The Drive up I-65

No where (that I can think of, yet) embodies the elements necessary to scare the shit out of a Yankee visiting the state of Alabama than a drive along I-65 North from Montgomery to the state line of Tennessee. It has just about everything you could ask for, from the Confederate battle flag to Religious fundamentalism to outright hatred of democrats.

Good lord, I nearly shit my pants everytime I drive it.

On Dothan and Alligators

Look at that thing! It's huge! (That's what she said....HEE-YOOOO!!!)

We've never been to South Alabama before. Our neighbors who used to live here in Auburn moved back home to Dothan two months ago, and we decided to visit them.

We were told we were going to go fishing, and that we'd be hunting an alligator.

Wait, I'm sorry....A what?

I will not suffer a Tryanny of Meatheads

This happened over a month ago, I just haven't gotten around to writing it until now.

Related to this post regarding athletes in high school and continuing on, I am here to relate the story of the Redneck Meathead who I encountered early Sunday morning as I left my house to go to my neighbors to let their dog out. (Side note: I'll update this post with a photo when I can capture said meathead).

Anyway, there is a very large Marine (meaning steroided up without a neck Marine) who lives in the neighborhood and he has a dog. A little one. It's actually kinda cute to see him walking with a tiny dog because of the dichotomy of the two images. The problem is that he never, and I mean never, cleans up after the dog poops. He just leaves it on whoever's yard the dog happens to poop on.

My neighbors and I have noticed this, and have often commented on either confronting him or writing a letter to the Home Owners Association to complain. No one wants to confront him because he's huge, and could easliy snap a person in two like a twig.

But, for anyone who knows me, I sometimes do stupid things. Like this particular Sunday, for instance.

Let me set the stage:

The future?

He will not be a douchebag. I promise

Roundup of interesting facts I've learned so far

In no particular order:

1. Armadillos carry leprosy. Ewww.
2. Deer sausage is really, really, really good.
3. Collard greens are good in a soup, but fricking nasty when they're cooked normally. (Boiled, then simmered with a ham hock for what seems like forever. Verdict? Still gross.)
4. It seems we are the only people in the neighborhood to sleep with their windows open at night. This seems weird to me.
5. I know I will be going hunting for deer this fall / winter.
6. I know that if I actually do kill a deer, I will cry. Maybe not right then and there, but eventually.
7. I am ok with the above two items. I actually think this is healthy. We've been removed from our food sources for too long.
8. The only way to get rid of an armadillo is to either remove its food source, or kill it.
9. The landlord opted for option #1.
10. Armadillos are gross. And they grunt.
11. The redneck version of cow-tipping is armadillo kicking. Because they can't see well, you approach them from behind and commence launching. Be prepared for your foot to hurt due to their hard shells.
12. I have not participated in either cow-tipping or armadillo kicking.
13. 11am kick-offs make a football game family day at the stadium. All the kiddies are there.
14. Booing is very much frowned upon at said stadium. Especially in front of kids. I did not know this.  :-/
15. Additionally, when you say things like, "Hey Ref! Get off your knees, you're blowing the game!" you get frowned at.

So, them's it so far

On open windows and Armadillos

After along stretch of very hot weather (ever since we got here in mid-July it's been in the mid 90's), we've gotten a reprieve and temperatures have plummeted to the low 80's. Here's our forecast for the next five days

Today - high of 82, Sunny

Tomorrow - high of 80, Sunny

Saturday - high of 78, Sunny

Sunday - high of 74, Sunny

Monday - high of 75, Sunny

Not very consistent, sure, but beautiful, nonetheless. Because of this, it's time to open the windows and blow the stink out of this joint.. Also, when the humidity is low, there is no better sleeping weather. So, we've thoroughly enjoyed the brisk evenings. We even pulled out our comforter to keep warm and toasty.

Because of the cooler temperatures and our open windows, we pretty much hear everything that is going on in the neighborhood (the opposite is true, as well, of course). And lately, we've had a visitor to the neighborhood. As this post's title suggests, our neighborhood has served as a buffet table to an armadillo.

