Crazy, crazy, crazy. We finally made it after a month of hectic packing, planning and last minute visits with friends. The last time I wrote it was still 2004 and we had just pretty much figured out that we were going to make the move. Since then, everything has happened. Happy new year, by the way.
First of all, I did manage to get the pictures of Jay and Jen’s wedding up, which I had promised like two months ago but never managed to do.
The holidays were alot of fun, if not extremely busy. As with the last couple years, we had to pull off three families within a day and a half period, which was pretty brutal, but extremely fun. I made out really well this year, with a portable speaker system for my iPod, a ton of great movies and books, some cool gear and some gift certificates to equip us in the new house.
New Years was spent at Killer Dave’s pad in Hoboken, where we consumed ridiculous amounts and danced around like idiots. It is pretty crazy to think that I will not see Dave for a while, but it’s even more reason to convince him to come out to California. Pictures are here.
The next weekend, Bill and Lori threw Jen and I a fantastic going away party at their new house down near the shore. They let us invite a ton of friends and had lots of great food and wine. As you can see from the pictures, we ended the night with a fanfare of singing, air-guitar madness. What you can’t see was the obligatory greasy diner breakfast that followed the next morning. Again, this was another weekend that tugged at the heartstrings, as we were able to play with a ton of good friends that we won’t see for a little while.
The movers arrived on the 10th and luckily the whole move-out session only took about 3 hours since we had done a really nice job packing. After that, it would be about 14 days until we would see our stuff again. Before that, there would be a few twists and turns.
I would arrive in San Francisco on the 21st after a couple weeks in transit, carting my valuables with me to Cleveland and finally to San Francisco. Within moments of beginning the walkthrough of our new apartment, I learned that our bedroom was completely overtaken by mold. Yes…mold. I told the management office what I saw, and was a bit afraid that they would not be cooperative at first, but luckily, the responded properly. They said that they could not allow us to live there and gave us a bigger apartment for the same rent; we also managed to get a month’s rent back. As luck would have it, our movers also called to say they would not make it until two days later, which made things convenient. I would spend the next two nights sleeping on an aerobed, changing addresses for the second time and stocking up on supplies. I also managed to get together with Stacys’s sister Tracy to check out the Pelican Inn in Muir Beach. By the end of the weekend, we were completely moved in and left with the task of unpacking. The only thing that would be left was Jen’s car which would take a whole additional week to arrive because of the stupidity of the company that we used (no names mentioned here, but just ask and I will tell you).
This past weekend, we finished unpacking the majority of the stuff and checked out an amazing brewery called Iron Springs in Fairfax on Saturday night. On Sunday, we got together with Tracy and had an awesome brunch followed by a stroll through a bunch of the more touristy areas of the city like Twin Peaks and Fisherman’s Wharf. Some random pics of the day are here. I pulled off another red-eye flight back to work this week, and I can say that these things are just not fun. I think I will be exploring some different travel options soon. In other news, Jen had her first day at work today and all reports indicate that things are great.
Overall…I want everyone to know that I miss them very much, even though the whole thing really hasn’t sunken in yet. I am hoping that the distance makes me work three times as hard to stay in touch with people (which is not much, since I am terrible at it now). The plus is that we are now living in one of the greatest cities in America and have an extra room for all of our friends to come and visit. You know who you are. Just let us know when you are coming.
And now…it’s bedtime, since it’s a schoolnight and the wine from tonight’s team dinner has taken it’s toll. Ciao for now.