Off to the Airport!

I'm packed with the maximum allowable weight/bag limit and am off to the airport now. I'm flying from Atlanta to Hamburg with a stopover in Amsterdam. I'll be back in the states four weeks from now to wrap up things here and fly back to Germany with the family. I added my flight to the map below. (Something seems wrong with the default zoom level on the embedded map so you might have to zoom out to see everything.)


View Larger Map

Finished Unpacking

I got a much needed nights sleep, then got up early and went straight to unpacking the moving truck. It was much easier to unpack then to pack but it was still a full days work. M woke V up by request then went back to sleep. V and I unpacked all day, storing our stuff in the basement on shelves we built as we went, and finished just in time to turn it in by the 5pm deadline. In front of the rental place we got to see an obese motorcycle cop pulling over speeders. After that we went to Waffle House to celebrate. The kids wanted to sit at the bar and we wanted to sit in a booth. T said "we can sit up here so you two can have a date." The waitress overheard and laughed out load at that then came over and said she would look after them. So V and I and the kids sat separately and the waitress took our orders separately. We had a nice relaxing supper after a hard days work. I had hash-browns "all the way" with an unsweet tea as my final supper in America for a while. It was entertaining watching the cook who was very fast and skilled at multitasking different orders. It reminded me of a cook I saw in Cairo, Egypt at a local short order place I ate at once. Also, the waitress and cook were very polite. We could tell we were back in the south.

Now I have to pack for my flight tomorrow.

Made it to Georgia

We ate breakfast with my parents then got onto the road at noon. The kids rode with me in the truck starting out but I was very tired from getting hardly any sleep the last two nights. I made it to the Georgia state line then pulled off at the welcome center. I told V I was too tired to drive safely and needed some sleep. We switched the kids back to the car and I stretched out in the truck cab and tried to sleep. That didn't last long because of all the sunlight and I didn't like the idea of trucks driving by and looking in on me. I remembered that there was a lot of room under the seats and sure enough, I could stretch out under the seat with the sun blocked out and me not visible. I slept under there for a couple hours than woke up ready to drive some more. I quickly wound down however and pulled off at the last rest stop before Atlanta to get some more rest. By then it was dark and I slept much better. Then woke up and finished the rest of the driving. I finally pulled in around 9 pm and V and the kids were here waiting for me. Both of the kids were very happy. T was reunited with his dog "Lucy" (from New York) and M has her own room to sleep in and work on her crafts without her brother's interference. It's started raining here now so we plan to start unloading in the morning after, hopefully, a full nights rest.

Made it to North Carolina

Packing took much longer to finish than I anticipated. We set up a "mattress room" where the kids could sleep and we could sleep in shifts. Josh planned to drive a lot so he got to sleep first. I worked through the night, V worked late and JSF got up early to finish. We were finally done and the apartment swept down at 2:30 pm and headed out. JSF was a huge help; we couldn't have done it without him and would have still been packing. Once we got out on the road we split up, JSF and I in the truck and V and the kids (and their hamster) in the car. We only made two stops on the way down to fuel up (low sulfur diesel) and grab some food at gas stations. I was exhausted from being up packing all night and fell asleep for short spells in the truck while JSF drove, but at one point I woke up and heard the state of the union address on the radio. It's really something to be up on the same level as the truckers out on the highway and be able to look over into their cabs and down at all the other vehicles. We stopped in North Carolina for the night at around 1:30 am. We parked the truck in town and V dropped JSF off while I walked to my brothers house and V met me there. V was very tired, T was still awake but M was fast asleep.

My brother left early this morning and I woke up long enough to say bye to him then fell back asleep. Then my mother called and the ringer woke me up. My parents are coming down to see the kids. I talked to Vanessa and we decided we need to leave to Georgia immediately after that because unpacking will probably take longer than we realize and we need to turn the truck back in on Wednesday.

Here is our planned route down to Georgia.


View Larger Map

Still Packing

I had hoped to be on the road today but there is still too much left to do. JSF made it in last night around 8:30 and thank goodness he came. There is no way we could have gotten this far without him. We've been packing and loading like crazy all day but there are still two rooms left. We are exhausted but still going. We made a sleeping room with the mattresses on the floor for the kids and JSF to get some sleep while V and I work into the night. Then JSF will drive the truck early with me and we will meet up again with V and the kids in North Carolina. Here is a google map of the first leg of our trip. This is probably my last post from Maryland because we need to get the computer packed up soon too.


View Larger Map

Obama Won the SC Primary!

I am not a democrat, so I don't vote in the primaries, but I just saw that CNN is projecting Obama will win the SC primary by a large margin. Of the democrats that are running now he is my favorite and I am very happy he is doing so well. Honestly, I would have preferred Al Gore or Howard Dean, but they are not running (I first voted for Clinton in 1992 because I liked Al Gore). I don't like Hillary Clinton's support of the patriot act, the war in Iraq and some things she has said about the Palestinians. On the republican side I prefer McCain (largely because of his criticism of Guantanamo, but I don't like that he supported the war in Iraq), but I like Obama much better than McCain.

