Getting There

I think we are finally getting a handle on the house. It still amazes me how much stuff there is once all the big items are gone.  Thanks to Freecycle, the mattress, dinette chairs, and a number of other things (all were offered and taken by the nice couple that responded to the mattress ad) are gone. The pathfinder is also gone now, so we have more limited means of hauling than we did before.

Most of the rest of the stuff that is left has been boxed and moved to the garage.  There is a small pile of stuff to keep (either boat or storage), a larger pile of stuff to donate, another large pile to recycle, and a small pile of trash.  Oh, did I mention that today was trash day?  Our trash service comes with the cans and this was our last pick up. We had hoped they would not show up until the afternoon...so of course they were here by 9am.

After getting the house cleared, in came the steam cleaner.  Our real estate agent said our carpets were fine and replacement would likely be a waste of time as the new owners would probably want to replace them with their own choice anyway.  So, we rented a Rug Doctor and, after vacuuming, steam cleaned the carpets.  For as old as they are, the carpets still look fairly decent...a surprise for builders grade carpeting.

Speaking of surprises, one of the vacuums we borrowed (not the one pictured above) was sure one.  With all the advertising and the price tag of Dyson, I found that the one we tried using was terrible.  It was less effective than a refurbished Hoover WindTunnel vacuum we picked up at Big Lots for about 1/10 the price.  And all those claims about design innovations...well...I think my wife summed it up best: "This thing was obviously designed by someone that has never actually used a vacuum".  I could say that the Dyson sucked...but normally a vacuum should and it didn't seem to do that either.

As of this morning all of the rooms are empty except the kitchen.  And we need to get that cleared out and cleaned up quickly as the real estate agent is coming over to take pictures to create the listing. Everyone says it is a good time to be selling in the Denver market, so hopefully we will get it sold soon.  In any case, we should be heading for the boat in the next few days.  Yay!

Aaaaaagh.....

Sorry for going radio silent for a little while.  It has been quite hectic around here.  We had the nice going away party last Sunday and it was nice to see my old friends and make some new ones.  Of course, as dizzy as I've been recently, I totally forgot to take any pictures while I was there (doh!).  I do want to thank everyone who stopped by to wish us well.

Some "provisions" we were given during the party.

Since the party we've been running around like the proverbial headless chickens trying to get rid of stuff.  It still amazes me how much cruft we have to deal with.  The only furniture we have left is our mattress lying on the floor in our bedroom, one table, and a couple dilapidated dinette chairs.  It kind of reminds me how we first started living out of college...not a lot of furniture.  The difference is all the small stuff though...man you can accumulate a lot in 18 years.

Many trips to every imaginable donation place (Goodwill, ARC, Habitat for Humanity, etc.). A trip down to the metal recycling center with old computer carcasses (steel cases, motherboards, hard drives...all separated of course), fence stakes, buckets of hardware, and other metallic things we couldn't find a home for or reason to keep (it is amazing what they will recycle..and depending on what you have there is some money in it..between our two trips we made $125).

Boxing up the things we want to store like picture albums, heirlooms, paperwork.  Decided to buy a small fire safe to store some paperwork in lieu of paying for a safe deposit box for some necessary (but not exactly valuable) paperwork.  Then stashing these boxes with nearby relatives.

Spending some quality time on eBay and Craigslist trying to get a few more dollars for some of our better "stuff".  Our mountain bikes are now sold, so we will be looking for some possibly folding ones once we get to Florida.  Running to CarMax and EchoPark to get appraisals on our old Pathfinder (which should disappear later today...after we cart the table my computer is currently sitting on to Goodwill).

The almost gone Pathfinder...and house...I hope.

And yesterday we met with the real estate agent.  The sign is hiding in the garage, and we are prepared to list the house.  That should happen early next week.

The sign waiting in the garage.

The goal was to be cleared out by last Tuesday...but this isn't any different than any other plan made by a cruiser...a wave comes along and wipes away any trace of that plan scribbled in the sand.  Now I guess we will see if we are on the road by Easter.  Keeping my fingers crossed.

