Stuff moved in today

Today was the big day! The movers arrived with a truck loaded with my stuff. It was all unloaded in a few hours. They arrived near 11 am and were done before 2 pm but I was busy checking off things as they were brought into the apartment. Now the work of sorting what remains and what goes to the auctioneer starts. That should keep me busy for the next couple of weeks or so, unless I end up having some help, in which case, it'll all move faster. The auctioneer returns from vacation on January 7th, so I hope to have much of this sorting completed by that time.

The bedroom is somewhat organized but when you come out to the entrance to the apartment, you can see the work that is ahead of me. The photo below is of the curio cabinet which is going to the auction but you'll also see me as a mirror image in the glass of the cabinet.

The living room may as well be considered a storage room for the moment until all this sorting is behind me but the kitchen in the image below is likely the most organized at this point. You can see the dining room cabinet on the left. I found one of the legs loose, so I'll have to re-glue that first before loading up the cabinet with china, platters, cutlery and such. Its a good thing I noticed the problem first. This piece of furniture was originally made by my father back in 1958 and its starting to show its age after years of use (and several moves).

The kitchen has a basket where I keep tubers and fruit. There are plenty of potatoes plus some ginger. The fruit needs to be replaced with fresh fruit which I buy weekly, some more frequently than that. Then in the dining room I have a GT (Gay Times) calendar hanging on the wall. The calendar is open to the December page which is shown in the photo below. Ah, I could use the help but I'll have to be content with them looking on. More later!

Storage items

Today I received an email from the mover that his my stuff in storage since last October. This was in answer to an email I sent them on the status of an auction since I couldn't pay the fees to get my things out of storage. The auction hasn't happened yet but I do have a short time to come up with the money, just over $4,000, a hefty chunk of change for anyone that is short on cash while paying rent, utilities, paying off debts and having money left over for groceries. I had expected Brad to be here by this point which would have made everything move along much faster and smoother but this is the way things have worked out. To be fair to Brad, I didn't mention this issue to him in our many chats on msn or the few phone calls we made. I wanted him to proceed across the country at his own pace, without pressure. Neither of us foresaw the car problems which ended setting our plans back some. Now since not hearing from him since about mid-September, I am hoping something else hasn't come along to set things back even further. A friend of mine in Australia hoped that he would show up by Christmas. I certainly hope she is right for all our sakes. However, as bad as things have appeared to date, I recently access to another credit source which wasn't the case even just over a week ago. The plan now is to use it to pay off the storage debt, get access to the stuff at the movers, and then sort through the items in order to determine what is to be auctioned off and what is to be kept. There is a lot of stuff that can be auctioned off that is more than I actually need. Too bad I didn't auction much of it off before I moved from Surrey to north Burnaby in October 2007 but we all learn from our mistakes, or so we should! I hope to sort this all out in the next couple of days and get it all behind me. The stuff I choose to auction will pay off the debt to the creditor or much of it. Meantime, this will end the need to survive in the new apartment with just the basic necessities and not much more! More on all this later. - Volker

Move coming soon...

The move to the new apartment is coming up very soon.  I expect to move the stuff I have here in my room in Burnaby over to the new apartment Wednesday evening, though some will likely be shifted over Tuesday evening depending upon the weather and how I feel.  I'll be using a van (taxi) to get the belongings there on Wednesday.  Wednesday evening into Thursday morning will be my last stay at the old place.  Moving the stuff in storage over to the new place still has to be decided, a date anyway, plus the funds owing have to be paid up before that is moved over.

The phone and internet is ready for May 1st.  The internet service for the old place ends on April 30th.  Then the keys for the old place have to be returned to the landlord in order to have the deposit reimbursed.  There is so much to do and so little time in which to do it all.

There has been a pay raise:  $12.55 per hour as opposed to $12.25.  There is another raise due later.  This is all good because it means I can get my debts paid off faster.  Having too little money is an issue and having to much of it has its own set of problems associated with it.  There will be more news regarding the employment scene later.

On another front, I plan to restrict access to this blog only to those invited.  This will happen soon.  Brad is to be co-writer as previously mentioned.  So those that wish to read the blog, Saltwater Blood Meets Spirit Mountain, will have to email me in order to get a password that will allow them access.  The email is to be found in the profile for both this and the original blog, Haliaeetus, but here it is anyway:  haliaeetusblog(at)gmail.com.  This will allow Brad and I to discuss matters more freely in order that those that have a right to this information can benefit from it.  With that I will close this entry for this evening.  -  Volker

home computer offline for a while

The new hard drive I bought recently to replace the one that died made no difference. My laptop still won't boot, so I am cancelling my internet at the current place (I'm moving at the end of the month anyway) and set up a new account with phone services at the new place. I'd rather use my funds to pay the rent and moving expenses rather than sinking them in a computer right now. A tech will look at the laptop when I bring it in to work next week but there is no rush on it. It will be looked at when he has time. Such is life!

So now with the move coming up, there is so much work to do such as finding the funds to pay the storage and moving expenses and such. The phone and internet issue is simple by comparison. That about sums up what this month will be. - Volker