out of my apartment, last week

I think I was fairly vague about what I was doing leading up to my visit back to the Bay Area last week. So, due to various circumstances, mostly the initial expectation that I would be in Bossier City by last week, my apartment lease ended at the end of November and when I realized that it would be really helpful to stay another couple days or weeks, they told me that I had to get out since they had another tenant lined up. And then last Monday I decided to come home last week for Thanksgiving. So, I had about two days to clear out of my apartment and catch a 0710 flight out of Austin on Thursday.

The plan was simple enough. The execution would prove difficult without help. And slightly more time consuming than planned but I attribute that to ongoing deconstruction at work. So, outside of one run made with a borrowed pick-up, I apparently own about a dozen Ford Fusion loads of inefficiently packed stuff. (I wasn't exactly counting nor was I going for style, just getting out.) I have learned that the only things I own that don't fit in my car are my bed and some wire shelves that I couldn't break apart (and will probably not move with me). I disassembled my dresser and futon to get those items into my car. Flat pack furniture rocks. And it makes me look oh so grown up.

All my stuff, at least what made the first cut, now resides in a 10' by 15' storage space and it would probably fit in a 10' by 10' space if I had even tried to pack it more efficiently. The minimal furniture lifestyle is really paying off. There will be further winnowing down, but not as severely as originally planned. I've learned that I will need to eventually obtain housing when I get to Muscat so I will probably hold onto most of my furniture, but this is a good time to take a pretty dispassionate look at all the crap I own.

The curious reader will probably wonder where I am spending my evenings right now since I am back in Victoria. I spent my first night in my car since I got into town so late and by the time I was done catching up at the yard it was well past midnight. Since then, I've been at a cheap hotel that we put out-of-town field personnel in. But I'll be crashing a couple nights elsewhere next and then probably come back to the hotel. And then after that, I am trying to use up my accrued vacation time.

How? I have a crazy scheme that involves getting my moving estimates next week, coming back to California at the end of it, seeing some people I didn't see last week, leaving some more stuff behind in my room, but I'll clean it up more this time, coming back here, moving my stuff, one last look around, shipping out, having a suspiciously long layover in New York, then continuing on to my final destination in Oman. It just might work. Or not at all. We'll see what happens.