About Freaking Time

This morning, our stuff arrived. It was two hours later than they said it would be, but considering it was also two months later than they said it would be I'm not going to complain about it.

There's just one more thing to ship over and we'll be good. Two things really.

For Fuck's Sake (AKA VIP Relocation Sucks)

Liz gets a call today that there might be a problem with the stuff we shipped over, including my Xbox 360. The original quoted timeframe of "one month" has long since come and gone, but supposedly our stuff was supposed to be in Essex this week for delivery on Friday.

Except it isn't. They popped open the container with our stuff in it, and... our stuff wasn't there. Some stuff that was supposed to be in Germany was there, but not our stuff. It's not "lost," they just "don't know where it is."

I told Liz to tell them that when they find the box with my hiking boots in it that they can save themselves some time and put the boots up their own asses so I don't have to.

In case you're wondering, the name of the company is VIP Relocation. Or V.I.P. Relocation. VIP Relocation is based out of Los Angeles. VIP Relocation are now almost a month late and VIP Relocation have "misplaced" our stuff (not "lost" it.) And I wager when you Google search for VIP Relocation (that's VIP Relocation kids), this post will come up.

VIP Relocation. VIP Relocation. VIP Relocation. VIP Relocation. VIP Relocation.

Update: Carlo from VIP Relocation contacted me about this post (see the comments below.) He informed me VIP is under new management and that problems like this should be fixed. Since this happened a year ago, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

The First Batch

The first batch of London pictures are up on my Flickr stream, from moving in and our walk through Camden Town. Enjoy!

Benjamins, British Style

In the second of two encounters with some kind of financial service (a bank and a letting agency specifically), the fact that we have jobs and will be making apparently a good salary in Pounds has opened doors that might previously have been closed. I've been corresponding with a leasing agent trying to find a place in and around Camden Town, and after the initial "Hi, I'm an American!" we got down to business - and they would require six months rent up front. Tell them you're employed and you have a good salary, and suddenly you're taken far more seriously. Same with the bank; when they found out how much Elizabeth would be making each month, our options for bank accounts and credit cards multiplied threefold.

At least our hard work has paid off a little in this regard, because I couldn't imagine fucking around with some of this stuff not knowing about a job or making a pittance.

The Home Stretch on the Home

The good news is, we really are on the home stretch as far as the house goes. The bad news is, it should have been on the market this week. After tonight, the last bits will be easy - getting the doorknobs to work properly and painting some trim and doing other minor touch-up paintjobs, and putting things away and getting the house ready to go.

Still no news on the job situation, a source of infinite frustration for me. I'm frankly not sure which is worse: that a communications company can't be bothered to communicate with people about decisions that could potentially affect those people's long-term future, or that in the end all the promises don't add up to anything without something concrete, so I'm essentially at zero.

Coming soon: pictures of the remodeled house, so I have something to remember all this hard work by aside from an ulcer the size of Connecticut.

Getting Ready to Move

Hopefully I'll look back on this post one day and laugh, because it's not all that funny right now.

Preparations for the move are actually going well. Current things in flux are: my job, which I should hear about tomorrow; and the house, which is going to require a few more days of work. We've got a brand-new deck we'll never use, our kitchen is a color of yellow we never would have chosen, but there's doors up and it's a matter of taking care of the little things at this point.

I'm alternating between really excited, really scared and kind of frustrated (at the amount of work and very little time in which to do it.) Seth gave us some great London books and I picked up a couple of others, so I'm reading about the city again and already planning places to go and things to see. It's going to be very different this time, not only because I'll have a job during the day but because I won't be living right in the middle of the City of London itself.

But when I sit down and really think about it, I am excited more than anything else. And every time I smash my thumb with the hammer as I'm nailing up trim around the doors, I imagine myself drinking another pint of Guinness and it's OK. Mostly.