Port Moody Post-Move Megapost 9000

Like the Jeffersons, we’ve moved on up to a deee-luxe apartment in the sky. Pitt Meadows is so last week. It’s been a while since my last post so I’ll catch you up on the incredible journey of moving to Port Moody.

Saturday
Three trips between the old and new apartments, each time filling a small SUV with miscellaneous items that didn’t fit in boxes. Went out for sushi in Pitt Meadows for the last time, then spent the evening packing our remaining stuff. My ladyfriend arranged the sale of our stacking washer/dryer, so we removed it from its closet for its pickup tomorrow morning.

Sunday Morning
I head out to pick up a 14′ U-haul van while the ladyfriend stays to see our washer/dryer picked up, when she receives notice that our moving help cannot help due to a family member’s health crisis. The U-haul depot is a half-hour wait to get my van. I get back to the apartment at 10:30 and moving begins. I choose the computer desk as the first item to load onto the van, insisting we put it on a dolly to make it easier. I tilt the desk 45 degrees and it explodes, breaking in half. Showing no remorse, I stomp on its damaged particleboard carcass and put it out of its misery. Like a casualty of war, there’s no time to mourn; we have to keep moving. The first item on the truck is the sofa, and by 1pm the van is full.

Sunday Afternoon
My ladyfriend and I — Team Beer, as we’re known — begin unloading. One of us stays at the van, parked on the busiest road in Port Moody, to unload and prepare a dolly-load of boxes while the other takes the dolly-load up to our 2nd floor apartment. By 3:30 we decide to just get the van emptied into the building’s lobby to return it before the U-haul depot closes. The depot is just as busy as it was in the morning. Upon returning to the apartment, we finish moving our items from the lobby to the apartment. By 5:30, moving is complete, and we stock up on booze and pizza. Being a total panty-waist, it takes me only two Hard Lemonades to get drunk. Sleep starts at 9pm.

Monday
The ladyfriend heads back to Pitt Meadows to begin cleaning the old apartment. I arrive at 2pm, having to knock off work early and getting a bit of a reprimand for doing so without warning. My ladyfriend, who by now is very sick with a head cold, has cleaned the majority of the apartment. We left a few straggler items — in fact a few more than I’d thought. It takes another filled SUV and a filled Mazda Protege to get everything out of our flat. By the time we call the property manager to inspect the place, it’s been cleaned better than it has in probably half a decade. Naturally, our efforts go mostly unnoticed as the manager gives barely a glance at anything. Judging by past tenants’ cleanliness, our place probably looks like the Pan Pacific penthouse suite. We will get our deposit back, minus $60 for a carpet cleaning fee, which I’m fine with since I couldn’t be arsed to clean carpets that are fifteen years old and coming apart at the seams.

Tuesday & Wednesday
Unpacking is how my ladyfriend spends these two days, still fighting off her cold. Much progress is made; by the end of Wednesday half our living room is reclaimed from the invasion of boxes and the bed is no longer just a mattress on the floor. We end up with a lot tagged for storage, including unsold items like a TV and dining table. The table may end up at the Salvation Army by the end of the week.

So that’s the Book of Move. In the midst of all this, work has been incredibly stressful and pressure-filled; I had to work my first overtime hour on Tuesday. But to put this in perspective, it was one hour in the four months I’ve been at Riptown. That is probably a fraction of overtime I might have put in at EA over a similar span. Also neglected due to moving: the first two games of the Stanley Cup finals, in HD, were not watched, and neither was the first episode of Canada’s Next Top Model.

Great Googily Moogily.

It’s Friday night. Sunday we shall be moving to our new place. It’s been a week of great weather — warm, sunny — and next week is forecast to be the same. Sunday, though? Showers. Damn it. I already hate moving, and now we may have to do it while it’s raining. Stupid Earth.

While this was my shortest week of work since starting the new job (I took Tuesday off, remember, so I only worked Wednesday through Friday) it was also the busiest. Short deadlines for a get-it-done-yesterday project has meant concentrating on actual tasks for my work days, rather than the usual work interspersed with checking celebrity gossip. It’s not a bad thing to be busy, but it’s made an already stressful time due to the move even more crazy. Hopefully my mind will shut down for a full night’s sleep.

And speaking of sleep … well, I have an anecdote about apartment living that I’ll share with you once we’re set up in our new place.

Birthday Day

Today is officially my birthday, despite last weekend’s Bet-A-Thon at the racetrack. And, although leading into the weekend it seemed we’d have nothing to do, it’s turned out to be quite event-filled. Saturday night, my brother and his wife inivted us to their new place for a barbecue, where we consumed some of the most delicious steaks I’ve had since last summer; Sunday, my friend Bryce nabbed some 2nd-row tickets to a Memorial Cup game between Vancouver and Lewiston, and naturally I brought my mexican wrestling mask; Sunday evening we headed to Mission for another birthday dinner with my future in-laws; today, we ventured to Granville Island for lunch and general walking around and looking at stuff. Thankfully I’ve booked tomorrow off work, too, which will be spent both packing and being lazy.

