Archive for the ‘ Moving Home ’ Category

Moved in

An ambiguous title at best, but close to the truth. After a hectic 2 weeks and bullshit from the previous landlord, we are now free of our last house and settled into the last but one. I can only say that the next move will be a tad easier. The plan is to relocate all non essential items to new homes or file them in Bin 13 (The Tip).

The house we are in now is smaller than the last one, but has ample room for most of the items we really use on a daily basis. The only issue we have is the few items in the garage which have dubious rights to being kept. It is Easter time and all is well apart from a nasty little cold/flu virus which has my days feeling a little rough. I have managed to mow the front lawn and the back lawn which has very good quality grass, something I intend on maintaining before we have to move out again, possibly in the next four months or so. I have also managed to find a little quiet time and not do any work related items. My work laptop has remained in its case and my freshly formatted HP Personal Laptop has no links to work setup.

Speaking of freshly formatted. After running Windows 7 on this machine and then going back to Vista, I have noticed some big differences. The time it takes to start up, open files and other everyday items, seem to take so much longer. I have fixed one annoying item which caused my screen to  ‘ draw’ windows whilst moving them, the latest drivers from nvidia resolved that little issue. So why am I using the PC and not the Mac? Simple, I haven’t set that up yet, nor do I have a space suitable as yet to run it from.

So far my days have consisted with washing, thankfully the weather has been kind of decent and has allowed me to wash and walk to the line. My last couple of loads should have me setup for the week. Ahh another short week and less stressful traffic on the way to work- hopefully! Last week was chaos and the week before that. Changes at work include a refit in the office and other such distractions. I am amazed at the level of compitence of some of the builders. I recall an old addage ‘measure twice and cut once’ it seems that a certain builder didn’t adhere to this rule and ended up cutting my desk to fit into a wall – recently built so that it would fit into this nice neat little cubby hole. The wall that encases my desk is in the shape of a letter U – except that the physical size of my desk was not taken into consideration. Some cocky builder/joiner/butcher decided to take a very sharp Chisel and remove the edges so that my desk would fit. Rather than fix the cockup he had made, he buggered up a perfectly good and new desk. The words Wanker and Useless spring to mind.

Enough of work, it all starts again tomorrow, today I intend to at least pick up a golf club and smack a few white balls somewhere, anywhere. My plan to have two games this weekend was thwarted by lack of able bodies to join in the fun. So If nothing else a visit to the driving range and blow some of these cobwebs off, even if it kills me. On the subject of golf, the Chef at the Firefly restaraunt in Georges River golf course is moving on, bugger. Just hope they get someone as good in his place. Good luck Damien and hope it all works out.

We are in…almost

Weekend of chaos, hot, hot weather and we are almost in. Just need to finish off packing sorting the other rubbish and clean house top to bottom and we are done.

House Move update

And so it begins. If all goes to plan, we shall be moving into our new abode on Saturday. The chaos of moving house has to be hated by every man and his dog. How organised you are will determine how quickly you move from point A to point B. This time I believe it will be a hectic 2 days of walking back and too from the Truck,van, ute or car. If you have planned ahead then it would be prudent to let someone else have the hassle of moving all your crap from one place to another.

At this point we are probably 60 percent packed with another 2 days to go before the big move. The obvious items which lurk in doorways are gradually building up. Bedrooms are now becoming box rooms with a place to sleep – if you are lucky. The one thing that always gets you, are those items you don’t want to pack away just yet, which gradually builds up to a whole heap of stuff, that hangs around and invariably doesn’t get used, then gets thrown into a box/bag/boot of car/footwell and back seat and no doubt remain there for 3 or 4 days. ‘I must take that inside – I will need that…’ Sound familiar?

As much as I hate moving, it means we are one step closer to moving once more into the ‘New’ house. Speaking of which, I haven’t been near the build since Friday of last week. So it will be very interesting to see what has happened in my absence. The builders have requested another draw down on the loan, so it means that the big stuff is coming soon. This mid section draw down was a considerable amount, so mortgage payments will be going upwards, ever going upwards until we reach the final amount agreed upon.

