Monthly Archive for July, 2007

how much for the doggy in the window

Published
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antonyfoster
on July 29, 2007
in moving and new zealand
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after spending most of thursday and friday prepping we had our moving sale today. everything priced to move.

Garagesale

unfortunately once again i didn’t take any photos, so this picture will have to serve as my approximation. i promise to do better moving forward.

our garage was full to the brim with all the big items out on the driveway. fortunately the rain did not come as forecast. with a scheduled start time of 9 AM no surprise that there were folks standing in our drive at 8:20. they were a mix of the aggressive dealers trying to find hidden treasures and garage sale addicts that should be in a 12-step. the guy we dubbed “antiques roadshow guy” kept asking “do you have any antiques? old toys. old furniture?” and “how old is this?” he took off after 10 minutes of poking without buying anything. we’re both convinced he had something in his hands as he walked up the drive. one of the addicts had all this gear in her car that she was using after she had paid for her loot - large copy of the local map with a highlighted route for the day, magnifying glass, and a detailed listing of the stops.

it was crazy busy until about 10:30 when probably 80% of the items were sold. a few stragglers picking over the remains brought the total up to about 90%. all stuff that we don’t need to pack, store or pitch.

odds & ends:
2 items were stolen - a snow babies chochka (empty box left behind) and one nice ornament.
1 previously sold items sold (again). opps.
eastern european immigrants are hard core deal makers. “how much for this item?”, “$8″, “i’ll give you $2 (money thrust at me)”, “no, it’s $8. otherwise i’ll just keep it”, “$2″, “no, it’s $8″, “i’ll pay you $2 for this”… this will go on for as long as you let it.

the non-financial win for the day was getting rid of most of our paint and chemicals. between the paint the previous owners left us, the remnants from our painting at the framingham estate and the cabin, and all the yard/bug nasties that we had built up we had over 100 cans of hazardous waste that we were struggling to find an moral way to dispose of. our local town recycling center is fantastic taking almost everything - except paint & chemicals. there is a town annual household hazardous waste day but that won’t be until next spring. talking to the town and the state it seems the only way to dispose of stuff like this besides haz waste day is to take it to one of two state wide facilities that then charge $10 for each 10 items or 10 lbs. since a full gallon of paint weights 8 pounds this would have cost us many hundreds of dollars and a bug chunk of time. i can’t believe that more than 1 in 100 families would go to that length - so i have to believe that most of the stuff is ending up in the weekly trash or down the drain. knowing that most folks will do the right thing if you make it reasonably easy and affordable i am quite surprised that there hasn’t been more of a push to solve this problem. i’ll leave it to one of our gentle readers to take on this challenge.

we tried an experiment put out off of our waste and said free as long as you promised to use it and dispose of it properly. we ended the day with our pile at about 10 items - down from the 100+ at the start.

total tally for the day - $1,770. plus a garage full of stuff that won’t end up in the dumpster.

Vatican-Garage-Sale

goodbye to the green mountain state

Published
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antonyfoster
on July 25, 2007
in moving and new zealand
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another in what i’m sure will be a series of tough milestones. yesterday we drove off from our vermont cabin for the last time.

Im000179Im000106

and that makes it seem easy like we headed up, said our goodbyes and drove off down the road. not quite that easy.

before the driving off part was having a 15′ dumpster delivered that we filled to the brim, 2 full days packing up the house and then filling to the ceiling a 17′ u-haul, getting the cabin broom clean, driving back to framingham (arriving at about 11 pm), and then getting up at 6 to unload the truck into our driveway so we could get the u-haul back before the 9:36 am deadline.

