A Day (or Two) in the Life of Scott Hanno

Merry Christmas and to all a GOOD night! And it's another Sunday night and I'm pretty much all moved into the new pad, I've still got tons of boxes to unpack but most of them are the one's that I know what's in them but don't know what to do with the stuff. The biggest thing that I still need to find is my iron as I'm going to need that tomorrow night when I have to get ready for work come Tuesday morning. I think that I could really get into working from home here but I guess that would kind of defeat the purpose of moving here in the first place, so I guess that soon enough I'll be in the routine of commuting to work and working in an office again.

I didn't end up going to my brother's this weekend and just hung out around here, today was kind of a slug day but I did end up hanging some curtains and unpacking more boxes. I had an issue with my furnace on Friday as I was installing a programmable thermostat (which is the exact same on that I had in FL) but after I got it all hooked up the thing was dead - and even after putting the old one back on the heat still didn't work. So I made a bunch of calls and they told me that I must have blown a fuse on the blower (those little glass ones) so I went down into the crawl space and found it and then tried to find a replacement for it. I drove around for a good five hours on Friday trying to find this stupid fuse, but the furnace must be like 20 years old and no one had one. So I spent Friday night in the cold and the got up Saturday morning calling everyone in the yellow pages but no one was working, but then did find one guy who came over Saturday afternoon and took care of my problem. He even installed my thermostat and didn't charge me extra - he told me that was his Christmas present to me :) But I guess that when they replaced the heat pump (which is brand new) they never replaced the blower/furnace thing and the guy told me that it looked like it was the original equipment from when the house was built. He recommended that I replace it soon as I think that it's just about on it's last leg and is a pretty important appliance and isn't very efficient the way it is now. And in reading the tax changes if I do it in 2006 I think that I can write it off but I'll have to check it out more - but they definitely say to wait until next year to do anything major.

My brother in law & family also sent me a Lowes gift card and I used that to buy a new microwave as my old one didn't do so well and started to smell like it was burning and made this awful noise the day after I got here - so it was perfect timing for that gift. I also talked with my brother yesterday and he thought for sure that I was coming since he didn't hear from me, but I had to break the news to him that I wasn't going to make the trip. My next door neighbor (Doug) and his five year old son (Christopher) ended up coming over this morning to give a wrapped gift which turned out to the a Hickory Farms cheese & beef gift box ...... I really thought that was nice of them and something that you would never see in my Florida neighborhood. He introduced himself and told me that I'd be seeing a lot more of them, if I liked it or not.

The house is coming together though and after yesterday I started to feel a lot more at home, I set up my kitchen table and got the kitchen all set, have my computers set up in the dining room which is half done (the other half of the room is still filled with boxes), the living room is 1/2 way there and still need to hook up the DVD & home theater, I made much progress on my bedroom today and the guest bedroom is still a mess. I still need to do something with my closet space as my clothes still don't fit. I also spent the last couple of days driving around the neighborhood and there is every store imaginable within just minutes, I ate at Boston Market the other night and I might have to become a regular to the place. I still need to find a grocery store as SuperWalmart has me spoiled and the grocery store that I went to the other day was something from the 70's ...... def not what I'm used to. But there is a Food Lion down by Dulles Airport which is suppose to be half way decent so I'll have to check that out tomorrow and see if it's to my liking.

Other than that I'm slowly getting my organized life back, I don't like not being organized and it kind of drives me crazy! Montie is adjusting slowly and I can finally let him out the back door and he goes down the deck stairs and does his business, plus I think that he's finally remembering the step down into the living room as he fell flat on his face like 10 times the first day that he was here. He's still not liking all of the stairs though but maybe someday he will get used to them. I guess that's enough for this day so I'll talk with you later and hope that you have a great week - at least we've got a couple of short ones for the next couple of weeks! Take care - talk with you soon.

posted by Scott @ 9:19 PM

I am now the owner of a new home! My closing in Florida finally happened yesterday about 5pm their time and 6pm mine, then that set off my closing here which ended up happing pretty much on time ...... well give or take a couple hours of waiting around but I'm writing this from my new home tonight! I am sitting on a bucket as a chair and using a box for my desk ...... but it's only one more night and my movers called me today to confirm that they'd be here at 9am in the morning. I have power and water and maybe a phone but I can't check that as I didn't bring a phone with me.

Tommorrow is where all the work begins, the deliver the stuff but it's up to me to unpack it - plus I don't like leaving all of the packing paper and boxes behind so I have to try and get as much unpacked before the truck leaves. It sure will be nice to have some furniture in the place though - plus I see thousands of little things that I can fix up all ready ...... the hedges out front need a nice good trim as well. Well, just checking in and letting you know where I am at - I'm in Sterling and that's about it! Have a great rest of your week and I will talk with you on another day.

posted by Scott @ 7:01 PM

Another Sunday night and I'm here at a Best Western in Ashland VA, about an hour south of DC just kind of hanging out. The weather here today was better than it has been since yesterday morning when I left Georgia, the sun was shining and it's warmer here too. And it kind of feels like I'm in the real world again for some reason, I drove through downtown Roanoke towards the end of my day and it was good to see a big city again - plus the hotel that I'm staying at tonight is much more like I am used to and is actually a great room. I chose this place cuz it had a Denny's restaurant in the parking lot and since yesterday I've been craving a Philly cheese steak sandwich which I had for dinner tonight. This place is also right at some amusement park it looks like called Kings Dominion or something like that, the park is closed for the season but you can definitely tell that this place gets their share of the business during the summer.

