New Photos Up

I finally got around to posting a few photos from our trip from Chicago to Los Angeles.

You can check them out here.

Moving Woes Continue

So after looking in all of our boxes and searching our place up and down we know that the shelves to our bookcases never arrived. In addition, there is a good sized tear in our of our cushions from the move as well.

I tried for three days last week to get someone at the moving company to call us back. When I finally did I was given the run-around for a while and asked why I was calling. When I told the guy on the other end that I had to file a claim he was very positive and said he would send me the paperwork via e-mail. At this point I am thinking this might not be as bad as I think it is.

Wrong.

All the guy sent me was a generic e-mail that said “… Hey, sorry we lost your stuff … Call this number and you can file a claim … Thanks for your business … Blah blah blah …”. At this point I am slightly annoyed.

So I call the claim office which is a third party and they take some information and fax us some paperwork. I have to fill out a ton of information, everything from what stickers they used during the move, my copy of the moving documents, when it was delivered and picked up, and all kinds of other stuff. For all of that I am thinking out loud that the moving company, the people that lost and damaged my stuff, could send that. But no problem … I also have to dig up receipts for our couch and bookcases, take pictures, and get an estimate on what it would cost to fix the couch. Then I have to send all that information, along with all the documents the movers left and they will determine what we are entitled to.

I think this is going to be an uphill battle.

Movers and Have Come and Gone, and So Is Some of Our Stuff

Two guys pulled up to our building yesterday in a transport truck, or what I believe Americans refer to as an 18-wheeler. Not a ton of English spoken during the move but the guys were nice enough.

For three hours they schlep our worldly possessions upstairs to the top floor, down two long hallways and into our place. Here is a brief rundown on what is missing and what is damaged:

• Shelves for our bookcases: We have two Pottery Barn bookcases like this, and each of them has three movable shelves. Well those shelves are missing. I am almost positive that they were wrapped in a moving blanket back in Chicago. And I think that because all of our wood furniture was wrapped, including two other shelves for our entertainment unit.
• Clock radio: It kills me not knowing what time it is when I wake up during the night or in the morning. Not that we have anything to put said radio on (we didn’t have room for a night stand in our last place) but I would live with it on the floor during the interim. Anyhow, I haven’t come across it yet.
• Picture of my house in Ontario: Someone in my family came across a very old picture of the house I grew up in. The photo has been around for a number of years and I love it - it shows horses parked outside, dirt sidewalks, people in uncomfortable outfits, just a cool photo. My wife had a copy made and put it in a nice frame for Christmas this year. Haven’t seen this yet - it was in the original box.
• Damage: A bamboo cutting board set from Crate and Barrel got nicked up. One of the cushions on our couch had a small tear in it before we left, now that tear is huge. The paper backing on a framed poster has a rip in it.

We don’t yet have all the boxes empty so I am not sure if there is anything else. I do know that we have some serious storage issues. Back in Chicago our condo had a huge closet in the basement, and before that the apartment we rented came with a cage in the mezzanine for our extra stuff. Only one closet here, and no storage in the building. Not quite sure what our solution is going to be.

I will try and empty all the boxes from the main floor of our move before calling the company that moved us.

Ugh, another tough day or getting settled in.

Sorry for Being So Harsh Downtown LA - We Still Love Ya

Yesterday afternoon we walked down the street to the local flea market to check things out and along the way I began to wonder about some of my recent comments. The last few days I have ripped on downtown LA pretty good, sharing my opinions on things I see wrong with the area and what needs to be improved.

Yesterday a reader left a comment (thanks Eric!) asking about our decision to live downtown when we could have had some of the ‘things’ we are complaining about if we lived somewhere else. It’s a great point and one that I may not have fully explained in our Learn About Us page.

We made two trips to LA to find a place to live, one in January and another at the beginning of March. Our original places to look for housing included Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach and downtown. Living in downtown LA rocketed to the top of the list when we spoke to everyone around the area for a few reasons.

1. Proximity to H’s work: This is a very busy time for her, exciting but busy. The idea of commuting 30-75 minutes twice a day didn’t make a lot of sense considering how much she was going to be at the office early on. The ability to walk five minutes to work and the flexibility to pop over then whenever she had to was quite appealing.
2. The excitement of a changing downtown: Being in the middle of a rejuvenation is exciting. We love the idea of being in and around the hustle and bustle of downtown and everything that goes along with it.
3. Familiarity: Getting to know the rather small area considered downtown is easier than taking on the entire greater Los Angeles area all at once. It is a big enough adjustment going from Chicago to LA that we figured we could live downtown for a couple years and if we liked it we would stay, and if not we could move. Simple enough.