side note on the u-haul. the truck was surprisingly nice and new. i don’t know if you’ve seen some of the old beaters that they have in some u-haul parking lots? fortunately this was not one of them. my only beef is with the milage allowance. they gave us 163 miles to drive between east dorset vermont and natick mass. having done this drive countless times i can guarantee you that that cannot be done unless the truck sprouts wings. adding to the madness they confirm you reservation for picking up the truck in east dorset. then the night before you call to confirm. they say that the truck will be waiting in londonderry. whut? “sorry about that, but it’s only 10 miles from your scheduled pickup”. this now cements my view that u-haul is a bit behind on the technology curve. i have this mental image of the logistics center being a room with folks at old metal desks with rotary phones and well thumbed road atlases. the only way you would say that londonderry is 10 miles from east dorset is if you drew a line between them. the problem is that nature and the vermont highway department say it’s not that easy. in between east dorset and londonderry is bromley mountain so is more like 20 miles once you’ve made your way around. final tally on the odometer when we dropped off the truck - 221 miles.

in the very good news category we now have an excellent caretaker lined up to do everything that needs to be done to keep the cabin maintained and showable until it sells. after calling a long list of local caretakers and being told by all that it was too far (one was 3.1 miles from the cabin) or that they were not taking any more clients we were getting very nervous that we would have a cabin 9000 miles away with waist high grass and frozen pipes. driving down dorset hill road on my way to the cabin i saw matt proft of someday farm outside so i stopped to ask for his advice on who we could call. turns out that he does caretaking for several houses on the road and was able to do ours also. he stopped by the cabin on monday and we sorted out what needed to be done. another item in the regrets bucket - matt was fascinating to talk with. he and his family have lived in the road for 20 years, know tons about the area and run a small farm up on a mountain that won the sustainable farm of the year award last year. they have been way ahead of the eco curve and i’m glad that others are finally starting to catch up. quite embarrassing that we only have a good chat when we’re on the way out and need a favour.

with our biggest stress pill solved we’re on to the next.

a quick message and then we’ll get right back to the news

Published
by
antonyfoster
on July 19, 2007
in moving and new zealand
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jim: “hi, this is jim, the editor here are the fryphone.com. i’m here with carol, our development manager and we need just a moment of your time and then we’ll get back to our programming.”

carol “thanks jim! just a quick remember to our readers that it’s through the valued support of our readers and their purchases from our online store at w w w dot fryphone dot com slash home slash forsale dot h t m l that makes all this possible”

jim “that’s right carol. when our readers make a purchase at http://fryphone.com/home/forsale.html it provides valuable support for the contributors to this news feed.”

carol “and i wanted to thank the readers who have already make a purchase at http://fryphone.com/home/forsale.html and remind those that haven’t yet that there is still time to get that extra extension cord that you always need during the holidays - or that futon to give the dog his own place to sit. it’s not too late to make a quick visit to http://fryphone.com/home/forsale.html and support the efforts here at fryphone.com”

jim “and now let’s get back to the news”

it really does swirl the other direction

Published
by
antonyfoster
on July 1, 2007
in moving and new zealand
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so i woke up yesterday morning feeling quite poorly. when i was walking to get my morning coffee i had a horrible headache and my head was spinning. i went to the grocery store to get some bland staples (bananas, golden kiwis [of course] bread, butter, jam, apple juice) but it didn’t seem to help. worse as the day went on. i did a bit of exploring in the car but had a race back to the apartment thinking i was going to pass out. try driving (on the left) in a busy strange city when you feel like you are about to lose it. well i made it back to the apartment just time in time to loose my lunch. nice.

but i can now certify that the water in the toilet does spin the other way when you flush. some real up close and personal experience that i’m hoping not to repeat.

the double bummer was that last night the kiwi rugby team (the all blacks) played australia and the nz sailing team was battling the swiss team in the america’s cup finals - and i was planning on heading out into the city to watch them both with my new wellitonian mates. instead i crashed in the couch in the apartment. if it helps at all both teams lost so the mood here is a bit subdued.

feeling much better today.

spoke with jackie last night and she reminded me that she got sick that last time we arrived and blamed in on bad indian food. coincidence that i had indian food my first night here and got so sick?