Movin' On Up

Last week I blogged about the impending move from Decatur, GA to Alpharetta, GA. I fully expected this week's blog to be an anger filled rant about how much moving sucks, blah, blah, blah. Surprising, it's not. It's about how smooth everything went despite some very very minor hiccups.

Wednesday morning started early. We got up between 5:30 and 6:00 AM to finish up last minute packing of items that we needed right up until time to move. The movers, Two Men and a Truck, were scheduled to arrive between 8:30 and 9:00 AM. At 9:15 AM, Roxanne called them to find out where they were at and was informed they were running a bit late that morning. And thus, I thought, was the indication of how the day was going to go moving forward; the movers are late, the day must be destined to reside in the plane of suck. However, once the movers arrived and got started (at 9:45 AM), everything started rolling from there. First of all Two Men and Truck ended up being three men and a truck as they had dispatched an extra guy. It only took them an hour to get everything loaded into the truck (including the couch). So, by 10:45 AM we were rolling out to the new place. Thirty minutes later, we arrived at the Alpharetta address. Being that the new place is a townhouse and not an apartment on the third floor, the unloading took much less time and they were done at 11:45 AM on the button. Yep, it only took them two hours to get us completely moved! They charge by the hour, with a two hour minimum charge and we had estimated 3-4 hours and based our budget on it taking five. So, the fact that they managed it within the minimum was not only impressive, but it meant we had money left over for things like groceries or other sundries we might need for our new home. Not only were the guys fast, but they were professional and had great customer service skills too. So, thank you Demarkus, Jamal and Eddie for doing such a great job!

The quick move by Two Men and a Truck also made the finalizing of getting out old place go better than planned as well. See, we had scheduled the gas company to turn on our gas sometime between Noon and 4:00 PM the day we moved in, which meant at least one of us had to be at the house. Seeing as how Roxanne was not actually on the lease at the old place, she couldn't very well do the walk-through and key turn in there. So, I headed back down to Decatur after unloading our cars while Roxanne started putting things away and waited on the gas company. We really hated the apartment complex we were leaving, so to be honest, the “cleaning” I did was about as half-assed as you could get – quick wipe down of the counters, quick once over with a vacuum, and took out the trash and I was done. What's really sad to me is that the walk-through took about three minutes. They really didn't inspect a damn thing except to make sure we hadn't torn down any walls or major things like that. That place is such a slum I feel kind of bad for the people who still have to live there. I signed the walk-through sheet, gave them the keys and made sure that they had my new address and the new address of my former roommate so they could mail us our deposit refunds and headed back to Alpharetta, well before Atlanta's infamous rush hour traffic began. By the time I had returned, the gas company had been and gone and Roxanne had made a start of unpacking stuff that we would need right away.

Day two began, for me anyway, at 6:30 AM, mainly because I'm so used to getting up early that my internal clock wakes me up even if I don't have to be up that early. AT&T was scheduled to arrive between 9:00 AM and 11:00 AM to install my TV and Internet service (sidebar here – don't you just love how companies schedule appointments for such broad time range of when they might arrive?). I was pleasantly surprised when my phone rang at 8:30 AM. Our installer was already en route. Wilson arrived ten minutes early, was very professional and courteous and, despite having to put in a ticket to actually get the signal sent to the house, the whole install only took two hours even though all the paperwork when I signed up for the service said to prepare for it to take up to four hours.

So with the exception of a very few minor glitches, everything has fallen into place and the move went way smoother than any other move I've ever done before. We just need to finish the rest of the unpacking, get some décor on the walls and restock the fridge and pantry and it's 'Home Sweet Home' (for the next fifteen months, at least). Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go watch some of the stuff I've DVR'ed over the last few days. *wink*

~ JC