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Archive for April, 2010

Could You Use a Little Wanderlust?

Posted in Travel, tagged , , on April 28, 2010 | 1 Comment »

One of my good friends from high school and all-around nice guy, Massoud, is currently on his own unique adventure that has spanned several months already. He began by leaving his job in late December to visit family in the Philippines and backpack around Asia. His goal after completing that was to make his way to Australia where he would live and work through the end of summer. He’s been documenting the entire journey on his awesome blog, Wanderlust.

Since we’ve started this site I’ve been eager to share Massoud’s story and blog because the ideals of his trip so closely resemble the reasons that Amanda and I wanted to do what we’re doing. Yesterday, I got the excuse I was looking for when he wrote this truly excellent post about why he needed to take his trip. I don’t want to steal his thunder so I’m going to avoid rehashing what he wrote; to get the skinny you need to head over there. If you’ve ever thought about travel abroad but haven’t done it, you owe it to yourself to check it out.

I know that the entire last year I was in my engineering career I was troubled by the feeling that there had to be something more to life than slaving away for 40 hours a week for a company that I could care less about. If you share that feeling know that it’s not odd to feel that way but it’s wrong to ignore it. I encourage everyone to find what will make you fulfilled in life, even if it is uncomfortable to start. There are many, many people out there who are choosing a different path. Massoud is one of those people.

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uShip: Moving Made Easy

Posted in Moving, tagged , , on April 27, 2010 | 1 Comment »

The biggest drawback to the traveling adventure we’re on is that we have to move every 13 weeks.  When we decided that we were going to find our own housing for each rotation we also chose to find unfurnished places to make the remote search for housing easier. This meant that we would have to schlep our things from location to location. Moving stinks and is almost always a hassle. It’s expensive, time consuming, exhausting, and many trucking companies are both unreliable and dishonest. Thankfully, our good friend Michelle recommended another option to doing it yourself: uShip.com.

The basic idea of uShip is very similar to Priceline.com, only for moving rather than plane tickets/hotels. You enter all the details of your move including the pickup and drop-off locations, quantity & weight of items, and type of service you would like. Services range from white-glove freight shipping, to a dude with a pickup, and everything in between. After you input the details shippers submit bids for completing the move. They’ll specify a price, type of service, and days for pickup/drop-off if you put in a range of dates. As bids come in you can haggle details, request rebids, turn down the ones that are too expensive, and accept the one that meets all your needs.

Our cost for moving on uShip ended up being only slightly more expensive than the price of simply renting a small uHaul truck. When you factor in the price of gas, hassle of loading/unloading items, and the trouble of driving a large truck for a long distance we really came out ahead. Also, we didn’t have to worry about being liable for any damage to the shipping vehicle like you would with a rented truck. Most shippers provide insurance to protect your goods which is something you will not get if you move on your own.  Not having to load/unload your things if you have a lot of furniture is more or less priceless in itself, especially when you can get that type of service for far below what major companies will charge you. We didn’t have a lot of things so I offered to help our mover load and unload in exchange for knocking some cost off of the bid.

Here are some tips and important things to keep in mind when using uShip:

  • Submit the details for your bid as far in advance as possible. This will give you more time to wait out better bids, investigate and contact the shippers who have submitted bids, and be much less stressful overall.
  • Use time to your advantage and don’t feel pressured into taking the first few bids. A couple early bids were outrageous but by the end of the week we were seeing numbers that were 1/5 of the initial bids. Be patient!
  • Know what you are getting yourself into. If the shipper says he is using a trailer then it is uncovered. This means if there is rain you could potentially run into some trouble. Our shipper went out of his way to keep our goods safe in the storm that showed up but there was still some water that got in. This was our fault for not choosing a covered trailer or truck. Understand the service you’re accepting and if it’s unclear, ask questions.
  • Contact all shippers when your receive any bid and again immediately after accepting a bid to set details in stone and get their (cell) phone number. Early contact will give you an indication of how much they will be willing to work with you and whether or not they’re worth your time. Setting up all the details for the move right away ensures that everyone is on the same page. Confusion about when you’re moving is the last thing you want.

Moving can be a huge pain but uShip can make it a lot easier. Be smart, patient, and use due diligence to get what you want for the price you want.

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The Cove

Posted in Awareness, Movies, tagged , , , on April 26, 2010 | 1 Comment »

When Matt and I were first dating, we went to see this documentary on the dolphin slaughter in Japan. Aside from being well-made, it quickly raised our awareness to the issue leading us to skip the dolphin tank at the local aquarium and spread the word! Recently, The Cove has received multiple accolades including, the 2010 Academy Award winner for Best Documentary Feature and the word is getting out. Hopefully, with enough education, lobbying, and awareness this terrible industry will be shut down.

