Fully Functional, Almost
So, now it's back to the unpacking. We've installed a pot rack, new lights and shelving in the kitchen, and I'm about to return to the downstairs pantry to move the shelf that the previous owners for some reason had almost at ceiling height. Not very practical.
|
The Big Day!
The cell phone is charging, so I'll post up some moving day progress photos throughout the many-hours long event. We have a binding estimate with the movers, so if it goes over their estimated 10 hours, our cost doesn't go up. They arrive at 8:30, so hopefully we'll be done by 6:30 this evening. Then it's off to a fondue restaurant for yesterday's birthday!
Signing off from the awful neighborhood forever...
|
Home Depot - Supervised Visits Only
The Girl has declared once and for all that she's never going to Home Depot by herself again. She bravely volunteered to go at lunch today, despite multiple past frustrating experiences, to pick up some spackle and a small putty knife for the various nail and screw holes in our rented walls. I convinced her, in good faith, that these were very common items and anyone in the store could tell her just where to find them. Turns I was sort of right. Four different people told her just where to find them. Of course, they each had a different answer, and the answers weren't as clear as they perhaps thought. The two she relayed to me made sense – one sent her to sheetrock and one sent her to paint. She couldn’t find it in sheetrock, and then it turned out that paint is a four aisle section, but she finally found a little kit there.
So she got the items, and now I can go around and slap a little cover up on all the wall blemishes before tomorrow evening, when the landlord is coming by. Then we can focus on the discussion of the security deposit and the final month's rent. The property management company guy tried to convince The Girl that we weren't getting our security deposit back because we had not prepaid the final month's rent, so our security deposit went to that. Of course, they didn't say anything six weeks ago when we sent October's rent along with a detailed letter explaining our recollection of events. So last night we went home and sure enough, there's our rental agreement that we've kept safe for the last three and a half years, and there's the summary of payments. At the time of signing, we paid a half month for first month's rent (we moved in on the 15th), a full month for final month's rent, and a half month for security deposit. She rang him right back and left a message about this. Funny, he hasn't called back to apologize. But we've got the signed paperwork, so we'll be looking for 3.5 years' interest on the final month's rent, plus return of the security deposit plus interest after the landlord signs off on the condition of the place (which is better than when we moved in).
This morning I loaded the kitties up for the Meow Express to my parents house for safekeeping during the scary move, then I drove over to the house to load a cooler's worth of frozen items from the apartment freezer. My mom has applied lovely light colored marble print shelf liners to the kitchen shelves and drawers, and my dad has done all sorts of little things, including building a whole new drawer to fix the one the sellers broke. The trunk from hell has been sifted through and the surviving items are packed, and the contents of both our desks are boxed up. Still have to get the speakers off the walls and pack up the electronics, and also the remaining pantry goods, and that's pretty much it! Tic-tock – less than two days to go…
|
Kitchen (mostly) Done, Trunk Tonight
On deck for tonight: The Girl will pack her desk and barrister's cabinet, and I will weed through and pack up the trunk from hell. This is an antique, brass plated, round-topped steamer trunk that The Girl's mom gave me, and it's stuffed full of, well, my junk. Shorts that are too small, goalie equipment, photo albums that have yet to be loaded with photos, VCR tapes, audio cassettes (no eight tracks…), etc. Middle Sister peeked into it while she was packing the rest of the basement, consulted with her friend and they both decided that I would have to do this one myself.
Tomorrow: I will take down the speakers that are attached to the walls and pack up any non-Tivo related electronics. DVD players, VCR (for Julie's drumming videos – she also has drumming DVD's), printer, scanner, etc. The Tivos and cable boxes have to stay intact until Saturday morning, so the Friday night shows will record. Can't miss Battlestar Galactica!
|
Massive Packing
Big, big progress on the packing front this weekend, thanks to the generous efforts of Middle Sister and her friends (the same ones that visited Biggest Sister and me at the
Still to go: take down the speakers from the walls (6 altogether) along with all the wire, finish taking down the office shelves, pack our desk contents, finish off the kitchen, and spackle in all the nail holes in the walls.
Countdown to the big move: FIVE DAYS! The movers will be arriving Saturday morning around 9:00.