Since I've brought up politics. Why aren't we fighting Al Qaeda, who actually attacked us repeatedly in the 90s and 2000s, in Afghanistan and Pakistan rather than invading Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein, who had absolutely nothing to do with Al Qaeda, and put in our own government?

Moving Truck

We picked up the moving truck this morning. It's a 26 footer! I love starting it up and driving it around. We went to our storage space and cleared it out. The kids helped. They rode on the carts and climbed into the back of the truck. I lifted boxes up to them and they dragged them to the back. By the time we finished one cart my wife (V) was ready with the next one. We moved everything in record time. Now we are back home packing, which is going much slower.

My cousin didn't arrive this morning; his flight was canceled. We're still not sure when he will arrive but maybe later tonight.

By the way, I slept like a baby last night. The best sleep I've had in a long time. V said it was like in a book when the character had just completed some epic task or journey.

Time for me to get back to packing.

Funny? Music Video

One of my coworkers (AR) sent a link to a funny music video about PCR. It is the method used to amplify fragments of DNA. Here is a link:

http://bio-rad.cnpg.com/lsca/videos/ScientistsForBetterPCR/

I played it for my wife this morning and she didn't understand why it was funny. I mentioned this to another person at work (SL) and his wife didn't think it was funny either....?

By the way, this brings to mind the Hotel Mauna Kea music video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPdTlHK1h_0

And the "swift" a capella song:

http://www.astrocappella.com/songs/swift.mp3

Work is over!!!

Well not really, but it was my last official day in the lab and I feel like a huge weight has been lifted.

(A cockroach just crawled across the computer screen; I can't wait to get out of this apartment building.)

I started off every morning the same way lately. Fixing a pot of tea and hot water for oatmeal and going over my German flash cards. Today was payday so this morning we went to order new glasses. We got there early so we killed some time by walking around the grocery store next door. I felt good so I carried my daughter on my shoulders all around the grocery store. I got some wasabi peas, sushi (my daughters request), and packing tape. Then went to the eye glasses store and picked out some frames. There my wife announced that my mother-in-law offered to pay for the glasses as a gift (thanks!). So I was able to get transitions lenses, something I have wanted for a long time! After that we grabbed a quick breakfast at the Atlanta Bakery. They were out of bagels (I usually get a toasted "everything" bagel without cream cheese) so I tried a cherry filling croissant and my usual chai with skim milk. I went over my flash cards again. Then I had to go to work. Work today was very difficult and doesn't bear going into details here (at some point I chipped my tooth, a lower incisor, but it is just a small part missing), but finally at 7:30 pm my last meeting with the boss was over and at 8pm I was through! I will be returning briefly in March to wrap things up (and pick up my new glasses) and there is a lot of work for me to do in the meantime to finish projects and process paperwork, but for now I can focus on packing, moving and my new life!

In the morning my cousin (JSF) is flying into town to help us pack and drive down south.

Last Day!!!

Today is my last day at my old job. I'm excited and couldn't sleep so I got up at 4 am. I've been thinking about the coming move so much, almost a year, that it almost seems normal to me that I will be leaving the country soon. There is still a lot left to be done. Finishing packing is not the least of them.

Last night my son (9) became very anxious about moving and worried about not speaking the language. I told him we were all in it together. We've tried our best to prepare the kids including German language classes for all of us on Saturdays, but any kind of move can be worrisome. My daughter (6) on the other hand is very excited and looking forward to it. She is too young to remember our last move from rural New York to urban Maryland. That move was difficult for my son however and he can remember living in New York where we had a house surrounded by fields and forest and he had his dog. Here in Maryland we live in a cramped apartment surrounded by people, traffic and the city. Adjusting to public school here has been difficult for him too, but that is over now. Both of the kids are out of school in preparation for the move.

One day left

I'm playing "Take this job and shove it" by David Allen Coe on the computer right now!

The big event today was I went to get my eyes examined before my insurance runs out. Tomorrow is payday so I'm waiting until then to order new glasses. The glasses I'm wearing now are around ten years old and covered in scratches. I got the full treatment including wide field testing, insurance doesn't cover, because I have a family history of blindness. Everything went well but my left eye has become a little bit more nearsighted.

I went to work and the boss didn't show up again. I finished revisions to an encyclopedia article I wrote and sent that off by email to London a few days early of the deadline. At work people kept interrupting me asking how to do things they could have figured out on their own if they had an ounce of patience. Actually I got a lot done but since I got up at 3 am I was pretty brain tired by 6pm. After that point I talked for a long time with my officemate (from Italy) about what happened to me on September 11th (2001). Then at 7pm it was time to head home. I backed up the files I had worked on that day and carried another box of books and papers and notebooks out to the car. I've been taking a little day by day so it's not so noticeable.

First Post

At the moment I am still living in Maryland, just outside DC, but that is about to change. My family and I are soon moving to northern Germany where I will start a new job on February 1st. My wife has been blogging for a while and suggested this as a way for people, and myself, to communicate and keep track of our adventure. So here goes ...