On the subject of packing and moving, we’ve essentially packed or dismantled or donated to charity everything we don’t need: half our tableware, blankets, winter clothes, books and bookshelves, knick-knacks, vases, and more are filling our dining area. The good news is we’ll be able to start moving either Wednesday or Thursday night, so we can save the big trip (sofa, bed, tables) for the weekend. We’re still hoping to have sold our washer/dryer by then — so far no takers, but to be fair, I’ve only posted it on craigslist tonight.

So that’s the birthday weekend: I did nothing I thought I would (movies and gelato) and a lot that I didn’t think I would (barbecue and junior hockey). I’m not complaining. It was a good weekend.

Busiest Month Ever

There seems to be a nonstop list of things to do this month, a lot of which revolves around moving, and I can easily say we haven’t even done half of what we need to do. Probably one-third of our stuff is in boxes, and this weekend we should have another third packed as well. We’re still waiting to find out when we can start hauling boxes to our new place, and will need to rent a van at some point too.

Among all the moving activities, last night we took in a concert. Feist was the main attraction; I bought our tickets the day they went on sale. The show was at the Orpheum, one of the local venues I had not been to in the past. It’s a really nice theatre setup, with semi-baroque interiors (I learned that from my lady friend) and our seats were only 13 rows from the stage. Feist was great to hear live, and we were really impressed that her voice in concert is as good as it is on her albums. I’ve been to a few concerts where the singers sound almost nothing like their recorded versions (Shirley Manson) but Feist was spot-on. Both Feist and the opening act also engaged the audience in witty banter, too, which is always fun. Overall it was a nice getaway from everything in our personal lives.

As my sister pointed out in a recent comment, it’s my “real” birthday on the 21st. I have no real plans for this weekend or for that date. I might just go see a movie and eat gelato. Or maybe just eat the gelato. Make no mistake, I know how to party.

2nd Annual Horsetravaganza!

Today was the second year I had an open invitation to friends and family to join me at Hastings Racecourse for my Horsetravaganza Birthday Bet-A-Thon. This year I went in with $60, prepared to lose it all in the name of fun. After a few races I was actually up about $4, but by the final race I had but $10 left to my name. With that I decided to spend it all on some Trifectas and a twenty cent Superfecta Box. If you read last year’s post from the first birthday at the races, a friend went home with over $150 after winning a Superfecta Box on the last race.

To my amazement and happiness, I too hit the Superfecta. My winnings were far from the hundred-plus range, netting me roughly $24 instead, but it was a good way to end the day. Photos of the event are on my Flickr account, so be sure to check them out.

Altogether eight people came out to say hello, bet some money, drink some beer, eat some lukewarm burgers or dogs, and generally have a good time. The weather was almost perfect; the sun didn’t quite burn through the hazy cloud cover until the final race, but at least it wasn’t rainy. Anyway, to the people who attended and are reading this, thank you for being there. For those of you reading who didn’t or couldn’t make it, I expect you there next year.

About Those Mormons

I promised to rant about Mormons a couple of posts ago, so here it is. I’ll try to keep it short because religion in general is one of the few subjects I’m passionate about. Or, more accurately, passionately against.

Notwithstanding the questionable story of Joseph Smith and the creation of Mormonism, the Latter Day Saints church probably struggles with itself and its short history more than most other religions. I don’t “like” a lot of the things the LDS church does, or believes in, or the secrecy involved with a lot of their practices, but I don’t dislike Mormonism any more than I dislike other Jesus-based religion. One practice, which we recently learned about from a PBS documentary (available to view online, in its entirety) is that the LDS church baptizes the dead. This means that, when a member of the Mormon church is baptized, they also name an individual or two that has passed away to be “saved” by their church. Their belief in the eternal soul, it would seem, compels them to bring dead people into their religion. Because, you know, they might have missed out on Mormonism during their mortal life, or subscribed to the “wrong” faiths like Islam or Judaism.

This is an incredibly pompous and self-important practice. The idea that people who lived their lives with other beliefs were wrong, and that the Mormon church has a responsibility (from God, I assume) to ensure these people enjoy an eternal life as Mormons, is asinine and offensive. It’s the belief that there’s only one true belief (Mormonism) in the eyes of their God, that while not a new idea by any means, is what upsets me. Really, Mormons have no right to baptize the dead. I’m not a person of faith, but even if I were I’d still be just as offended from the idea that, after I’m dead, the LDS church would want to take ownership of my existence to justify their own.

So there you go. I have nothing against people who believe in religion; do whatever makes you happy, as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else. But for a religion to take people — dead people — into their faith, it crosses the line of decency and the right to religious self-determination.

The non-rant part of today’s post: I made a new header (hit Reload if you don’t see it) and have a fancy Flickr widget on the right column.