Yes, we have them here in Alabama. I was surprised by this, frankly. I had always thought they were basically just in Texas for the sole purpose of providing fodder for cars. (You just hit an armadillo! 10 points!) But no, according to this Wikipedia article, the little buggers are all over the South, reaching as far north as Nebraska!

And they're ugly, too. Look at them. They're creepy looking, a leftover from a distant age. Like alligators or a rhinoceros, they look like they could have been roamed the Earth with the dinosaurs (which they probably did.) Brrrrrr....gives me the shivers.

As some of you also know, we have a Jack Russell terrier who like to do two things: 1) act like he's protecting us, and 2) kill rodent-like animals. So last night at 2:30 am, our visitor makes his appearance in our rose bushes looking for grubs underneath the pine straw (quick aside: instead of mulch, we have pine straw. Same idea (inhibit weeds), different ingredient) and our little guy hears him. And he goes nuts, barking his head off. Me being the man, I get up with the flashlight to go check out what is causing our little guy to freak out and wake up the rest of the neighborhood. I look out our window, and directly under our window, I see the little bastard, grunting away. 

Grunting. They sound like piglets searching for food. And I have to admit, I was little skeeved out. I mean, it was grunting, and it looked like a giant rat, except armored with sharp claws.

Yes, I admit. I was emasculated by a 10 pound rodent. 

But it has claws! And it grunts!

Anyway, now I have to apologize to the neighbors for my dog's barking at 3 am, contact the landlord to see what he wants to do about, and grow a set. Maybe purchase a long broom stick to hit it with? Hmmmm....

In the Country

Another Saturday, another day of adventure and new experiences. This time it was a next door neighbor's piece of land south of Tuskegee where we played with some horses, tried to catch cat fish, and looked at some cows.

The drive through Tuskegee was extremely pleasant. Our next door neighbor and his wife had grown up in the general vicinity and shared a lot of nice tidbits about the area, the way people live, etc. In fact, they pointed out two houses, both opposite one another, that were the exact same. Huh, why's that?, I wondered. Well, it turns out that the homes were both built by the same man. The first home was built for he and his wife to live in, and the second home was built to satisfy a stipulation of his divorce from the same woman that he build her a home that was its exact mirror. Hence, two houses, opposite side of the street, exact mirrors of one another. Spooky.

The first stop of the day was the hay field to check on the bailing process which my friend and his pops had worked on earlier in the week. Not too much progress had been made, but form what I could understand, there were some mechanical issues involving sprockets, and flanges, and hinges, etc.

And here's where my yankee-ness comes into play. We had stopped at a nearby farmer's house who had helped with the cutting and the bailing. This man was my father's age, and had been raising beef cows his entire life. And much like the time I was in Maine and spoke to a Maine fisherman and had a really hard time understanding what he said, I had an equally hard time understanding just wtf this guy was saying. I've noticed that there is bit of a lag time between what people down here say to me, me mentally filtering out the accent, and then me fully comprehending what they've said.

We went over to the barn and took the opportunity to put our neighbor's 5 y/o on a horse and take a spin. I think she had a lot of fun

The horse, maybe not so much.

Just kidding.

After this we took a quick spin over to the lake where the cows were resting, and we did some fishing. MMMMM.....Black Angus

Hey, you in the back. I am going to eat you eventually!

Last, but not least, it was time to take the little one in the tractor. Again, it looks like she had a great time.

Photoshop Disasters, Alabama style

I would say this belongs on photoshop disasters, but the stuff they post is typically very well done and sometimes difficult to spot and notice. This, however, is illustrative of what I've found down here.

People love their football.

And if you can get the coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide to support your candidacy, then you're sure as shit to get in.

Wow. That's truly horrible.

I love the quote from the candidate when presented with the original picture:

"They said we could do it this way," Davidson said.

Props to the Birmingham News for tracking this one down

It's my birthday!

And to celebrate, the wife and I went down the Gulf of Mexico and the Redneck Riviera! (Seriously, they themselves call it that, so I can too. So, there.)

Anyway...

