So it’s been a while. No doubt about that, but let’s not linger. Moving on…updates…
I’ve been amazed this last couple of months at just how fast things can move. Business, personal…it’s all flying by lately. Case in point – I got pissy back in January towards the leasing agents at my apartment complex. My lease was expiring at the end of January and, despite several phone-calls I made to let them know I intended to renew my lease at the same monthly rate, they never got back to me. Finally, when I got them on the phone in early January, they informed me that my rent would be going up by $75 per month. Though I complained vehemently that I had called several times to renew but was never called back, they basically said, �Well how do we know you really called?�. In other words, I’m a liar and they’re raising my rent. As you may have noticed by now, I’ve got a thing about customer service, or the lack thereof nowadays. In light of this treatment, I took their new lease (which they finally left on my door) down to their office, tore it in half and told them I would be going month-to-month until further notice, intending to find a new place ASAP. Granted, the month-to-month rate for my place was $300 more per month than I had been paying, but it was still cheaper than signing a new, seven-month minimum lease, assuming I got out of there within a few months.
A week or so later (because I never do anything immediately – it’s a flaw, I know), I got hooked up with a realtor a couple of friends had used and started looking around. Ten days or so after that, I found �the one�, made an offer the next evening and had a sales contract within the hour. That certainly made things busy for the next few weeks! It was an…interesting experience. I wouldn’t say it was as nerve wracking as everyone said it would be, but it’s definitely not something I’d say I enjoyed. The actual �closing� was this past Monday. That was a little overwhelming – signing 50,000 documents, none of which made much of any sense, save the one which points out just how much money I will have spent assuming I pay off the mortgage in thirty years (never going to happen, but still – holy shit).
Tuesday sucked. I now owned a house, but the movers weren’t coming until Wednesday morning. I went to my new place, but after a couple minutes I was bored with the emptiness and went back to my apartment. The move on Wednesday was pretty easy, since I paid a company to do it for me. I’m too old for the �U-Haul-and-some-buddies� method. Things like moving everything you own down three flights of stairs is exactly the kind of crap job money is made to get you out of doing, and I was more than willing to write the check. Hell, it only took them a few hours! I had the cable guy scheduled the same morning and the phone company switched me the same day as well, so I was good to go by 1:00 PM or so. When they all finally left is when things got a little weird. The size and emptiness of �my house� got to me, so I threw on some shoes and went to the office. I’m still flipping back and forth, actually. Sometimes, I’m excited as can be and it’s all good. Then I freak out and convince myself the mortgage broker is going to come knocking on my door to let me know they’ve discovered I’m just a kid pretending to be grown-up and they want their money back.
Anyway…long story short: I moved out of my apartment, I bought a 2-bed, 2-bath, 2-car-garage, 1340 sq. foot �villa� in a little development about 3 miles from where I used to live and about 3 miles from my office. For those of you who may actually visit one of these days, let me apologize right now: the 2nd bedroom is an office. You’re welcome to the couch, or a blow-up matress I’ll borrow from my brother, but that’s the best I can do.
Time to sleep. I’m back in the office tomorrow after taking off Monday afternoon and all of Wednesday and today. Sad as it is, I think that’s the most time I’ve spent out of the office in a single week since I started my career 7 years ago.