Today marks a full year that we’ve had our own place in the absurdly-named building called The Jean. The past year has been pretty great and the apartment is still meeting our needs. Our lease is now month-to-month, but we’ll probably be sticking it out here for awhile.

When we moved in, we didn’t really know Seattle so well. If I knew then what I know now, we’d probably have ended up in a neighborhood like Ballard or Fremont. But no, here we are in North College Park and Aurora. We’ve got transients and crack whores for neighbors, but we’re on the bus line and only 15 minutes from downtown.

Ok, so our apartment’s location isn’t the greatest, but the apartment itself is pretty swell. The rent isn’t too ridiculous and it’s open and spacey.

That’s it, really. It’s been a year since we’ve settled down in the Emerald City. Wish us happy things, ok?

Yeah… what about that? Well, as you might know, I packed the scooter into the shipping container with the rest of my stuff. I unloaded it and put it in the garage. Did I mention we have a garage. We do. We have the garage. Super.

And it’s been there since.

Why? It’s partially my own fault. While I was in Pennsylvania, I allowed the registration on the scooter to lapse. It is now not street legal since it’s not registered anywhere. You wouldn’t think that would be a problem anywhere but Pennsylvania, but apparently it is.

So what must I do to get it registered? Simple. I fill out a rather bizarre form explaining that the Vehicle Identification Number that I’m submitting is, in fact, the real Vehicle Identification Number. That form must be notarized.

You can then mail that form, your title and the fees (which are a bit complicated to figure out) to the Vehicle Licensing division of the Washington Department of Licensing in Olympia. You can also go to a Vehicle Licensing Office and wait in line. I’m choosing to wait in line. You can get the form notarized there and they’ll tell you the exact fees. You also don’t have to worry about the title getting lost in the mail. This office is not the DMV. It’s also not AAA.

Oh, but before all of that, I need a valid Washington State drivers license. Easy to get? Heck no! You need to prove you live here. You have to prove the crap out of it.

I need to bring my Pennsylvania license to prove I am me. I have to provide my social security number to prove I’m not a terrorist (terrorists don’t have social security numbers, remember?). And I also need to prove that I live at my address. I can’t do that by bringing along my lease. I can’t do it by cell phone bill or Netflix. Can’t do it by showing them my local bank statement. Credit card statement? Nope. Rental insurance statement? No way! All those could be and probably are fake!

You can only prove you live where you claim to by showing them a utility bill (there are other ways, but I rent, so there aren’t other ways for me).

You can also show two items from another list of seemingly random things. Like if I showed them my auto insurance policy and something from the IRS, it would be cool.

I’m bringing everything I can get my hands on. Even my lease and other stuff they say they won’t accept. I should have enough to pass, but who knows with the DMV.

Speaking of which, the DMV is closed on Mondays. It’ll also be closed tomorrow because of Veterans Day. So on Wednesday, everybody and their grandma is going to be there with me at the DMV. Yay! Let’s go!

Sarah and I are getting there an hour before they open. We’re going to bring breakfast. It’ll be like waiting in line for Star Wars tickets… except the end result, no matter what it is, will be parsecs better than Episode One. The DMV sucks, but not nearly that bad!

Then and only then can we change the scooter and car over. And only then will I finally be able to ride. It’s been weeks since I have. I’m going through major withdrawal.

Hi folks! We’re basically all moved in. Today we picked up a few more things and a few more plants. We now have six, I think. I assume we’ll get more.

The living room is quite nice, even if the couch is sort of ehh (it was free). Also, the kitchen table is really fun. The library/temple room isn’t quite finished. It needs a chair or pillow or something, also one of the shelves is missing the hardware to hold the shelves. Hopefully everything will happen shortly.

The walls are adorned with Sarah’s prints and paint-by-numbers. It adds some color to the stark white walls.

It seems like everything came together pretty quickly – however, there are some loose ends to tie up. By the end of this week, things should be in order.

You can take the apartment tour by clicking here!

This first entry isn’t going to be all that huge. No pics, not much of anything.

We’re all moved in and most of the stuff is where it should be. We’ll be working on it more tomorrow and by the end of the day, it should be pretty well all set.

I really dig this place and can’t wait to start really living in it. Woo!

Ok – that’s it. More tomorrow, I bet.

Today was a hellish adventure. Big time. Today was moving day.

