July 20, 2005

Nine days until Jen and I leave Virginia and head west to towards the rest of our lives. It’s crunch time for all the details to fall into place. Utilities scheduled for activation? Check. Trailer reserved? Mail forwarded (and held)? Check. Internet, telephone, and cable carriers researched? Umm… Camping gear packed (for trip out there)? Well… It’ll get done. Oh yeah, and I still have to build a retaining wall at my grandmother’s place. Good thing the heat index is 105 º.

Good news is, I got some cool walkie-talkies for the trip! Yeah, yeah, cell phone, right? Well check out NEXTEL coverage in Kansas, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada. Get it? Besides, they’re orange!

Can anyone tell me how the hell this kind of move happened without the internet? We’re literally moving across the country to a city that we’ve never been to, and thanks to the internet been able to remotley:

• research and lease an apartment
• connect utilities,
• register for school,
• take the California DMV practice test (..oohh),
• map out our route and research camping spots,
• sell half our shit (I, to people 200 miles away),
• purchase walkie-talkies,
• have our mail forwarded to California beginning on our leave date, held in Sacramento until our arrival date and delivered to us two days later. I JUST realized how much faith I’m putting into the USPS, damn.

All of this in a matter of weeks. Moving must’ve taken YEARS to pull off back in the 70’s!