We're hoping the management company can meet us at the apartment Sunday afternoon, as we're going back Sunday midday to do the final post-move cleaning. Then once they've approved the condition in writing (we want our security deposit back), we'll return the keys and we're done with the place!
|
School Marches On
So next semester it's:
- Employee Benefits Law: This course deals with the fast-changing subject of employee benefits law (well named then, eh?). The collapse of large corporate pension plans has resulted in the recent passage of the Pension Protection Act of 2006, which amended ERISA (the major federal law governing employee benefit plans). The course will examine the regulation of pension plans and welfare benefit plans under ERISA. Topics to be covered include litigation involving breach of fiduciary duties of disclosure and prudent investment, employee remedies for denial of benefits, and preemption. Other important federal laws affecting employee benefits also will be discussed.
- Taxation of Business Entities: Compares and contrasts the tax treatment of the various legal forms of business organization. The main contrast is between the double-level tax treatment of regular C Corporations and the single-level treatment of S Corporations, partnerships, and the relatively new limited liability company. The course takes a transactional approach and covers the formation, operation, and liquidation of the various business entities. This course is intended for students who are interested in specializing in tax as well as students who have an interest in a general business practice.
- UCC - Sales: Devoted mainly to the sale of goods under Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code. Major topics include the scope of Article 2, formation and modification of contracts for the sale of goods, implied terms, warranties, risk allocation, excuses for non-performance, and remedies in the event of breach. Each student is expected to acquire a mastery of the guiding principles contained in Article 2. Because Article 2 covers sales to consumers as well as commercial sales, the course includes an excursion into the law of unfair trade practices. The course also covers selected themes from Article 3 (negotiable instruments), Article 5 ( letters of credit), Article 7 (documents of title), and Article 2A (leases of goods), providing a brief introduction to these topics. Material covered in the basic course on Contracts is reviewed to a limited extent to highlight the changes made by the adoption of the Uniform Commercial Code. The subject matter of this course is heavily tested on bar examinations. Knowledge of the law of Sales is very helpful for lawyers advising on commercial transactions or engaged in commercial litigation.
A three-class semester is a good time to be taking the Taxation of Business Entities course, as it's apparently a real bear, but worth the effort. My Personal Income Tax professor, who is a self-confessed tax law addict, has already offered to provide assistance to anyone who would like it during that class (it's taught by someone else).
In addition, I signed up for my senior photo session! My pictures (in street clothes and also in cap/gown) for posterity will be snapped next Tuesday before class.
In current semester news, Negotiation continues to kick my time resource ass. Every weekend I have a choice - do I prepare for Negotiation, or do I prepare for my other three classes? Or in the case of this weekend, do I take the MPRE and then prepare for the big move? In either of the last two options, I then end up where I am now: up at 11:05 pm getting ready for tomorrow's Negotiation.
Tic-toc, tic-toc. It's November. Yikes.
|
Let the Purchases Begin
But first for me was a stop at Target. A short while later I emerged with a vertical bike rack (the bikes hang horizontally, but one goes above the other), a two bag golf rack with shelves for shoes, balls, etc., an electronic stud finder that also senses live wires, a multibit ratcheting screwdriver, some C batteries, a box of Duraflame logs (for our two fireplaces until we arrange for a delivery of firewood) and a pair of work gloves. Whee!
House accomplishments today:
- Assembled bike rack
- Assembled golf rack
- Loaded golf bags, shoes, and balls on golf rack
- Unloaded folding bike from car
- Put toilet paper in all three bathrooms
- Programmed thermostat for the coming week (see below)
- Removed all child safety annoying thingies from cabinet doors
- Tested door keys and gave one to parents, who have volunteered for cat feeding duty and any other needed coverage (such as meeting window repair people, etc.)
- Determined who gets which side of the garage, and distributed garage door openers accordingly
- Washed child-sized handprint off inside of living room window
A good day, I think! The thermostat is really cool. It controls the heat and air conditioner (obviously), and you can set it for every day of the week, with changes for morning, day, evening and night. So you can have it be cooler at night while you're sleeping, then warm up in time for when you wake up and take your shower, then cool off during the weekdays while you're at work, then warm up again for the evening, then cool off for overnight, but then on Saturday and Sunday you can have it warmer during the day than during the week. Plus you can set different days of the week for different patterns, like if you're going to work from home on Wednesdays or something. I spent a significant time getting it just right.
