And so begins our journey to Kansas. Today marks day one for travel. This past weekend was filled with packing, loading, visiting with friends, cleaning, packing, goodbyes to friends, loading and some more cleaning. Follwed up with a six hour drive and we’ve made it to Onterior, OR. Staying at the Motel 6 with the two pups and cat… and we’re completely exhausted.
Leaving Portland today was hard… but not impossible. It’s a pretty bitter sweet experience leaving. Lots to miss, but so much to look forward to. Commencement. Here’s to the next chapter!
So. I’m attaching some photos for fun and stuff but getting delirious, so no more typy typie.
Well we’re mostly moved out of 9300 N Burr, and close to settled into 46th Ave. Here’s the progress of the move out.
9300 moving out progess
Would have larger images, but my phone crashed before I got the images off… anyway, more to come later.
I can’t be believe how long it’s been since my last post. Nearly a month! I honestly couldn’t say if it’s been because I’ve been that busy or that boring for the past month. So, here I’ll try a little recap.
First off, this past weekend Laura and I signed a lease for a new place here in Portland. We’ll be moving at the end of October. We’re pretty excited about having a new location, but will definitely be sad to leave this house and of course our awesome landlord Erin. This house has really been awesome to live in and it still amazes me how much we lucked out finding it on craigslist. So why are we leaving?
Reason #1, because this neighborhood sucks. I’m sorry to all the die hard St John’s lovers out there, but I’ve gotta be honest here. St John’s has a lot of good qualities and it’s totally improving all the time, but as of right now it kind of sucks to live here. It’s a little on the ghetto side, and were Laura and I are right now, it’s kind of on the edge of the ghetto side of the ghetto. Then there was the “we got robbed” factor. It’s far as hell from anything exciting going on. We’re 4 miles from a decent grocery store. And for working from home and wanting to get out during the day once in a while, there’s nothing to do around here. There are about 2 coffee shops, one of which is never open. To sum up, St John’s is not why we moved to Portland.
Reason #2 is that we want to explore the city while we’re here. I think even if we loved it here in St John’s it would be good for us to move around a bit to get to know Portland better. If we’re here, I want to be here and experience this place to the fullest. We’ve done North Portland, now it’s time for Northeast Portland, and after that maybe Southeast, who knows.
And of course Reason #3, is we’re kind of getting a sweet deal. Kind of. We’re moving to a really nice place in a really really nice part of town (at least compared to our current location). It’s right around the corner from coffee shops and restaurants, which will be awesome for me working from home. The house a little bigger, nice yard, and a garage. No landlord living downstairs — although, we haven’t had much to complain about having a landlord living downstairs here. This place is just going to be a better fit. It’s much more in line with what we wanted to move here for.
The downside of course is that it’s more expensive. Fortunately though, part of our deal is first that it’s “month to month”… basically if bills are getting tight, we have the option to give a 60 day notice and get out of our lease early. 60 days is a lot, but at least it’s there. So it’s more expensive, but pretty well priced for what we’re getting, and there’s a lot more flexibility. Of course we have a ton of flexibility now, but we just need to get out of this neighborhood.
It’s such an odd feeling moving. We’re both really excited for our new place for so many reasons; and we’re so excited to get out of St John’s for so many reasons; but we’re really going to miss this house for so many reasons. It’s just a really great house, in a not so awesome neighborhood. And I don’t say that just because of the robbery. There’s sirens often, cars speeding down the street, meth dealers in the house across the street — exaggeration Mom. It’s just not a sweet place to live. But this house, this house is awesome. We’ll miss it.
I’m sure there’ll be more on the move in later posts. I just need to make sure I’m making posts. 
BTW: I’m really exhausted as I’m writing this, so if there are a ton of typos or if it just plain doesn’t make sense, my apologies.
We’ll we’ve finally made it to the final destination here in Portland. The house is beautiful and the trip was incredible. Staying at Ray’s was a real treat. Him and Judy were wonderful hosts and it was really great getting to know a part of the family that I’ve never really had the chance to get to know. We’ve invited them to come out to Portland to visit and hope they do. In the mean time though, we’re just trying to get settled and are waiting for the rest of our belongings to arrive.
We were expecting to get the rest of our things shipped and delivered tomorrow (Tuesday), but apparently the truck is “running late” and we won’t be recieving anything until Thursday! We’re both pretty annoyed. The company we’re having move us out is called U-Pack, which for the most part up until now has really been great to work with. They’re far less expensive than renting a U-Haul and the customer service (for the most part) has been great. However… when our crate was being dropped off, it was hours late. They dropped it off late into the afternoon when it had been scheduled to be delivered in morning. Now, after we’ve been given an “estimated” transit time of four days, they’re saying it won’t be delivered until 6 days after it was picked up from our apartment in Minneaolis. I understand this is an estimated delivery time, but you must admit, that when you’re end product is 150% of what your estimate was, that’s a pretty shitty estimate. When I spoke to someone on the phone today, they suggested calling again tomorrow for a mor accurate delivery time. Basically my plan is to call “bull shit” with the intent of getting a discounted rate. After all, if they underdeliver I should be allowed to underpay, right?
Oh, and there’s some lady that works at the Portland office that really sucks. I’m not sure if this was her first day, or if she woke up to wetting the bed this morning or what, but she sucked. Laura called, and the lady she spoke to was immeately annoyed. She was flustered because she was having trouble finding our order record. She then proceed to accuse Laura of not having paid our bill yet. Which we haven’t, because you don’t pay your bill until the shippment is delivered. Why she was having trouble with that, I have no idea. She then proceeded to tell Laura how she needs to be sure there is a 40 ft clearance for the truck to deliver the crate. Why did feel the need to tell Laura this? I have no idea. It was like she kept trying to solve some sort of problem that wasn’t there. She must have voted for Bush. So, one last time, she sucked… and wets the bed.
So, for now, U-Pack sucks. Tomorrow, may change that opinion a little, but they definitely won’t be getting my 100% endorsement, pretty much all because of one useless bedwetter.
Again, I must appologize for a complete lack of pictures. Cords and business for getting stuff from the camera to the computer are currently in the possetion of U-Pack. Upon their arrival I will post pictures immediately.