today our container arrived.
after 94 days in transit (actually 113 since i left boston) me and my stuff are once again one.
maf (the biosecurity people) are way behind so about 20 items/boxes had to go back for inspection, but we’ve got the vast majority. great to have more clothes – i’ve been cycling through the same 5 outfits that i was able to stuff into my luggage for the flights here and some new variety will be welcome.
the whole move has been a bit of a logistical pain and i’ve vented quite a bit about how poorly gentle giant did providing nz customs and maf with the information they needed to approval our shipment – but – they did do an amazing job with the physical pack. when we opened the container nothing had shifted even an inch and – this is truly remarkable – there was not one bit of damage. nothing. notta. ziltch. amazing given the time and distance.
now that we have most of our stuff back i have to admit that it’s not as fantastic as i thought it would be. having almost nothing was quite easy and liberating. with one coffee cup you don’t end up with a pile of dishes in the sink. doing laundry was easy since there was never much to do.
it reminded me of an old george carlin monologue about “stuff”.
it is really easy to become a slave to your stuff
two amazing bit of logistics. firstly our house is at the end of a very narrow, twisty and hilly road that you access via a sharp turn off of a slightly larger twisty and hilly road. somehow the truck driver backed up the 40′ container down the entire length of the road, threading it between the parked cars. i don’t think i could have done that with our corolla. even more impressive was the method of getting the container off the truck. if you look on the back of the truck you can see two small mechanical arms folded up. their is a second identical pair on the front. to start the process the outer arm unfolds to place a foot on the ground to the right of the truck. then the second arm opens up and grabs the top of the container and swings it up, over and down. for the engineers in the crowd you can appreciate the forces required to cantilever a full 40′ container off the side like that. talking with one of the movers he said the mechanism was invented by a south island tinkerer who saw movers having to bring in a separate crane to lift the container off the flatbed truck
the new zealand moment was two youngsters (william & george, 4 & 6) from the neighborhood walking into the house with a plate of scones straight from the oven. i like to think of myself as a nice person but it would *never* occur to me to do something like that for someone else moving in.