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As my mom mentioned in the comments of the last post, I am without an Internet connection at home, which is why I haven’t been around online much. As a matter of fact, I was without at television until late last night, when I finally got desperate enough to shove a speaker wire into the coaxial port on the back of the TV and staple the cable to the wall. I now get a grand total of six local channels. This morning I watched Ellen Degenerates interview John Travolta. They were cuddly. I was that starved for entertainment.

So, for those curious, what follows is a brief recap of the move:

I moved stuff on Friday from 8am until around 8pm. I did take a break around noon for about an hour to eat some lunch and watch a portion of A League of Their Own (turns out we had movie channels at the house. Nobody ever told me we ordered them), so really I only moved for 11 hours. I use the term “only” very loosely, as I was pretty dead by 8pm, considering I had to do most of my moving up the back stairs (a glorified fire escape, nearly vertical), the high was around 96 with 70% humidity, and my route was fuddled by a farmer’s market, and later, a concert. For dinner I got a Jimmy John’s sub and ate it lying in the middle of my living room floor. At that point, lying prostrate on a hardwood floor while eating was easier than standing.

After eating, I showered and headed back home to the party. I was nearly late, as a bunch of my friends showed up about 10 minutes after I did. I was happy, as about a dozen of the people at the party were my peeps. CuteYoungerGirl also came, but I didn’t get a chance to talk to her much, so I still don’t know if she likes me (*mutter*). I did get to talk a bit with a nice girl named Lisa, not to be confused with the other Lisa, who did not come. Later in the night some asshole kicked out all my friends while I was distracted somewhere. I got really pissed off for a while, and even almost started a fight with some kid that had nothing to do with it (he was in my way and I “moved” him rather rudely), but eventually Goodbuddy Tanner convinced me that this was my last night partying in a house I had been partying in for four years, and I should enjoy it. In the end, I did. :)

My dad’s phone call woke me up around 6:30. My alarm had been set for 6:15, but I guess it didn’t go off again. I had barely started the coffee by the time he got there, but after a cup, I was ready to go. Quinn showed up right on time and was an amazing amount of help considering he had to leave after a couple of hours. Lorenzo showed up a little later in the morning and stayed until around noon, and was also a great help. Lisa showed up at some point (I didn’t see her come in) and stayed longer than anyone. Tanner and Paul were also pretty invaluable, even if it did take me an hour to get them out of bed. ;)

Highlights from the Saturday move:

• The bar is a HEAVY mofo. We barely got it out of the house, and once we did, ~barely~ got it into the apartment. In the end, we had to dismantle the back door, dismantle part of the bar, take the bar out onto the roof, dismantle a window, and lift the bar through the window to get it in. God bless Quinn for figuring that one out, too, otherwise I’d have a really nice bar in the hallway.
• We had to use the back stairs for most of the move because of the parade. Not only did they close down Main Street, but they also closed several streets near Main, meaning we had to drive a decent amount out of our way just to get to the back of my apartment, where there wasn’t any parking anyway, because of the parade.
• The temperature got up to 99 in Ames, and I hear the heat index due to humidity was nearly 120. It felt like it, too.

I’m now around 99.8% moved in (I have a few mirrors, a chair, an exercise machine, and a couple of little things to move), but the apartment is far from set up. I’m not going to get much of a chance to finish this week, either, as I’ll be spending every evening at the house, cleaning. I was there last night from 5 - 9, and I think my bedroom is nearly Close Enough.

I’ve been moving myself into my new apartment since 9am. It’s depressing how little difference I seem to have made in that time. *g* However, it’s now time to take down the computer, which means I’ll be Net-less for a few days (unless I can get wireless on my laptop), so I thought I’d update one last time to let everyone know.

Those of you who can help me move: the starting time has been set at 7am in order to avoid as much of the heat as possible. Also, I discovered earlier today that there is going to be a ~parade~ down Main street at 10:30am, and they’re bound to block off the street at some point, so this should be an interesting move all around. :)

For those of you coming to the party tonight, show up anytime around dusk and stay until dawn. Cups will be $4, and the keg will be Miller Light (the roommies voted down my Guinness). There will be music, friends, games, and air conditioning to be enjoyed by all. If you’re in the area and I didn’t get a chance to formally invite you, you’re still invited*, so stop by.

The map below shows exactly how far I’m moving, from 525 6th ~all~ the way to 308 1/2 Main. I’ve driven between my house and my apartment at total of six times so far today. I’ve made it through two songs on my CD player. :)

*Offer excludes my mom and grandparents.

NOTE: This is part two of a (hopefully) two part series. Don’t forget to scroll down to the next entry to read the rest.

Well, I suppose the second dumbest thing I’ve done in the last week is that I forgot to post the dumbest thing I’ve done in the last entry. So, without further adieu (we’ve too much adieu as it is), here’s the dumbest thing that I’ve done this week (and possibly so far in 2005):

Last night I decided I should do a couple loads of laundry. I’d been purposefully putting it off so that most of my stuff would be clean when I moved (meaning most of my stuff was dirty), because the idea of packing dirty laundry seems odd.

Normally, when I do laundry, I check all of my pants pockets. This time, I did not. I even ~noticed~, at the time, that I did not. I thought to myself, “hmm… I’m not checking the pockets. Ah well, there’s never anything in them anyway.” Except this time, there was. There were in fact two things in my pockets.

When I pulled my clothes out of the washer to put them in the dryer, I found the first thing. It was my USB flash drive, my sole repository of far too many of my more important files. And I’d run it through the washing machine. I’d even used hot water for good measure. Amazingly, I took it upstairs, and it still works. It still goes down as one of my dumber moments.