Perdidio Key is southwest of Pensacola and a part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore. The drive from Auburn took about 4 hours, but that's only because Google maps had us take the Blue Angels Parkway, a one lane road that could have been avoided by going the way we went home (along the 110 into...oh, wait. I just realized I am doing that thing that my adult male relatives do after they've arrived somewhere. That's another post at another time.) We headed straight for a bar that I'd heard of from people both here and in Connecticut. The Flora-bama

The carnival

Good god, what a shithole. It strattles the Florida - Alabama border on the beach, and is an amalgamation of tents, coverings, wood platforms, and other assorted crap glued and screwed together to somehow pass code. It's a classic hole in the wall bar, as evidenced by a shot I took of the inside to the right.


See what I mean?

There are other "areas" that are all sort of cobbled together. You have multiple stages for performers to set up on, so forth and so on, and lots of individual bar stations. One thing I did notice was that there weren't too many TV sets, which was nice. Nothing I hate more when I go to a bar is to have nothing to look at except TV's.

Oh, and did you notice what was hanging from the clotheslines up there? Here's a better picture.

"Oh look, there's mine!"

Lots and lots of bras. Gives the place character and class, doesn't it?

Since we hit this place up right around lunchtime, we weren't expecting it to be crazy. But as evidenced by the underwear, clearly good times had been had here.

As it was lunch time, oysters and fish po-boys had to be eaten.

Yes, please!

After lunch we headed back to the beach and laid out on the beautiful, white sand beaches of the Gulf of Mexico. And they truly were stunning, until you walked up and down the beach and saw the oil response clean-up teams, their equipment, and tar-balls. Lots of little tar-balls.

The following show the tar stained beach and the equipment used by the teams:

Tractors and other "stuff"

Crews getting ready to hit the beach

Used sand sifters. Not small enough to get the majority if the tar balls if you ask me

Oil stained sand

Lovely, right? Sigh.

Pack? check. Beer? check. It's dark. Let's go!

You may also have noticed me with a backpack on my shoulders. That's because the wife and I camped on the beach on Saturday, and we had to hike in about a mile to get to where we were allowed to stay on Perdido Key (the photo was taken Sunday morning on the way out). But here's me gearing up ready to make the trek out at night.

And here we are in the morning after a not so great sleep (due to lack of pillows, a thermarest with a hole in it (grrr.....), hellacious temperature and humidity, and lack of breeze through the floor of the tent (which will be remedied on the next tent purchase.))

Good morning!

Sunday saw us stopping off at the IHOP for breakfast, driving to Pensacola Beach for the, well, beach, and then to the Pensacola Art Museum for a little bit of afternoon culture. Incidentally, the museum has a very nice collection, which we would have seen if they weren't playing a movie about Marc Chagall at the same time we visited.  :-(  Oh well.

We traveled back to Auburn after the museum and drove through a pretty horrendous thunderstorm, one that had a lighting strike right next to our car and which sounded like a shotgun! Fun stuff! It was f'ing terrifying, but, we were alright. Just a little rattled.

All in all: Great trip, glad we went, and we'll certainly go again when it gets a little cooler.

Late night Mud-riding

I was thinking I really should have pictures for this post, but I don't think they would capture the thrill of barreling down a dirt road in the middle of the night. How do you express the joy of riding a roller coaster to someone through words or pictures? It somehow doesn't do the experience justice, and I certainly want to give the proper props to this.

It's late. It's the middle of the night. You're in Alabama, and there's several acres of woods with a"road" cleared out through them, leading to a pond in the middle. The road is the red clay of the South, not gravel or asphalt. Now, you've gone off-roading before, when you were growing up, living in Connecticut. But it somehow doesn't live up to what you think you are about to do, because, let's face it: You're a stranger in a strange country, and you've placed blind faith in a person you've just met because they told you to get in the truck and not to ask questions. You're going for a ride, and that's about all you know.

You drive down the road, and turn off, facing the "road" that goes straight into the woods. The driver puts the peddle to the metal and away you go, flying torwards trees before the wheel is turned and you're faced with another set, the headlights illuminating just what's directly in front of you and nothing else. You hit the clearing where the pond is, stop, pile out of the truck and look up at the moon, and all the stars, and listen to the silence, something you haven't heard in a long time because of the years you've spent living in New York City, or Bridgeport, CT, the drone of I-95 constantly in the background.

