Tag Archives: move

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sleeping with Walt


Superbowl Sunday… I would have forgotten if it wasn’t for our disappointment over the fact that EVERY BAG OF TORTILLA CHIPS was sold-out at the grocery store and we “honestly” had a craving for nachos… Piss.

Nacho jonesing aside, it was our day try and tackle some of the chaos we’ve created by moving the contents of the studio into the house.

While going through the guest room (the catch all storage room) and sorting stacks based on garage sale items, trash items and re-gift items – Kevin blurted out the single most brilliant idea to date:

“Why isn’t THIS our bedroom? And the Master Bedroom become the guest-room / flop room?”

After all… What do you do in a bedroom? Sleep… and well.. (ahem).

The master-bedroom accommodated the king size bed with enough room to roller-skate around it. The guest-room is just big enough for the bed with a comfortable walking space around it and access to the closets… That’s it.

So.. The whole day as was spent swapping the two rooms.

The problem now of course is the then neglected “catch all” room is now our bedroom… This was the nursery room for the home’s previous owners… and the walls are smattered with Walt Disneyâ„¢ characters all lovingly painted by hand.

There’s a part of me that wants to respect the time and love that went into those paintings, but I fear for my subconscious, slumbering beneath Mickey, Donald and friends.

Weather permitting, we’re picking up paint chips tonight.

If I had a blog – I’d encourage color suggestions considering my track record of vacillating and fretting over paint choices.

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amasnap

Knitting Kubric Style

Yesterday I stayed at home… urr… I mean “work” , Kevin took Chad in and went to the old office to wait for the gas and electric men to show up and turn things off.

The space now being phoneless, internetless, computerless, furnitureless (except for our chairs) didn’t offer him much in the way of distraction so he grabbed his knitting bag and was off.

I gave Chad the camera, a quick bounce-flash tutorial and told him to take a photo when he got off work since I’m running thin on non-blog material. I think he did a good job!

It’s fun to see other folks playing with cameras… Especially those that have a knack at seeing – but no training. Formal education and work history can sometimes be a burden. More often than not when I’m snapping something the guys will yell: “oh would you just take the damn photo!” – (meanwhile I’m holding up wrestling with reflector cards, bouncing flashes into my forearm (throws a pleasing warm color), or fiddle futzing with this or that. Going digital has helped me try to re-embrace spontaneity.

Got a decent amount of work done… A tiny signage program and a storyboard for an upcoming Flash gig.

I realized that in all this upheaval of late, (and general suburban “nesting”), we haven’t seen a lot of our friends lately.

I’m feeling friend-needy.

I’m not blogging.

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release

free

Yesterday was “mostly” move day.

It took about 4 trips, slip-n-slide-style in the VW dodging over-confident soccer-moms in their H2s and Navigators.

Our original intention was to take the big stuff that won’t fit in the house and store it at my dad’s until spring-time when we would then re-schlep everything to my driveway to sell in the upcoming garage sale.

The truck we secured for the big stuff was out of commission from the ice.

In a single moment of clarity and calm I got it:

“fuck it. Fuck it all. – in the end – it means nothing to me”…

The hassle, headache and effort of moving the two desks, a shelving unit and a sofa would probably not offer “that” much in a garage sale. Maybe $400 if we were lucky.

so… Why was I freaking out trying to horde this CRAP only to peddle it later?

Knowing bulk pick-up for the city was coming up – we moved the stuff to the curb..

vacating office

Standing there, feet frozen, I got a strange sensation. Sitting right there on the street was a symbol of what we’ve talked about doing with the company since 2001. And – at the same time – the symbol of me deciding back in 96′ to go it alone and go into business.

I bought my first chunky old school desk when I got my first apartment. I found it at a used furniture warehouse in what once was a dark dirty corner of St. Louis. (Now a parking lot for St. Louis University).

I paid $180 for it – and it required disassembly and several trips to get it back in my little Golf.

That desk has had 4 different macs on it.
I’ve spilled countless cups of coffee on it.
I’ve billed a quarter of a million dollars from that desk.
I’ve had sex on it.

I was sitting at that desk when every major decision about the company has been made – including getting rid of the desk itself.

It’s not the the physical item that has true worth – it’s the experience and memories attached to it.

On our trip back to the studio for the next load we passed a snow plow truck with the desk stuck in the back of it. I smiled…. Knowing that old thing has a new home and wondering what adventures it will have.

Everything we had put out had been snapped up within an hour. A good day for dumpster divers.

Now after that big babblefest about material things and their meaning – I should note that I’m not giving up our Aeron chairs for nothing – even if it means rolling them by hand the 20 miles out to our suburban home.

And while I’m being a hypocrite, I should also point out that I’m not blogging.

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Best laid plans of monkey and men.

kaboom

Well… Uhhh…. Urrrrrrr….

How can I wrap this up in a nice easy to digest info-byte.

The Friday after they took the powerbook away. I’m crippled – but still have my old G4 I can work on…

9:30am
Got to the office to find out that out landline was down. Apparently the switch over from land to cell is not as painless as they had suggested. We’re waiting for SWB to do whatever it is they need to do to release our old number to Sprint. This could take a week. No huge one – call the clients and make sure they all have the other cell number.

10:30am
Our landline went bye bye and with it – the DSL…. It’s being transferred to our house, but we have to wait for SWB to do whatever it is they need to do which will allow our ISP to set us up.

on-the-fly problem solving
OK… No sweat. I can still work, albeit on a dinosaur. We just figured we’d pack up the systems and take them to the loft and tie them into their T1 that afternoon. We changed our packing priorities and started packing up the computers.

1:15pm / shit hits the fan
Our friend with the loft calls from L.A. – “Hey Jim, I’m sorry to tell you this but I’ve had it with the building owner (tedious, yet valid issue here)…. I’m closing that office down – you can’t move in”.

(long pause for dramatic effect)

Voila… We’re fucked… Here, a week out from the switch over – the “moving ball” has already started rolling and can’t be stopped…

So.. Once again, when we’ve decided to embrace change, the universe has seen fit that we jump directly into the deep end instead of shimmying into the pool via the kitty end.

The intention of the loft was to serve as a buffer while we continue to slim down the company’s operations, get Kevin on powerbook, etc. By the fall, I wanted us to be in a position of ZERO-reliance on a physical space to work.

Wonderful intentions aside, our friend with the loft has a horrible track record for botched deals and bad luck. I was gambling that they’d be stable enough to get us to that “ZERO RELIANCE” period and THEN later, (which I expected), something to go wrong or go squirrelly – we’d simply be able to slip our Powerbooks in our briefcases, grab my files and step away.

Alright… Fine.. Note to self: don’t play the stock market or bet on horses.

So… Nowhere else to go – we’ve started throwing stuff in the carport of the house. (oh yeah – in the biggest winter storm of the season).

We’ll work out of the house for now…

We were just starting to get a hold on the house and now it’s popping at the seams with boxes.

The textbook scorp in me demands control – and in situations like this I feel completely powerless and overwhelmed. Kevin, my rock, is exhausted trying to keep my mental state from completely deteriorating. Mr. “nothing stresses me out” Chad is also keeping me sane with hugs and hourly installments of: “it’ll be fine”.

We’ll be having a huge garage sale in Spring – but until then will just need to deal with the chaos.

Good things: Going to save a bundle on office overhead (and billable hour overhead).

I should blog about this so later after it’s all said and done and we’ve morphed into whatever it is we’re going to be I’ll be able to look back and say – “Wow – remember when the rug was yanked from underneath us professionally and I spent a week digesting my own internal organs?”