When I pulled my clothes out of the dryer to take them upstairs to fold, I found thing number two: a black gel pen. Well, it ~was~ a black gel pen. By the time it’d made it through the washer and dryer, it was empty. Guess where all the ink was? On my clothes! That’s right. I washed, and dried, my clothes with a big black gel pen. I threw that set of clothes back in the washer in hopes the ink would come out, and put the second set in the dryer. Turns out there was a decent amount of ink left in the dryer, because a few of those came out splotched as well. And the ink didn’t come out upon rewashing.

In short, I managed to visually mar most of my favorite clothing in one go. None of the clothing was particularly ~expensive~, per se, but in terms of quantity I still probably managed to ruin a good $300 worth of clothing. Undergarments I could care less about, but now four or five pairs of jeans and probably at least a dozen of my shirts have big nasty black splotches on them. They don’t look artsy. They look, in fact, like some idiot left a big black pen in with the laundry.

When I get home from work tonight I plan to go through my stuff and determine what is salvageable and what is not. Sounds like one of the more depressing ways to spend a Thursday night. Especially considering how fun last Thursday was.

The following is a list of some of the dumb shit I’ve done in the last week. It’s not ordered in any particular manner.

Last Friday I missed two busses by less than a second. I didn’t even know that this was possible, but they both pulled away WITH ME AT THE DOOR. That pissed me off. Twice. Unfortunately, I had an 8am meeting and didn’t have time to be pissed off, so I drove to campus and parked in a metered lot. I put enough money in the meter to keep me paid for an hour and 20 minutes. I was parked for about 9 hours. I got a ticket. Even better, I forgot that I’d driven to campus and took the bus home, so I had to take the bus ~back~ to campus just to get my car.

I went out drinking Monday night with Nick “As Seen On TV” Recker (see the sidebar) and a few of his friends. Now, I’m actually glad I did this, as I had a really good time, finally got to meet Nick’s girlfriend, and met a CuteYoungerGirl to boot (I don’t think she likes me though). However, I did ~not~ wake up the next morning. I maintain that my alarm did not go off, but (very) unfortunately there was nobody else in the room to verify this, so I’m stuck with the blame. I was supposed to get up at 6am. I woke up just after 11am. I slept through an 8am meeting with Quinn, the Towers implosion at 10am, and the first few minutes of work.

Yesterday, I tripped going up the stairs to Ross. Twice. In a row. Never mind the fact that I’ve been using these stairs for six full years now. Luckily, the laughter of one A.E. Striker (to use Sarahbrown’s awesome nomenclature) was there to soften my fall.

I have not yet picked up any boxes for my move, even though said move begins in roughly 23 1/2 hours. That’s right: in 23 1/2 hours, Friday morning, I’m supposed to start moving boxes so that it’ll be easier to move furniture on Saturday.

We’re having a big party at our house Friday night, as it is Sammie’s birthday and also the last full weekend we have the house (if you’re under 40, you’re invited! If you’re Soc, you’re still invited!). This means we’ll probably be moving furniture around sleeping bodies, because…

My mom wants us to start the move very early Saturday as it is going to be hella hot and she has a tendency to nearly die any time the thermometer reads 90 or above. My goal is to have enough help that I can leave her in the conditioned apartment where she will remain undead (the undead keep better in the cold), but I have fewer willing volunteers the earlier in the day we go. Which means I’ll be doing a lot more heavy lifting than I was hoping. All this means that I should probably get a very good night’s sleep tonight, as it’ll probably be the last time I sleep until Saturday night.

I scheduled a doctor’s appointment for 7:30am tomorrow morning, meaning I won’t be getting much sleep.

Yesterday was the last day of my Linguistics class. I did not remember to tell VeryCuteGirl that, if the whole marriage and child thing didn’t work out, I’d still be around for another year. *sigh*

It’s been really busy in the office the last week! Busy for me, but especially busy for other people. It’s nearing the end of summer semester, so every grad student who will be graduating in the next few weeks is making a couple of passes through the office in anticipation of the Big Day. Until today, I had thought of this as a rather nice positive change, as there are suddenly lots of attractive women around my age in the office. Today, I realized that these women are in the office because they are Leaving. And suddenly, I have realized a major downfall of my job: the only graduate students I really have an opportunity to meet are those who are going away. Until the last month or two of graduate school, the vast majority of graduate students have no real use for the Graduate College.

In news that doesn’t depress me and bore others, I have a new tent! And it’s a BIG bugger! It’s an early birthday gift from my parents and grandparents, and it puts most other tents and some apartments *cough UniversityVillage cough* to shame in terms of size. I parked my car next to it and suddenly realized I have a rather small car. I set up my air mattress inside and laughed at how little room I took up. To make myself feel better about the waste of space, I divided the tent into a bedroom, living room, and office. I think I need more camp-friendly friends to help take up space. Anybody want to go camping?

I move in less than a week! I am excited! I think I’m going to start organizing and “packing” tonight. That, and studying for my linguistics final Wednesday. Packing is in quotation marks because I currently do not own any boxes that are not already filled with things that I moved from my last apartment and never unpacked. Some of these things could probably be thrown away. Others, such as most of my dishes, simply weren’t needed in the house but will be sorely needed in my new apartment.

I just realized that I have many, many pounds of kitchen stuffs that have been sitting in boxes, many of which were opened, for over a year. And because I don’t have a dishwasher in the new place, I’ll probably end up washing them by hand. Yikes.

I plan on going to Target the day I move in and buying things I think I need. High on this list are a new white comforter, cleaning supplies, picture frames, and many other things I’ve suddenly forgotten now that I’ve tried to list them. I’ll try again later. For now, it’s time to go home. Adieu.