This past weekend Jessica and I moved from our apartment in St Petersburg to a condo in Belleair (just south of Clearwater). We made the move so I could be closer to work (2.5 vs 15 miles).  It adds about 10 minutes to Jessica's commute, but she only goes to school about 3 days a week.

The condo association does not permit residents to move in on the weekends.  So I took Friday off and rented a U-Haul truck.  I reserved a 17' truck, planing on getting everything in one trip.  When I went to pick it up, they told me they had rent it out last night on an emergency call.  They gave me a 15' plus some discounts: flat rate of $35 (no mileage) and a free dozen blankets.  Leon, the guy I talked to, was really nice.

We were fortunate to have Danny and Joel come over to help (since most people work).  We loaded the U-Haul truck up with all of our big furniture except the sofa and the computer desk.  We also got some other small boxes loaded.  Then we drove to the new place.  Jessica got us some pizzas for lunch.

After lunch, Harry the maintenance guy was there setting up the elevator and the hall way for us.  He didn't say much, but was very helpful.  He brought out different types of tools to help us move based on the type of items he saw.

After a few hours we mentioned to Harry that we were going back for another trip.  That's when things started to get hairy.  He said to check with Don, the association president about moving after hour.  I was confused.  I talked to Don and it turned out no vendors (including trucks) were allowed in after 5pm.  I told him that nobody told us about this.  Of course he said he did and that it was also in the booklet.  I called Jessica (she was back at the old apartment) and she was very upset.  She looked up the booklet and nowhere did it mention anything about the 5pm rule.  We want to follow all of their rules, but we can't if we don't know them.  This particular building is the only one the does not allow vendors on weekends either.  So we had to reschedule Bright House to come back on Monday to install our internet.

We considered rushing back to get the rest of the stuff with the truck, but didn't want to risk not being able to get back in.  So we finished unloading what's left in the truck and just returned it.

We went to Mama Fu's for dinner.  Then Joel went back to Orlando.  Danny stayed the night and went back to Miami the next morning.

Without the U-Haul truck, it took Jessica and I three more trips on Saturday and two on Sunday to get most of the stuff over.  Good thing they were small boxes and clothes, so we didn't break the rule (no moving furniture on weekends). We're planning on moving our sofa and the computer desk sometimes this week.

Stay tuned for more pictures once we're settled in.

                   

Click here to download:

2010-02-19_Moving_to_Belleair.zip (1458 KB)

I started a new blog about bad parkers. These are not random pictures of any bad parkers.  But pictures of the ones who park near my car.  Hopefully the posts will be few and far between =)

You can view it at Learn How to Park.

2009.11.21
We drove back from Gainesville to Jacksonville tonight, around 9pm.  What a surprise, no construction was happening!

Original Post
My wife and I drove up from Tampa to Jacksonville for the weekend.  We usually take I-275 to I-75 to 301 to I-10.  Today's trip went pretty well.  There were a good number of cars, but the traffic was moving well... until we hit I-10.

We got on I-10 around 6pm, before we hit stop-and-go traffic.  After 30 minuites going about 3 mph, we saw some signs indicating left lane ends, merge right.  When we got to the bottleneck, we saw this huge construction vehicle/structure/thing that was in the median, but close enough to the road to block off the left lane (this section of I-10 Eastbound is a two-lane road, so with the construction, all the traffic got squeezed down to one lane).

Why they didn't place the structure in the middle of the wide area between I-10 Westbound and I-10 Eastbound, I'm not sure.  They probably had a good reason for it.  But why they decided to work during rush hour is just plain sucky.

It took us about 45 minutes to get passed the construction (normally it would take about 10 minutes).  So we made it to Jacksonville about 30 minutes late.  Not too bad.

Last week (Thursday July 30, 2009) I won a used copy of Ace Combat 6 (Xbox 360) on ebay for $19.50.  I promptly paid via paypal.  I was pretty excited because I've been talking with my friends who were all getting it so we can play online together.

From Buyer - Karn Ratana-Aporn
8/6/2009 07:31 PDT
I won the item last week (July 30, 2009) and promptly paid for it via paypal. It's been a week. The item doesn't appear to be shipped. I tried contacting the seller three times with no response.

From Seller - Aaron Childs
8/6/2009 14:55 PDT
Whoa there. I have 248 positive feedback. Pardon me, I sent all the games out earlier in the week, so I have not checked my email in days. Rest assured you will receive the item as it was shipped earlier in the week. Will scan a receipt of the postage paid to ship you the item, and send it to PayPal if this escalates any further.

From Buyer - Karn Ratana-Aporn
8/6/2009 15:09 PDT
I will wait. But I would appreciate it if you could at least mark the item in ebay as shipped. Not getting any kind of response was a bit unnerving.

From Seller - Aaron Childs
8/10/2009 15:51 PDT
A bit unnerving? You obviously didn't read what I just posted.

From Buyer - Karn Ratana-Aporn
8/10/2009 17:42 PDT
Yes it was unnerving after paying for the item within the hour then not knowing the status of the item for a week (including no reply to my messages). At the very least, marking the item on ebay as shipped would have helped.
Anyway, I received the game today. It is in good condition. Thank you.

I received the game today.  But it was postmarked August 7, 2009 (a day after he responded).  I don't know if he would ever ship the game had I not raised the dispute.  Anyway the game is in good condition and I'm pretty happy with the production, but not so much the buying experience.  I decided not to leave a feedback for him.