On the way home we stopped at the U-Haul store and waited for a really long time behind a very nice woman who just moved here from Ohio and was returning her truck with her mother. We all had Starbucks beverages and were gossiping about the couple that had been in the store ahead of all of us. The annoying couple had three small children, none of whom had on coats even though it was 44 degrees outside and the parents had nice warm fleecies on. They (the annoying couple, not the nice woman and her mother - their only issue was that they had left the furniture dolly in the driveway and blamed it on "because we're chicks") had a long tale of woe for the poor clerk who was on by himself, listening to them tell about how one truck broke down and they don't have a contract for this truck because U-Haul's fax machine broke but the manager said don't worry and wrote something on a piece of paper but he no longer works for U-Haul and I don't care to remember the rest of it.
Anyway, we left there with a bundle each of small, medium and large boxes plus four wardrobe boxes plus a china box and china packing set (foam envelopes, dividers, etc.) plus a two-wheel hand truck (ours to keep, not rented). Most of which is still in the cars because after a day like this (don't forget, I had a high stakes exam this morning), we were too tired to haul all that shit into the house. It can come in tomorrow, when we're being joined by four friends (two couples) and my sister for a big ole packing party!
Speaking of which, I have to go sort through my closet and pull out items that are being donated to the Vietnam Veterans' Association, who came last Monday and took away a mountain of boxes and bags of clothing, sheets/blankets, dishes, glasses, etc. that we don't need. They're scheduled for another pickup on Monday.
Tomorrow: Packing, packing, packing and moving oddly-shaped and/or fragile items out to the house. Anything that will either cause the movers difficulty or that will make us worry if the movers are being careful.
|
MPRE - Done
Okay, I've got my seat, I've got my admission ticket, I've got my four sharpened number two pencils, and they're handing out the bubble sheets. Oh crap. I left my fleece jacket on my seat when they originally sheparded us out to check back in and be assigned different seats. My keys are in my fleece jacket. Oh crap. Where's my jacket? Is that it on the half wall at the back of the room where everyone had to put all their stuff? Maybe the proctors swept the room when they cleared us out. Yeah, that's probably it. How will I get it back when I'm done? I guess I could just go to that jacket when I'm done, but what if it's not mine? I guess I'll just tell the proctors. I'm such a space cadet.
This is what was going through my head all during this exam that I have to take and pass before I can take the bar. Nice.
Then the little proctor boy starts reading the instructions for the bubble sheets, but he's only pausing like 10 seconds between each section, and I've got nine bubbles to fill in for my last name alone, plus now we also have to fill in a little rectangle for every blank space, so everyone's got to fill in a whole bunch of bubbles and boxes, and I keep hitting the one instead of the zero on my zip code and social security number because the zero's at the bottom instead of at the top even though zero is lower than one - Dude, slow down!!!
I finally caught up, but clearly I wasn't the only one who fell behind because when we got to the instructions about the back of the sheet, some other woman raised her hand and asked where the booklet number is that has a set of five boxes on the back in which we're supposed to write it, but the exam number on the front of the exam is six digits, and the proctor boy looked annoyed like, "Christ, I already instructed you on that, weren't you listening? You expect to be admitted to the bar and you can't even follow a freaking instruction?" and then pointed out (apparently again) that this is the tiny little number at the top of the booklet, above the bar code. Well maybe if you had stopped long enough to let us fill in the seven thousand bubbles on the front of the sheet we would have heard you when you were pointing out where to find all the tiny little reference numbers.
And where's my jacket? I need my keys! Oh, time to start the test. At 9:45.
11:15 and I'm done. I think one or two people finished ahead of me. Back to the back of the room, hope it's my jacket - yay! Oops - proctor boy is flagging me back. I forgot to sign the bottom of the bubble sheet, because I was so eager to get on with my life. Which today meant the first post-closing visit to OUR NEW HOUSE!!!!!
|