Another House Move…oh joy

It must be close to 12 months since we moved into this house from Chipping Norton, So we must be moving again….Damn it! The owner of this house we pay a lot of rent for, has decided not to renew the lease. So we must move out. I was looking forward to moving, but moving into our newly built house (upon completion). So we are now faced with packing, moving and then possibly not unpacking at the new place as we will only be there for 3 – 4 months (although by my calculation it may be more like 5 – 6).

The thought of having to move one extra time is not appealing to me. Bugger!!!!

Gallery Update / Blog Update

It has been a while since I have done anything with the gallery, which is linked to this site (and held on this site). I felt it was time to make some adjustments. Thankfully I remembered what my log in was, so I have deleted all the images, albums and categories, as they were pretty messed up. Coppermine gallery which comes as an add-on with my control panel, is a bit painful to upload, add an album. My first attempts were hap hazard and completely unorganized. I am starting to rebuild the gallery, change the theme and re add photos as I go.

Some photos of the house build are located on there, so check back for updates, as this will take a few days to get most of the House pictures on there, then I will add past photos on there and hopefully get the Categories and Albums right this time.

I have added a page to this blog dedicated to the House build, so any updates will appear here as a short note.

New House – Again

Moving house has become second nature to me of late. Our previous house had issues, none of which the Landlord/Owner could be bothered looking into. result of this is in the title of this post. We have moved back to Georges Hall, which makes my travel time to work a damn sight quicker and less painfull. Henry Lawson Drive at peak time was a pain in the you know what. Add Newbridge Road and Governor Maquarie Drive into the equasion added another 15 to 25 minutes onto my drive for no other reason than Peak Traffic and lots of it.

I now get to work in less than 25 minutes, even with peak children going to school traffic. The move spanned over 3 weeks as per normal, with the amount of crap we keep and lack of planning. With that said, this time was an exception due to the nature of the move. I just wanted out of the house. I had no intention in staying there a minute longer than required. I wanted out of the house the first couple of weeks, moreso after the Air Conditioner Panel fell off in the night and cut my head open. Then the Toilet backed up and when I advised the Agent of the situation, I was greeted by ‘have you got e-mail?’ My reply was less than polite (no surprise there then!). Moving on, it was decided to move asap, so with the help of a decent Agent, whom we know quite well, we got this new place.

The latter stages of moving were starting to tell on us both, I was getting cranky and over the move. We have now finally settled in and are at the stage of do we unpack this box or leave it? So for the next 3 days, I am on annual leave with a view to sorting the garage out and the bags and boxes of stuff? Yes ‘stuff’ being the keyword here. Stuff relates to items that you own but cannot understand why or how. Stuff is the ultimate question in life. Did I buy this or you, Stuff is the item or items that take up valuable space in cupboards, drawers and surfaces for no apparent reason, yet it holds a significant value of ‘f**k’spence’ and you are totally unsure as to its real dollar value. You can imagine the dilemma.

It will be nice to have three days off from work. I have been busy with a planned and much needed server upgrade. My plan for the company was approved plus one extra server. Much to my surprise as the cost was a large amount. 4 brand new IBM servers, SQL Server being replaced with an absolute monster of a machine and 2 new Terminal Servers, plus the additional server replacing our old Mail Server and Profile Server. Don’t ask me why it was setup that way, I had nothing to do with it. All these new beast’s have Windows 2008 server, SQL 2005 with the option to upgrade for free to the latest SQL, as our current business software won’t work with 2008 MYSQL. It will also give me the option to wipe off the old four machines and use them for other things and upgrade memory and Hard drives as required. This will require some long nights and weekend work, until such time I can roll them out to the business, with as little dissruption as possible. This will also give me the option to re-install printers correctly and in one place only. Our system is a mess! No wonder we have so many issues. Previous IT was lacking in planning and knowledge.

The New House

After what can only be described as a marathon move, we are now finished. The only thing that remains is the habitual sorting of boxes and throwing out the endless boxes of junk we have accumulated. It has been a while since I have posted anything here, so appologies for those who come here often to see what I have been upto.