Watch this celebrity PSA for more information and please sign the petition at the bottom of the screen to stop the dolphin slaughter.

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Geriatric Jumpsuit- Episode 2

Posted in Geriatric Jump Suit, SoBo, tagged , , on April 26, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

It has been an eventful week at the nursing home- I somehow wound up giving a kiss to an 80 year old, did the YMCA dance for a therapy session, and received a lovely gift of peanut butter M&Ms from a resident’s bra …here’s the scoop:

1. 80 year old kiss: There is this very sweet lady at the nursing home who is not on the rehab teams’ caseload, but likes to loiter outside our rehab gym and do her Bible word finds. I like to make small talk with her because she is pretty lucid (or so I thought) and carries on a lovely conversation. Well, on this particular doomsday, I catch her in the hall, exchange pleasantries and before I knew it, she dove into this epic story of how she woke up with a pacemaker implanted in her chest. It was a really passionate tale. At the end of her story, she grabbed my wrist and said, “Now, where’s my kiss?” as if I’m known around the building as the therapist who hands out free kisses for the best pacemaker story. I couldn’t think of anything clever to say like, “I left your kiss in the office…hang on I’ll be right back” (and then quickly bolt away), so I leaned over, attempting to plant one on her cheek, but she was adamant and got a big ol’ kiss on the lips. Yikes.

2. YMCA: Every Friday the PT, OT, and myself hold a big therapy group in the cafeteria. We do a bunch of different arm, leg, and cognitive-linguistic exercises while playing dodge ball (hilarious), listening to music, and playing baseball with canes and balloons. Often times, the residents have low energy, so we try to pump them up mid-group with some fan favorites, such as the YMCA. We went over how to make the Y-M-C-A with your arms above your head before the song started but it was an epic fail. Half of the residents couldn’t lift their arms over their heads, and their processing speed was so slow, the song was over and some of them still had their hands in the “Y” position, never once completing the “M-C-A.” I’m thinking by next week they should be primed for the Macarena.

3. M&M disaster: One of the residents, Elizabeth, on the physical therapy schedule has really taken to like me (probably because of my kissing reputation). She likes to call me “Manders” (as if we are old high school buddies) in her raspy voice and often drops off drawings for the rehab. staff. My favorite part about Elizabeth is that she draws her eyebrows on, but misses by a couple of centimeters, so she always looks really surprised. On this fateful day, Elizabeth whispered, “Manders, I have something for you.” Thinking it was another rose drawing, I followed her only to watch her pull a bag of peanut butter M&Ms out of her bra and hand them to me. A true gift from the heart, no?

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City Slickers

Posted in SoBo, tagged , on April 22, 2010 | 2 Comments »

I’ve lived in Northern Virginia all of my life, apart from the years I spent working on my doctorate at Penn State. Amanda grew up in the suburbs outside the Twin Cities before migrating to Milwaukee for school and DC for grad school. It’s safe to say that we’re both city slickers. Moving to a country area like SoBo has been a pretty drastic change.

The first weekend we were here we heard a loud rumbling sound going by our house around 10pm. It sounded a lot like a train, which I presumed it was. What else sounds like a train? A tornado. We found out the next day from Amanda’s coworkers that one had gone right down the street we live off of! Lesson learned: ignorance can get you killed. During the tornado warnings the following week we were well prepared and ready to hide out in our basement if need be.

Another aspect of country living that we’ve come to appreciate very quickly is the presence of fun critters. During our first week here we began to see signs that we had mice in our kitchen. We woke up the following Monday to find a dead one in our empty trashcan. He had somehow managed to get in there while we were gone for the weekend. Following this incident we continued to hear the little guys in our cabinets at night so we asked our landlord to send her husband, Jimmy, over to help us deal with it. Now we’ve got a bunch of rat poison under our sink, half of which has disappeared already without a sign of another mouse. We’re hoping that whatever mice have been chowing down on those delicious green pellets wandered back outside to expire.

Living in the boonies also means we have zippy trash pickup. This is something I didn’t even realize could be possible as I’ve always had garbage removal service come and magically dispose of my refuse. Not in SoBo. We get to haul our bags to the local dump which is conveniently hidden right in the middle of town across Main Street. It creeps me out a little that the dump is so close to town.

One more thing I find fascinating about SoBo is that almost nobody seems to have a garage. Instead, everybody has a car port. If you’ve never seen a car port before it’s basically a large, open-walled tent for your car that’s constructed of plastic or metal. We’ve decided that owning a garage is the true sign of luxury around here. Our Realtor, who lives around the corner from us and has a garage, is most likely the richest person in town.

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