And it's here that you thank yourself for trusting people, for believing that people are inherently good, and that you've missed the woods, the stars, and the silence.

Move Story, part 1

We're here, and despite some hiccups (all minor), we're in the house, all of our stuff accounted for. More on that later.

We took off from CT around 7:45 on Thursday morning, and as expected, sat in traffic almost immediately, which was fine given that I hadn't really gotten used to the truck yet. After we got passed Stamford it was pretty much smooth sailing all the way into Pennsylvania.

We stopped to get gas about 50 miles outside of Harrisburg. Filling up the truck for the first time was a humbling experience. It was a truck stop, and I didn't understand the concept of satellite pumps. Are you confused as well? So, when you pull into a truck stop fueling lane, there are 2 pumps, one on either side. One has the controls for paying, etc., and the other is just a pump. You have to engage the paying pump by pulling out the pump and laying it on the ground. You then have to go to the other side to use the satellite pump and fill up. Additionally, the gas tank on the truck was not like a car's, where you just pop in the pump and away you go, waiting until the pump stops automatically. With this, you had to pump until the pump stopped, and then re-angle the pump and continue until you could actually see the gas at the top of the tank, almost coming out. A little freaky to be sure.

We move on down the road and the check engine light comes on in the truck. Great. I get on the phone with the emergency service folks at Penske while I am trucking down the road. They tell me to get off in Carlisle, and we spend 45 minutes while the techs fumble with their computer diagnostic systems and swap out a bum sensor. An hour later, the light comes back on. I ignore it, and continue to plow down the road, never getting more than 70 miles hr. No pull overs for me!

Virginia is a big state. I never realized how big it was. As you're traveling down 81, you just keep on going and going and going. 300 miles, or so. And its extremely pastoral. Talk about idyllic farm settings. Happy cows on those hills.

We made it to Statesville, NC the first day, traveling 660 miles in 12.5 hours. We would have gotten farther if not for the check engine light, but I'm happy to have stopped and gotten it checked then rather than to have gotten stopped on the road in the middle of nowhere.

The animals did ok, for the most part. Domino (the dog) was great. My one cat, pearl, well, she was great too except for the meowing. My other cat, jasper, however, had a real rough first day. Before we even left, he decided to take a d*^p on the office floor of the house, which was fine because then he wouldn't do it in the truck. But I put him in there and the meowing (read yowling) began big time. he then pissed himself. Awesome! Before we got onto the highway, we stopped for coffee, which gave me the opportunity to swap out the paper towels I had put down on the bottom of his crate. Poor guy. He was a mess to clean when we got to the hotel in Statesville.

End of part 1

T minus 1 week and counting

Yowzer. It's really here. I cannot believe it. It's really here.

This is the last week I am here at the office and I have a boatload of stuff to get ready before we ship out. Additionally, people are really starting to demand our time and attention, and we still have a lot of packing to do (read, all packing because we haven't done any yet. Why are waiting? I don't know.)

I also am starting to feel the absolute reality of things. The last time I visited my grandfather in Jersey was a week and a half ago. When we left I told him we would see him again at Christmas. I saw both doubt and hope in his eyes; hope that he would make it to Christmas, and doubt that he would. I am making another trip to see him tomorrow after work for what I hope won't be the last time I see him.

We saw my parents for the last time before we move this past weekend. That was a little tough. When we were leaving my mother, crying and putting on a brave face, said "This is nothing. We lived in Singapore and you were here." I asked, "So, why are you crying?" She replied, "Because your father is crying." To which he replied, "No I'm not. It's fricking hot out here. I am sweating!"

This is crunch time. This is the time to make lists, execute, cross it off and get shit done. I hope I don't falter on anything too major.

Cell phone picture and texts test successful!

So, I've figured out how to post to the blog direct from the cell-phone.

The possibilities are endless. And scary.

For now, though, I gotta get back to work, but the following are a few of my ideas for future blog posts.