With a new house, you get a new number, unless you stay in the same area and are connected to the same exchange. Alas we moved 15 minutes away and a new Suburb. So a new number was required. This brought about another problem for our previous telco. Optus.  We had already signed up for a new 2 year contract with them for internet. The new superfast upto 20Mbit connection. Sadly they stuffed us around and after numerous telephone calls by Sam, she told them to stick the whole thing where the sun don’t shine. This could have been costly, but due to the fact they accepted the fact they had screwed up, they waived the cancellation fee.

We now use Telstra. Sam called them up and got us our new Number and internet package. Did this goto plan? Nope! There was some issue with previous tennants, having not disconnected the line, so in short, one week later, We got our new line, 4 days later we got the ADSL2. DSL is a beast I have not used, so was a little sceptical of moving onto DSL. Thankfully the Modem came and the line could handle the DSL. 20Mbit download and 1bit up! Once we got everything plugged in and powered up the setup was a piece of cake. Once online, I found the speed unbelievable. Downloads are blazing quick and uploads also impressive.

The TV reception here is very good too and now we have Foxtel from their namesake and not provided through a resseller, like optus or telstra. So now we have the Foxtel IQ box and a second box in the other room. I have to say that the remote recording feature is pretty handy to have. Just login to the foxtel website and find the program you want, set the record and away you go. No more missed movies or programs. It will also  chain record your tv shows, it looks forward at the tv listings and finds the next episode and sets the record in your planner on the box.

The house is a lot bigger, two air conditioners and a Pool. I have spent a few hours in the pool, once we got the pool clean again.

Now I did mentiuon an incident with me requiring stitches. The second night we stayed here, we had put the air con on as it was a wee bit stuffy, so off to bed at 9.30 and settled down to some serious z’s. At about 12.30 in the morning, I was awoken by something hitting me on the head. Startled by being woken up from a deep sleep, that and concussion, I discovered the face panel from the Air con unit, had fell off and hit me on the side of my head, just above and to the right of my eye. I got up and felt my face. I discovered that my face was wet. So searching for the light, turned it on and saw blood on my hands and felt it running down my face.

The look in the mirror was horrific, covered in blood and stunned. washed my face with cold water and dried my head with a dark towel, I could see the cut. Sam got up with me and said you will have to goto the Hospital. Damn! So, after a phone call to my Brother in law to be, he got here and drove us to there house and sam borrowed the car. We had been drinking, so didnt want to get pulled over for DUI (Driving Under the Influence) 5 hours later and still no further on, decided to see my own doctor and get it stitched.

Got to see my Doctor and had a Tetanus shot and had both Internal and external stitches. I couldn’t believe it. So off to the Estate agent with a letter and a claim has been made.

All in all, the event hasn’t put me off living here nor has it dampened my spirits. I love the house and the area is quite nice. A little further from work, but not by much. The drive to work is fairly decent, just make sure we leave earlier to avoid the bulk of the traffic.

The swimming pool is cool. I enjoy keeping the pool clean and checking the levels. No doubt this novelty will wear off eventually. But so far, its very relaxing skimming the leaves and debris floating on top and brushing the bottom and setting the Kreapy Crawlie off.

More on all this later

Almost Complete

Just a quick post. Have finally moved into new home. Have encountered some issues along the way (like getting stitches on my right eyebrow, courtesey of an old air con unit in the wall). Will post more when I get a chance. It will make for an interesting read. :-) Weather has been shocking, except for Sunday and Yesterday.

New House…again

Continuing from the previous post, we have been accepted by our new Landlords and will be moving house on Saturday. Ahh, the chaos that is moving house. Still, the good thing about it, is that we get a bigger house, bigger kitchen and built in robes in the bedrooms, plus we get a Swimming pool. Just what I need to continue my quest to learn to swim and get fit campaign. Yes we are paying more than what we are currently paying, but I know that rental costs have increased quite a bit round here. Moreso as there are few rental properties on the market.

So Friday night will be my night of Driving the truck home from work, to use all weekend. The good news is we can get ADSL+ as I mentioned earlier, or DSL – unlike my previous spelling mistake DS ????? The DSL should be quicker I am told and the Foxtell, will be installed on the 13th. I am so looking forward to having a new home to live in and in a completely different area.

More on this later….