Twang Goes The Dock Line

They call the act of heading off cruising "cutting the dock lines".  Untethering yourself from your previous land-based life as it were. Well, that twang was the sound of another dock line of ours being cut. Not the last one, but an important one nonetheless. You see, yesterday was my wife's last day at work.

Goodbye card signed by her coworkers

I think this was a particularly tough day for her.  She's had this job since shortly after she graduated from college and has spent the last 23.5 years there.  She has seen a lot in her time there (personally I'm not sure how anyone can watch laws being made for that long) and made many friends there. And given she had no less than three going away gatherings at work, I'm pretty sure that (as the above card stated) she will be missed there. But this morning she no longer has to drive to the office.

A bit more picturesque than the average office building
(Picture by Chris Gonzalez, released under GFDL)

I didn't really realize it until recently, but the way we divided up our tasks was probably more difficult for her. While I was living and working on the boat, she was in Colorado wrapping things up here.  So, while I was seeing positive progress (albeit sometimes VERY slow progress), she mostly dealt with things going away.  Fortunately only a few more days remain of those tasks, then we all head back to the east coast and to our new floating home.

After the party, of course.

Bon Voyage Gathering - You're Invited

Now that things are finally coming down to the wire back in Colorado, I think it is time to have a party.  But...there is just one problem...an empty house isn't exactly the best venue for throwing a party.  The lack of tables...and chairs...and just about everything else just won't work for a gathering.

We thought about doing a cruiser style party...those are typically pot-luck affairs where you bring your own favorite drink and some food to share...but I don't think that would work out as well with guests all across the Denver area as it does in a marina or anchorage.

So, we decided to try a hybrid approach.  We are going to try to meet up with a bunch of folks at a new brewpub that recently (at least to me) opened in the area to say farewell over a couple beers.  They have about a dozen different beers on tap at any given time so you should be able to find something to your liking.

If you are hungry, this place doesn't have a kitchen itself but schedules a variety of food trucks to provide the food, and reports are that they are good.  On Sunday it will be Taj Palace (Indian).

If you are reading this and will be in the Denver area on Sunday, March 29th, please drop in.  Here is some information on the Wonderland Brewing Company:

Wonderland Brewing Company
5450 W 120th Ave
Broomfield, Colorado 80020

2~4pm Sunday March 29th

Map


Come join us for a beer, chat about our upcoming adventure, and say bon voyage!

P.S. If you think you might be coming, please let us know so we know how many tables to hoard.  If you don't have other contact information for us, the email form at the bottom of the right hand column will work just fine.

Being Slug-ish

A week or two ago one of the blogs I regularly read did a monthly recap.  In the recap they had mentioned that they spent a couple days as "complete and utter slugs" while waiting out some bad weather.  According to their account they didn't do anything except read, work on their blog, snack and catch up on some TV shows.  Usually tossing out the term "slug" implies a negative connotation, that somehow they should have been doing something more with their time.  So, naturally (and with tongue-in-cheek), I had to respond.  I quipped something about the virtues of the slug lifestyle and that it must be OK because you never hear of slugs having heart attacks.

(image from quintessentialruminations)

While my comment was intended with a hearty veil of humor, there was also a little bit of a lesson that life has been trying to teach me mixed in.  You see, my career in the software industry has always been fast paced and fairly stressful.  It was pretty rare when I would have the chance to unwind and it seems I had just about forgotten how to do that.  When I used to go on vacation, at best I may have just started to unwind a bit by the time the vacation was over.  And I'm pretty sure I am far from alone on this.  Otherwise this clip from CitySlickers might have been left on the cutting room floor...

https://youtu.be/-1bTe54j6PQ?t=2m34s

For me, the worst part is the irony between what my industry was supposed to do and what it has actually done.  Remember how these "computing devices" I've worked on my whole life were supposed to make life easier?  It doesn't really seem they have done that, have they?  Sure, it makes some things easier.  You can make phone calls more easily, and check your email, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pintrest, and other things at any time from virtually anywhere.  You now have the internet at your fingertips and can instantly find the answers to most of our questions. Yes, we have certainly made communications easier.  But making communication easier doesn't seem to have made life any easier...instead it seems to have made life more fast-paced and hectic. Now that you can receive calls and email from just about anywhere, your boss or your customers now expect instant answers at any time.  As a society, we seem to have lost patience.  And the stress from all of this seems to be killing us.