I've been driving about 300 miles each day which is really nothing, five hours or less of driving and that makes for a pretty short day. But Montie is about done by the time we get to a place and dang if he hasn't made a mess of my truck ...... the little piglet. He's been using my middle handbrake leather bag thing as his pillow and that getting pretty nasty as well. And his hind leg is still bothering him but hopefully after we get home and he rests he'll be back to normal. I also wasn't really planning on leaving Florida on Friday but I had nothing better to do so that put me a day ahead of schedule so I had to slow it down so that I didn't get to DC too soon. I probably could have easily been there today but what the heck, I'll get there soon enough.

And this trip brings back memories from the old days of relocating, the Interstate has a life of it's own and all of the towns that are there just to support it. It's definitely different than any of the hotels that I work at - but I guess that they have a purpose just the same. I stayed in a nasty Travel Lodge in PCB the first night, then a Comfort Inn in GA the next night which wasn't much better, then last night at a Microtel in South Carolina and then tonight a Best Western in central VA so at least I got my variety. I've also been wondering who ever thought up the idea of making highways out of concrete - that was a pretty rough part of the trip that Montie didn't seem to enjoy. And those people that can't get out of the left lane to let people pass also were getting on my nerves all day.

So I'll probably head out late morning tomorrow after working here for a while and then find a hotel near my new home sometime in the afternoon. I really hope that I get some good news first thing tomorrow about the closing down in PCB and that it goes through as I talked with my agent today and she knew nothing more than she did on Friday. At least I guess the people that are buying my home are just as ticked off as I am so I guess that made me feel a little better at least. And if it doesn't happen tomorrow than I've got a lot of scrambling to do to try and reschedule a bunch of things. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

I guess that's it for another week, I hope that you've made all of your holiday plans and guess that Christmas will be here before we know it. I'm still not sure if I am going to NY or not next weekend but will decide that after I see how my week goes and if I can get everything done or not. Talk with you later, stay in touch when you can. Night!

posted by Scott @ 9:15 PM

I'm in South Carolina tonight, 600 miles down and 400 more to go. The trip has been pretty uneventful thus far, stayed in some nasty hotels/motels the last couple of nights but I'm travelling with a pup, what more can I do. And Montie isn't enjoying the ride too much and has a hard time sleeping with all of the bumps on the road but he's dealing with it - but I don't think that he's enjoying the cold weather. I kind of think that his knees are really going to get ugly if he's living in this weather full time and might have to ship him back to stay in Florida, we'll see what the doctor has to say.

And I'm ticked off that my house in PCB didn't close yesterday like it should have and they blamed it on computers with their mortgage company being down and not being able to get the package there in time, I did my part but that's all that I could do. And now I don't find anything out on the status until Monday morning and that's cutting it way too close for my liking. All I can do is keep my fingers crossed - but I'm not feeling too good about it and all of my plans will go down the tube. Only time will tell I guess.

More later - I'll add to this later, probably tomorrow night (if I have internet and that's been another challenge in itself!).

posted by Scott @ 11:30 PM

The move update - two more days and counting and it will all be underway - I just hope the packers don't come too early on Wednesday as I still have a ton of stuff to get done before then. And then we load everything on Thursday and I guess that I'll need to find a place to sleep that night as the carpet cleaners are coming at the end of the day and I won't have a bed (or tv, or internet) so it's probably not worth sticking around here. I'm still not sure what time the closing is set for on Friday and that will probably depend on if I head out of town on Friday or Saturday morning but I should have plenty of time either way. I also figured that it didn't make much sense to do much cleaning today as I'll just be doing it again in a couple of days but I still don't know where the day went just the same.

Yesterday was a beautiful day and I decided that I'd mow the lawn one last time for the heck of it, it was more to bag up the pine needles and leaves that were making it look like crap and now it looks all beautiful again - and I realized that this was the first time that ALL of the lawn looked great at the end of a season and it will probably look awesome come springtime ...... for someone else anyways. I was also thinking about all of the little things that I did around here and had it just about perfect, but I guess that it's now time to put that all behind me and start out again from scratch - I think it will be better once I get to my new place but it's kind of sad to leave everything behind here.

