Moving Out
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January, 2004
(Click on any of the images to get a larger version of that image.)
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The Rummage Sale
In January, we moved out of our rented house in San Jose to spend six months overseas in Hamburg, Germany.
To kick the process off, we held a rummage sale, hoping to get rid of our bulky-and-unattractive items like our foldout couch, rusty propane barbecue, and some old office furniture.
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We maximized our profit potential by bringing in two outside experts, Shelby's mother and grandmother. Grandma Siok is the queen of flea-market and rummage-sale land. |
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| After moving the computer desk outside to sell, we were left with this rat's nest of cables. |
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| To our great surprise, once we placed everything outside, we had a bumper crop of attendees in no time at all. |
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People in our neighborhood know how to drive a hard bargain (make that "are cheap and love to feel like they're getting something for nothing and/or are outsmarting you in The Art of The Deal"), so dealing with the natives was pretty fatiguing. Still, by noon — almost no time at all! — we'd managed to sell practically everything (including all the big, bulky items we were worried so much about) and started boxing up the remaining junk for the Salvation Army. Later on, we counted all the money and found that we'd made over $500, which carried us smoothly into the next phase of moving out, "Throw a Big Party For All of Our Friends."
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The Big Party
The day after the rummage sale, we threw a big party for all of our friends in the Bay Area. I spent the entire day making desserts (a couple of pies, chocolate chip cookies, truffles, and Rote Gruetze, a German fruit dessert). Shelby and her mom and grandma cleaned things up, laid things out, and went shopping for missing items.
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| Waiting for people to show up. |
Our first party guest, Anita — coming all the way from Berkeley! — with Shelby and our initial spread. In front of Shelby is our raclette grill, another Swiss invention involving melted cheese (you grill meat and vegetables on the top deck, then melt those things together with cheese in little metal trays on the level below). |
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| After crossing that initial hump — "Will anyone besides Anita come? Will people have fun?" — a lot of people did come, and much fun was had. Shelby and I proclaimed this to be the best party we've ever had! |
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| Finally , we have a crowd of people to look at our wedding album! |
Eventually, the desserts come out . . . |
. . . and after that, those who didn't have anything to drink help those who did get ready to go. |
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| Eventually, it's just us, left alone with the wreckage. But it was worth it! |
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Moving Out
One week later, Steve, Carl, and Jeff, some gracious friends from Kevin's work, show up to help us move all of our large furniture out of the house (most gracious of all was Jeff, who provided us with the use of his 14-foot enclosed racing trailer).
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After a solid day of work, nothing but miscellaneous small stuff (albeit a lot of miscellaneous small stuff) was left in the house.
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Faced with the loss of her usual bedding, Scout makes good use of a pile of furniture pads. |
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