So, back to the idea of the slug.  I don't think there is anything wrong with being a slug, if that is what you want to call it.  A little slower paced, more deliberate lifestyle is something I think we all could use.  It is something I continue to struggle with but keep striving for in my own life.  My friends over at The Cynical Sailor & His Salty Sidekick just completed another post on "The Art of Being a Slug" and, while being another humor infused post, I think it does have some pretty good lessons to offer if you just think about it.  So I will ask you to go and embrace your inner slug...the life you save may be your own.

And I'll leave you with something appropriate from the Eagles...


Learn To Be Still by siouxnavajo

A New Look

In case you couldn't tell, I got a bit bored with the old look of the blog and so I'm doing a bit of experimenting with alternate templates and looks.  I'm trying to come up with something that still fits the title image and banner yet freshen it up a bit.

So, what do you think of this one (ocean sunset background with semi-transparent fields)?  Does the background image cause the page to load slowly for you?  Do you find it readable?  Annoying?

Leave me a comment and let me know.

A Game I Surely Will Not Win

It's a game every person that moves from being a dirt dweller to a first-time cruiser plays.  And based on the blogs I read, it is a game that no one who plays ever really wins.  That game?  It's called "Will I need this?" and it is played as you try to downsize your life from your relatively large stationary home to your new and much smaller floating one.

To win this game you need to figure out what you should sell/give away/throw away, what needs to be stored with family (hopefully very little), and what will be needed and can fit on the boat.  It is a game we have actually been playing for a while.  It started when I first drove from Colorado to Florida to move onto the boat.  It continued as we planned and held our estate sale.  And it continues today as we try to empty the house of the last of our stuff and prepare for the final move onto the boat.

To make the game a bit more challenging, I added an additional rule to our version of the game.  Everything we plan to take to the boat needs to fit in the Prius that we intend to take on the drive back to to the boat.  That includes the two human and two canine passengers.  I figure this way we definitely won't arrive at the boat with more stuff than will fit on her.  After all, I've been living on it for the better part of a year so it already has many of the necessities for day-to-day life.

This is a challenging game.  You know there are some things you will need, there are other things you think you would like to have, some you can do without, and there are others that fall under the "what was I thinking when I bought that" category (anyone that ever owned a bread maker want to chime in here?).  These needs and wants are stacked against the very limited space available to store things on a boat.  Because, lets admit it, if you are storing your canned goods underneath your sofa, you just don't have an excess of storage space.

Some things are easy...while that clothes dryer might be nice, it definitely won't fit and I can't power it from the inverter (so, it left to a new owner just a few hours ago).  The ski rack, while it might fit somewhere on the boat, isn't exactly useful on a sailboat. But what about our bicycles?  They are hybrid bikes (part road and part mountain bike) and have quick release hubs so they can partially collapse for storage...but not as much as a folding bike would.  They are likely more comfortable to ride than the folding bikes...but would definitely be more difficult to dinghy to shore.

Some clothes we definitely want to take. Swimsuits, wet-suits, t-shirts, and shorts generally make the cut...at least a few good ones.  But do I need a dress suit?  How about a nice sports coat...and where will I store it on the boat if I take it.  I've never been much of a dress up kinda guy and Colorado is pretty casual, so I've only needed these things on maybe a dozen occasions my entire lifetime.

There have been a few things I've already lost this game on.  When we had the estate sale, I sold a heat gun and had to buy one for the boat.  Same with a car buffer and a few other tools.  And with the colder temperatures that I wasn't expecting to be around in, some sweatshirts needed to be acquired in Virginia and Georgia as well.  And there are other items that I already carted across the country that I have yet to use on the boat.  Don't know if I will...but haven't thrown many of them away just yet.

In any case, we keep on playing the game. Pairing down the things we need in hopes that our choices keep us from getting rid of too many items that we will later have to reacquire. And just as bad, carrying stuff half way across the U.S. just to toss it in a few months on the East coast.