1. The initial reactions of people when told we are moving to Alabama
2. Things I'll miss about the NE
3. More things I am looking forward to when we move

That's it for now.

Last of the Estimators, The Final Verdict Comes In

Boy, what a disappointment.

I was really hoping this last one was going to come in at a rate that would at least make us think about giving them the work. Instead, it's outrageousness has forced our hand.

We're doing the move ourselves. No question about that anymore.

The last estimator was a national carrier, one that my employer has a relationship with. Not that my employer is going to be paying for the move, but I had hoped that we might be able to get a little bit better of a deal. Instead, we got the highest estimate of the three. So, to recap:

Estimate #1 - $4,350
Estimate #2 - $6,500
Estimate #3 - $8,000

Now, #3 included $2K for packing and $1100 for moving a washing machine and dryer. For that amount of $, I can buy a new washer and dryer when I get there. If you knock off the $3,100, we're down to $4,900, but still...Yowzers

So, we did our due diligence and now the path is clear. Time to hire moving companies to load and unload the truck.

Bros: Stop the Bros Icing Bros

I had read about it on some blog (don't remember which) a few weeks ago, and I thought to myself, "Huh. Smirnoff is getting into the viral marketing thing by making potential customers think their product is so awful its an insult to get iced. Pretty smart."

And then it exploded.

There's this describing the history of the phenomenon.

And this, described as the epitome of douche. The most apt description I've read.


Bros: Stop the madness.

Bros don't ice other bros

Dealing with movers

No matter where or when I have moved in the past, I was the one who was always doing it. Packing it in boxes, loading the truck, driving, unpacking, arranging, hanging pictures, shades, drapes, etc. This move, with its distance and additional heft, presents a challenge in both scope and duration. So, I figured we'd get some estimates from some movers.

Moving companies have a shitty reputation for a reason.They employ classic asymmetrical information tactics upon their usually hapless victims, hapless being defined either as being an individual handicapped with children and pets and a huge house of stuff to move rendering them incapable of packing and unpacking, or being the company who is paying for the individual and all their stuff to move hence having the individual not really care how much its going to cost. (Holy run-on sentence batman.).

The estimators the moving companies send to your house are supposed to be the experts. You rely on them to accurately estimate how much shit you have. But, its not in their best interest to give an accurate estimate because then they don't really make $. So, being that they get paid on both the amount and the distance they move, (and the distance is fixed), they are incentivized by the amount they move, hence they usually overestimate the amount of stuff. But they can't over-estimate too much because they know you, the individual or company paying for the move, are going to get multiple estimates. So, then they might underestimate, hoping to score the work on a lowball effort, get your stuff on the truck, hold it hostage, and then rip up the original estimate because clearly you, the individual, didn't show the original estimator how much shit you really had in the first place. Confused? So am I.

Here's where we are with the process. We've had 2 estimators come in. The first told us we had 1200 cubic feet and would charge us $4300. The second came in and told us we had 1500 cubic feet and would charge us $6300. Fuuuuuuaaaaa......

I call bullshit on both of them, because when I look at the Uhaul site or the Penske site, they both say a 2-3 bedroom house or apartment requires a 17 ft truck, or 850 cubic feet. We have a 2 bedroom apartment. There's no way we have almost double than that.

So, I am going to get a 3rd estimate from the company that is employed by my company when they move people. (We're self-financing this move). I am going to be very honest with them and let them know about the 2 previous estimates, BUT I am not going to let them know what they are.

I will then take their #'s, end up renting the 22 ft truck I already have on hold with Penske, and do the move myself. That'll show 'em.

Countdown to the Move: 43 days

First off, first post. I've tried to do this before, but without any real success. But then again, I've not had a huge move like this looming in front of me, one that will take me completely out of my element. This blog will keep friends and family up to date, I suppose

43 days: This is the amount of time I have to pack the house, the dog, the cats, and the wife into a rental moving truck and head on down to the Dirty South, a place I've never been to, never spent any time in.

I am going with an open mind, looking at it as an adventure, because, quite frankly, I don't think any other way would allow us to successfully transition. And besides, we're only there for 2 years at the most anyway. So we might as well get our adventure on.