Which brings me to a self-observation: it isn’t that downtown LA is bad and things are backwards and nothing makes sense - it’s just different to us. Downtown LA is not downtown Chicago and we realize that. The general prevailing attitudes of those that live in the core, the civic leaders and the residents is quite different on a lot of levels. Not bad, just different. It is that difference that we are getting used to.

It is the balance of living and experiencing something new to us and something new to downtown LA itself.

We love you downtown LA, we really do.

But it doesn’t mean you aren’t going to get on our nerves along the way.

Sorry for the Delay … Here is Our Update

Sorry for the lack of updates yesterday but we are without one of life’s modern conveniences: Internet access at home. Our ISP will only make the connection when we have a router which of course is on a truck somewhere in middle America. We also don’t have a home computer so I am left to use H’s laptop when she is home and then ‘borrow’ Internet access from our neighbors. I have found that the people around us are much more tech savy as there are very few open WiFi connections around. In order to get a signal this morning I am sitting by the pool which is located in the middle of the building.

I am not going to lie, it seems weird sitting outside on a computer in April. However, it’s 54 degrees out at 6:30 a.m. so I can’t complain.

The last few days have been busy on my end. On Tuesday I tried to find the local target which I don’t think was all that close - North Hollywood. I picked up a few things and then made my way to Sam’s Club which there are not a lot of here. Apparently Costco is more popular in the LA area so we might need to change our membership. Anyhow, we picked up a small 15′ LCD to serve as our television until our SONY arrives on the truck (with the router). Driving was kind of a nightmare as there was traffic everywhere and I had no idea where I was going. Thank goodness we purchased our GPS system before we left as it has been life saver on more than one occasion already. Of course when I got home I realized that the guy at Target not only over-charged me but I was missing an entire bag. More on this later … The rest of the day was spent unpacking the items we brought with us and giving the entire condo a good cleaning. I still have yet to get to the bathroom but that is on the list for today.

Yesterday was spent trying to shore up our banking here which has been a little crazy. The transfer from our Chase account has yet to go through and I get the feeling it isn’t going to so I might just take a cheque and make a deposit at Bank of America. Mind you I don’t know if I can do that but I am going to try. H’s bank card has the wrong name on it so she has to get that corrected. The good news is that I think I can now access our accounts online so we have that going for us.

Our DirecTV was hooked up yesterday and it is nice to have a little entertainment for the time being. Having the receiver and tv on the breakfast bar isn’t the most logical place but it was better than the other option - the floor. It is nice to have a DVR again though. I also drove back to Target yesterday and picked up our missing items. The clerks were really nice about the whole thing but it was just a pain to drive back up there for a few things. I then tried to swing by the DMV to get my license renewed but the line was out the door and down the street. The offices open at 8:00 a.m. today and I think I might take a chance and just show up.

H is busy with work and planning her first event for this Saturday.

Carter is doing much better and isn’t as freaked out by all the sounds of downtown LA.

I will try and provide some more insight into living downtown and what else is going on with us later today … so long as H brings her computer home and there isn’t any rain outside to dampen my posting.

Good Moring LA!

Greetings from beautiful downtown Los Angeles!

Well we are here, in our new home city of L.A. … We arrived out front of our building yesterday shortly before 4  p.m. and waited forty minutes or so for the gentleman we are renting from to show up. After some paperwork and small talk we unloaded the car and began to settle in.

We are not quite sure when our furniture is supposed to arrive. I have a call into the moving company to find out. The sooner the better of course, but for the time being we could be living on our new air mattress and two fold-up chairs.

The condo is great, a little bigger than what we orginally recall. It does need a good cleaning though, just from people walking through and windows being open. Everthing is brand new though and I spent the better part of last night taking tags off of appliances and getting things set-up.

We did hit the grocery store last night, just picking up a few things for dinner but nothing else. I need to make a trip today to buy what we need.

H begins work today and it will be good for her to be back in the office. She has been working out of the car the last few days which has been hectic to say the least. As excited as she is there are some natural nerves as well, and she mentioned that they would go away come today when she had an actual place of employment to go to.

I have a million things to do today, including:

• Find a Target and buy some additional cleaning supplies
• Head to the grocery store and pick up some esscential food items
• Do some banking online through our old account
• Find a branch of our new bank and get some things set up
• Clean the condo
• Look into the local DMV and make arrangements for changing our car ownership, and licenses
• Set up insurance, both car and renters

There are some other things as well but if I get that far today I would be happy.

So we arrived - the time change is throwing us off a little but we are excited and ready to receive visitors!