WEATHER DELAYS AND OTHER MOVING UPDATES

I always seem to have bad luck in picking times to move from one home to another.  When I moved into this apartment (into a two-bedroom from a one-bedroom in the same complex) just under six years ago, I managed to pick the week that they were resurfacing the parking lot.  We couldn't use a vehicle to move the furniture because of the hot tar on all of the road surfaces so we had to carry everything along the sidewalks and grassy areas.  Of course, it also decided to rain on the main moving day.

And now the weather is once again forcing delays in my moving and I'm getting farther and farhter behind.  First, we had a major storm over the weekend.  Although my car was covered in a layer of ice topped with two or so inches of snow a few days ago, I managed to chip away at the ice and get the car running enough to move several loads of boxes.  Today, just one day before Keith arrives to help me move furniture, we are being subjected to yet another winter storm.  It rained most of the night and now every surface is covered in ice — the sidewalks and roads are especially treacherous and I fell very hard a short time ago.  Now, the rain is turning to snow and they are calling for accumulations of around five inches at elevations lower than 7,500 feet by noon.  Above 7,500 feet will be even worse.  It's very dangerous to drive in this weather here; I still have some icy driving skills left over from years of living in Kansas but most other drivers here have no clue about how to drive even when it rains, much less when they have to deal with ice and snow.

I did manage to buy another 28 bankers boxes yesterday so I'll stay inside packing those up today and maybe drive several loads over to storage sometime tomorrow (the weather forecast calls for temperatures in the 50's tomorrow).  Still, looking around the apartment today I feel like I'm very far behind.  I'd wanted to have nothing but furniture left by the time Keith got here.  I'm not going to accomplish that — not even close....

I do feel like I accomplished something yesterday.  I took two loads to the storage unit early in the morning and then spent several hours on the phone cancelling my utilities and various billed accounts.  The cancellation of most of these was relatively easy (once I finished waiting on-hold — the record was just over 70 minutes waiting for the phone company CSR to come on the line); I did have to drive to my local insurance agent to sign an "intent to cancel" notification.

Why do Internet service providers make it so difficult to cancel?  When I was having problems with my DSL a months or so ago, I needed to get online to download the AT&T dialer onto my laptop and restore my account settings.  However, to do this, I needed to temporarily sign up for AOL so I could get online.  With AT&T installed on the laptop, I certainly didn't need AOL anymore (I'd used one of those 3-month free trial CD's that clog my mailbox),   I called them yesterday to cancel (two months "early") and told them I was leaving them because I was moving to Thailand.  The CSR tried to get me to keep AOL ("you can dial-in from Thailand"   yeah, there's NO local number anywhere in the country) and when I told him I wasn't even sure if we'd have a home phone line he said, "well, you can log-in to AOL from a cybercafe"). Why would I want to use a $20-per-month service at an Internet cafe where you can get online for free (plus the hourly charge of the cafe, which is very cheap in Thailand)?  Anyway, I finally got him to cancel the service (after getting a lecture about how much free time I had left on the trial...).

Apart from driving down to my local insurance agent's office (it had been so long since I'd been to the office — back when I first signed up — that I had to look up the address in the phone book and still had problems finding it), I also ran a few other errands.  The most important of these was going to AAA and getting my International Driver's Permit (plus having the two passport-type photos taken for it).  Now, if I feel the desire, I can legally drive in Thailand.

I put off getting a haircut until today which, in turn, I'll probably have to delay until tomorrow given the nasty weather.  I also need to buy some paint and spackle.  Looks like tomorrow will be a very busy day.  I've been falling asleep lately in the afternoon and waking up past midnight; I need to make sure I don't do that tomorrow night because I need to pick Keith up at the airport at 9:00pm.