The new buyers finally got around to doing their home inspection thing on Friday, by contract they only had the first 10 days after signing to get it done so they really can't hold me to anything - and it will really tick me off if they come back on Monday (wtih 4 days left) with demands that they are wanting me to fix. I don't think that they found anything big anyways, but hopefully they feel better about the place as they hadn't even really looked around all that much when they came the first time. I don't know but I think that they will come through on Friday and if that happens then the rest should come off without a hitch. I've been working on getting all of my utilities set up at the new place and have everything done, Verizon is kind of ticking me off as I am getting DSL through them but they can't place the order for it until the phone line is turned on, then it takes like four days for them to ship me the equipment and then another three days for them to activate it - so with the holidays and weekends I'm looking at like 10 days with no broadband :( Dial up may be the death of me .......but I guess that we do what we've got to do. DirectTV is all set to come the day after my close and that was no issue at all. I also guess that Verizon is in the process of replacing all of their network with fiber optics and they are working in my new neighborhood now - so when they are done it will double the speed of the internet and they aren't even charging more for it!

And if you want my new contact information you can click here and download it but in order to protect the innocent I password protected it - the user name and password are both my pup's name (all small letters, with an ie and not a y). It's got my home address and phone number and that all should be working by the 21st of the month. I still haven't figured out what I am doing for Christmas and truthfully it really doesn't even seem like that time of year, but maybe as I get closer it might but it just hasn't hit me yet - maybe living with snow on the ground might make me feel a little different.

And I guess that's about it for another day, still hauling out tons of junk and just keep coming across more of it. Besides tomorrow's load I think that I've only got one more garbage day left and I guess the rest of whatever is left comes along with me. So I'm not sure when the next update is going to be but stay tuned to hear how my trip turns out - if I get a chance to write next Sunday night I'll probably on the road headed north on I-95! Take care and I will talk with you soon.

posted by Scott @ 10:02 PM

Sunday night again so guess what I'm doing ..... yup, cleaning the house and writing about it on this thing! But the house is pretty much as clean as it's going to get and just finished up running the vacuum in my office and dusting and all that stuff - I've been running behind schedule all day! And I blame that on the weatherman as all week they were saying that it was going to be nice on Saturday and rain starting Sunday and then all day on Monday ...... but I woke up to rain yesterday and that stuck around all day. Today was beautiful though but instead of doing everything that I normally do today like cleaning and grocery shopping yesterday I didn't and pretty much wasted the day away. Then today I went out and picked up the yard a little bit and cleaned of the driveway plus everything else that I normally do and that put me behind ...... I never was too good about altering my normal habits any.

I've also been getting another load of garbage out to the road and I'm continuing to clean out the place little by little and think that every week I have at least four big old bags of crap out to the road and my garbage people must really be wondering what the heck is going on. I finally got rid of a pair of truck speakers today that I tried before to get rid of and they were gone in like 10 minutes or less and I think that my garage is pretty much cleaned out. I have this old computer that I'm still trying to get rid of so I put that out with the trash and figure that it's a 50/50 chance that they'll take it but they did take the monitor the other week and that kind of surprised me.

And on to the move update, one week from this coming Friday and I'll be out of here, the movers are coming to pack on that Wednesday and load on Thursday, I'll close on the house here on Friday and then drive up to Virginia over the weekend and get there by Monday. Then I close on a house there on Tuesday and the movers deliver on Wednesday and I'll be all unpacked just in time for Christmas weekend! And now for the big announcement - here is the house that I bought in Sterling VA which is about 14 miles from work and real close to Dulles airport - click here for the grand tour of the place. I had the home inspection done yesterday and got that back today and it passed with flying colors, it's got a brand new heat pump and the vinyl siding is only a couple of years old along with the water heater too. And it has a fireplace to keep me and Montie toasty on those cold winter nights, an awesome deck with a big ole back yard and lots of things to keep me busy on my weekends! I might even set up by hottub out back too as that's been sitting in my garage here since I moved in but might work out great there, we'll see. Montie has never lived in a two story house though so it might give him the workout of his life, but then again maybe he'll just hang out and sleep on the wood floors day and night. I'm getting excited about it though and it all has to go off without a hitch and if one thing goes wrong it's going to snowball on me and ruin everything. So, keep your fingers crossed for me, ya hear?

Other than that that's about all there is, between work and the move there isn't much time for anything else. I'm going to get DishTV up there and they've got a pretty sweet deal going where they give you a DVR player and free install plus you mail in a coupon and you get a free DVD player too. I have that set to go in the day after I move in, now I just have to figure out my internet (and electricity) and I'll be all set.

It's warmer here after the rain yesterday but I think that the northeast might be getting some snow these days, and in a couple of more weeks I'll be sitting in the middle of it too. I'm debating on getting Montie's hair cut for one last time as he's mighty shaggy - but he might need that extra fur but if I don't who knows how long it will be before I have a chance to get it cut again. Hmmm ...... I still like the name of my grooming new place - Bark Avenue and is filled with these little old ladies that cut dog hair for a living - they were very nice to him the last time that he went.

I guess that's about it for another day (or week), have a great week and enjoy your holiday shopping. Talk with you later - drop me a line anytime by clicking here! Night.

posted by Scott @ 9:57 PM