It all started well enough. Woke up and drove to Budget Truck Rental place to get my 10′ truck. Ohhhh but they were out of 10′ trucks, so they automatically upgraded me to a 16′ truck! Yay! I don’t really enjoy driving something that big, so it wasn’t a good start, really.

Our first destination was to pick up a free couch. It’s sort of crappy, but it’s free and doesn’t smell like cat urine or smoke, so it’s light years better than the ones we’ve been seeing at thrift stores.

After the free couch, we were on our way to pick up a pretty cool “retro” kitchen table when the driver’s side windshield wiper fell off. It was raining pretty hard too. Oh, and I was on a pretty busy highway type thing.

Thankfully, I was able to find a parking lot and switched the passenger side wiper over to the driver’s side. Ugh. Not fun.

We got the table and then drove to Kent, where the shipping pod thing was. Before having it shipped to Seattle, we locked it up with a really hearty Master Lock. And before we went to pick it up, we forgot to grab the keys to that Master Lock. Thankfully, the terminal where the pod was stored had a handy set of bolt cutters. In about five minutes the lock was toast.

It took about an hour and a half to load the contents of the shipping container into the big ass truck. A few things were damaged in transit – lost a small shelf, but nothing major. And really, this part wasn’t all that difficult. We were tired and on the verge of soar – though at the end, we were both pretty exhausted.

So on to Ikea we went. A few things were needed, so we got those a few a others (you know how it goes). After schlepping the Ikea things into the truck, we were even more beat. I was dragging. But the work was only half-over.

Upon arriving at the new place, we had to unload everything and take it up a flight of stairs. Fun? No. We were spent and could hardly move. It was horrible. Ryan was supposed to help us, but he got into a car accident (he’s ok – so is the car, for the most part – it was some other guy’s fault). We were left without help.

Thankfully, Jasmine, our new next door neighbor, helped us out! She came out and asked if she could help. Normally, I’d say no – even if we needed a little help. But tonight we needed a LOT of help. There was no way we could have emptied the truck by ourselves. By the end of the night, I couldn’t move my right arm/wrist and my left knee gave out. Smartz was very beat too. Jasmine was very helpful! Yay!

The couch was the big dilemma. None of us were in any condition to move it. So Jasmine called the guy from across the street and he and I move it up the stairs (no easy task).

After such things, we returned the truck and headed over to Ryan and Jamie’s for some vegan pizza and pumpkin bars! Delicious! We are staying at their place one more night because neither of us had the energy to move anything else.

So yes, we are all moved in! Now all that must happen is the unpacking. After that’s all settled, I’ll take pics!

Here are some from today…

As promised, here are the new apartment pics. We will be moving into the place tomorrow – taking everything from the pod to a truck to the apartment. We still need to get some furniture (like bookshelves!).

I’m pretty excited about finally having a real apartment! I’ve not had one of those since 2006 (when Nikki and I moved out of the Lewisburg place on 4th Street).

Anyway, our new place will be quite a happenin’ pad, I betcha.

Here are the pics…

Since we’ve got here, it’s been quite a whirlwind of fun. The first night, we hung out with Ryan and Jaime, which made me so happy to be in Seattle. The next morning, we hung out with Corby, who moved from Lewisburg a couple of months before we did. Ryan and Jaime, where we’re staying, live about six blocks away from Corby. Fun!

Our plan is to find an apartment, move all of our crap into it and then get jobs. We’ve looked at a few apartments, one of which appears to be a 1970’s bank – which is this close to being cool enough to move into … but not quite.

We’re putting in applications for one on 90th street, which is pretty far north, but in a good neighborhood and close to where Ryan and Jaime will be moving. There was another place, a house, that I really wanted, but no deal as they haven’t emailed us back (and provided no phone number).

This place on 90th has a garage. That’s dangerous for me as I have a list of scooters that I want. We’ll see what happens there.

We meet with the landlord tomorrow and hopefully everything will go well and he’ll want us. If not, we keep looking.

Before seeing the place on 90th, Jaime, Sarah, Prettypretty, Taviri and I headed to the park. Taviri and I played on the little jungle gym thing. He tuckered me out. Yay Taviri!

After we secure a house, I can finally move all of my legal and financial stuff to Seattle! I can’t wait for that. Since February, I’ve been basically “homeless” and/or traveling.

I’m feeling rather confidant and I hope that’s a good thing.

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To celebrate our move to Seattle, Calder has come up with yet another piece of fan art…