eriksmartt.com/blog

slowly getting back online

The move is done. After a week of packing, cleaning, and driving a ridiculously large u-haul and trailer, I’m now getting settled in to my new abode and city. After having a couple days to vent about it, I’m now less annoyed at u-haul then I was last weekend, but I can summarize by saying that u-haul sucks and that if you’re planning a move, please do your best to avoid them.

The u-haul website is actually pretty decent and does a good job of walking you through the reservation process. It’s only at 5pm the day before your pickup that you realize the website presents a much nicer view of the company then the employees do. The truck will be at a different location then requested, which will be off a freeway that you never knew existed. It will also be the wrong size vehicle, and the trailer will be broken. All the extras like furniture pads and dollies will be missing, but u-haul will try to sell you some over-priced units that you can keep. The truck will reek of B.O. and generally be a falling apart piece of crap.

All the headache of u-haul aside, the truck did manage to limp it’s way down the highway and get me where I needed to go. The weather was fantastic over the weekend (perfect for moving, if there is such a thing), and let me get settled in a bit before the 50F drop in temperature we had today.

For the first day in the new house, I already had a guy scheduled to come out and hook up my internet connection. To get online, I decided to leave my DSL experience behind and go with a local fiber-to-the-curb, cable-to-the-house service. It’s been pretty good so far, and the bandwidth definitely beats what I had before. The bigger reason for leaving DSL though, is that I’m tired of hidden costs of using a land line — it’s makes the total cost of ownership too high if you want things like caller-id and call-waiting. I looked at few phone line alternative, but decided to go with Vonage, which is a Voice-over-IP (VoIP) provider. My experience with Vonage so far has been wonderful, and the price and services far exceed what the local phone companies can offer. I also loved that the signup process was all online. I know some people don’t like doing business that way, but it’s perfect for me — quick, easy, and efficient. Google does a better job finding answers for me then an under-paid customer service person anyway.

I’ve got a few more stories about the move, but for now, I better get back to unpacking boxes and figuring out where to put things!