and I’m not sure this picture quite does it justice. In spite of the fish flies, it was still a good party… good food, good weather, and good people. 🙂
Jobbie Nooner
Another Michigan oddity is Jobbie Nooner, which took place yesterday. Jobbie Nooner is sort of a Mardi Gras-style party in which people take their boats out to an island and spend the day partying. Needless to say, Nick and I have never taken part in it. 😛
No Need for Maps
Probably my favorite Michigan oddity is how people from Michigan use their hands as maps. When you take your right hand and turn it palm-side up, it resembles the state of Michigan. So, it’s not at all uncommon for Michiganders to point at their hands to indicate where in the state places are.
In other news, Nick and I started to tackle the kitchen today. We gave his mom most of our perishables, we packed up our pots and pans and a set of dishes, and we packed a couple boxes of pantry items. Tomorrow, we have all day to pack. Hurrah!
Nick and I got a lot accomplished today. We took the cars in for checkups at the car doctors, acquired a few more boxes from CMP, deposited a box of rolled change at the bank, spent a small fortune on special packing boxes and moving blankets from U-Haul, and packed some more boxes. Boxes, boxes, boxes! 😛
We’re worried that we won’t be able to fit everything in one relocube. I’m glad we’re having two delivered just in case we need a second one.