PatandMeg.com will be taking an official "timeout" starting tomorrow afternoon
for the big move. The official return of the website hangs in the hands of
Verizon and our new DSL provider, which are slippery hands at best.

We have an installation "appointment" tomorrow, which should take place between
the ultra-convenient hours of 8AM-5PM, and someone must be present, since
normal people never have anything to do other than sit around at home during
those hours on a work day. It’s going to be tricky getting the phone man where
he needs to be, and finishing packing at the other apartment…

Operating under Mr. Murphy, the Verizon folks will come as soon as I leave the
new apartment to finish packing, get lunch, or some other 5 minute task. Assuming all goes well, and the rest of the technical glitches are worked out,
hopefully we’ll be back on the air in a week or so. Until then…

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The TL and I rolled out for our last Stamford to Exton, PA. run on this dreary
Monday morning, marking the final countdown to moving day. I exorcised the
final demons of a week-long sickness (courtesy of my coworkers) with a final
blowout "night on the town" with Meghan and her friend Jessica, and now there
are a few more boxes to be packed, a truck to be loaded, and we’re off to NY on
Saturday morning!

Other than my childhood home in MA, my two years in Stamford is my longest stay
in any particular place. I feel a certain fondness for "the Stamf," but with
my job once again not tied to a particular area, there’s no reason to stay. I
am rather troubled that I’ll be forced to carry a NY drivers license, and pay
state taxes to the [Evil] Empire State, but at least we’ll be officially
outside of NYC borders so hopefully I won’t have to admit to being a New
Yawker. If you do see me with "goofy glasses," a "distressed" haircut,
messenger bag and permantly-affixed iPod, please feel free to punch me in the
face. I’ll thank you later.

Meghan and I did some re-con on our new place over the weekend, and although the
area seems far quieter than our current digs, we did manage to sniff out a
couple of bars and some local eateries. For whatever reason, there is an
abundance of Japanese places (restaurants, schools, groceries), bakeries and
dry cleaners, leading us to believe we’ll meet many very clean Japanese folks,
who really like cake!

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After a record apartment search (eight apartments in about eight hours) Meghan and I have found our new home in Harrison, NY. It’s a nice two bedroom apartment on the third floor of a multi-family house, and met my requirement of having a washer and dryer, and Meghan’s requirement of being close to the train. There’s also a batty Italian landlord, who hopefully has a clandestine connection to shady dealings of some sort.

With checks cut for the security deposit and outrageous realtor’s fees (I wish I could get $2400 for 3 hours work) we are slated to move in on the 1st of April. This of course raises the specter of that ultimate evil: packing. Those of my family and friends who have endured one of my many moves around the eastern seaboard can attest to the fact that I will not be winning “Most Organized Packer” anytime in the foreseeable future. Try as I may to get organized early, invariably there is some cabinet accidentally left unpacked, or various knickknacks without boxes that end up being jammed into a bag and thrown into the moving truck at the last minute. While businesses are celebrated for Just In Time inventory management, the accolades for my Just In Time Packing system have yet to arrive. Meghan remains convinced we can fully pack and move by the 1st, so I am putting my faith in her superior organizational abilities.

A further consequence of the move is that I’ll need to dismantle the tangle of wires and battered hardware that keeps PatandMeg.com up and running. I hope we’ll keep the downtime to under a week, but we will be at the mercy of utility provides installing high-speed internet access at our new digs. Don’t worry, we’ll be back as soon as I complete that other most unpleasant of duties: unpacking.

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