Moving and Switching Gears

So where did we leave off? I believe it was driving down with a truckload of stuff on Sunday and putting a bed together. We also put the big screen TV and the entertainment center/stand back together as well as they needed to be put together for the Dish guy. So Monday morning comes and the Dish Network guy shows up, looks around and determines that the previous tenants or cable guy were amateurs. There's cables just sort of hanging from the basement ceiling and nothing is securely tied down or hidden, the highlight being a 13:1 cable splitter hanging in the path of a door in our basement. These guys seriously had cable running to each room! He gets to working on that, which takes quite a while longer than I thought. Kelley and I were going to Moe's for lunch, but he stayed so long that she ended up just having to hit the road without Moe's. The packers from the moving company were coming into the apartment around 1 PM to pack the breakables. I end up just sitting in my camping chair (the only chair in the house) and making some more calls to cancel utilities in Columbus and change addresses on accounts, etc. Apparently Dish Network's front-line sales crew and their install crew are having some communication problems, as it takes multiple calls to their home office to set up the dish to receive...and they tried to install a regular box when we bought a DVR box with DVR service. Thankfully the guy had a spare DVR box in the truck, or it would have been more waiting. I finally got to take off for work in the afternoon, and spent over 3 hours doing administrative things like getting my stuff from the law clerk station moved down to my office, after finding out just where my office was. Turns out I'm moving down to our bottom floor, floor 22. The office is HUGE for an associate though, and the rumor was Adam got moved out of it because it was too big for an associate. Maybe they recanted on that idea, especially considering the seemingly more important consideration is getting associates and legal assistants together and that's the only office on 22 where my new legal assistant (and the other associate she works for) is located. We're the party floor, let me tell you. But the first day at work was a wash.

It was an interesting first week, as Monday and Tuesday nights I went to Home Depot after work. It's funny that once you have a house (albeit rented), you start going to Home Depot more than you ever have before in your lifetime. I bought lots of stuff including those expensive new mercury lightbulbs (I'm sick of those burning out so often and there are a ton of fixtures in the new house so they would burn out probably at least once a week), a lawnmower and weedwacker which would eventually go back thanks to more gifts from the in-laws, and tons and tons of curtain rods. On Monday evening I put the sound system together for the TV and did the small stuff like shovel out the back steps so our drain back there does not block. On Tuesday I put up countless curtain rods after purchasing a new cheap power drill to put them up and fighting with the old walls of the house. Meanwhile in Columbus Tuesday and Wednesday were spent finishing the packing and loading the semi-trailer. I guess Ms. Sweet Marcy from the rental office showed her other side when she came to tell the moving company they couldn't have the semi truck in the apartment complex. I hear she was a complete bitch, which just shows that some people are very two-faced depending on what you are doing. The moving company worked that out and got everything loaded up, then Kelley came down on Wednesday evening.

Although I hate being locked into a contract, the Dish setup is pretty nice. It also has the NFL Network and the Big Ten Network, so Time Warner can chalk up another lost customer to that. I'll still buy their Road Runner (and phone service so we can get an alarm system in a little while), but adios to cable. It all costs the same whether you get Dish or TWC, so it's really a wash. Subtle changes at work too evidence how big a change it is to go from "law clerk" or "summer associate" to "associate." You actually get quicker service from the staff or at least it seems that way. Partners definitely start expecting more of you, like the first week I get asked to call a client to check on them sending us more information. As I've rarely even been in the room for client conversations let alone doing one myself, that was kind of exciting. Even though I'm still learning the art of patent applications, partners seem more trusting and let me complete a full draft after prepping claims instead of doing each piece step by step. Instead of just doing research memos for the litigation partners, I'm drafting motions to the court. One partner who is a primarily electrical engineering partner randomly gave me an application to do, but he calls me into his office and goes on a 40 minute stream of consciousness conversation about the invention before telling me exactly what he wants me to do. I like a challenge though, and so I'll muddle my way through this one (plus it is in a new and interesting field, GPS). I had thought that it would be tough billing 1850 a year and work goes so slow sometimes, but now that I've gotten a short taste of being an associate...I can see that I'll quickly be buried with work like everyone else at the firm and that makes the days at work fly by. All in all, the transformation to associate is pretty neat.

The movers showed up earlier than expected on Thursday morning of that week, and Kathy and Bruce stopped by to surprise us and help us start the unpacking process. I escaped to work after most of the unloading was done, and Bruce worked in the yard while Kathy and Kelley worked inside. By the evening, most of the new bookshelves were assembled and the yardwork was caught up. We went to IKEA, the Swedish superstore sensation...and looked around for quite some time. On Friday Kathy and Bruce went home and Tim and Granny showed up to help. Once I got home Friday, it was time to work all weekend. Tim did lots of stuff outside like clean out the gutters and edge the walkways and driveway. Granny set up the kitchen and dining room before turning her attention to the living room. I tackled the basement which was quite an effort (there was no path between the storage space underneath the garage and the rest of the basement thanks to a half-basement full of boxes. Over that weekend we hammered out all the rooms except for the office, the upstairs, and other small details that will undoubtedly take quite a while to get all the way through.

So in the past 2 weeks, work has gotten busy as previously mentioned and we've kept working on the house little by little. Kelley's been doing OK, sleeping a lot due to being sick the past couple weeks. We've gone in for a second ultrasound and now they want to do a third. Hopefully the hospital doesn't screw us over financially on these extras, but I guess they have to be done. The previous landlord is trying to screw us out of our security deposit and an extra month's rent for failing to give them 30 days notice of moving out. We're fighting that one, but the manager apparently refuses to call me which is just so mature (as is completely lieing and claiming they did not give us an eviction notice or lose our rent check for May...which they did). Landlords are so scummy, and they really have no reason to be. I'm sure a place like Bexley Woods has serious problems with certain tenants, but that's no reason to try and screw the people who follow the rules and the people who are generally not trying to screw them over. We'll see where that goes, but I'm not going to hop up and send them a check for $1000 just because they say so. Even Patrice was not that much of a bitch, although she took out a good chunk of our security deposit making "necessary repairs." So the first weekend was unpacking from moving with the in-laws, and the next weekend we went up to Columbus to clean the old apartment and hang out with the Burtons and the Villas. We watched some UFC, and had a great time after working on the apartment most of the day to get it nice and clean. We're hoping to keep in close contact with the Columbus friends, either by going up for the occassional weekend or in the case of the guys, emailing each other at work all day (you should see some of the topics we get on...)

I've managed to not play a softball game yet. Every week it's been rained out, or lack of interest (which should stop now that we've got 3-4 summer people and myself back in the mix), or one week they changed the field and the person supposed to stay at the original field and tell us where to go did not stay long enough to tell me. I'll try to bring some stories once we have something to talk about. It's a nice Tuesday night diversion. We also had our partner-associate dinner for May and it was at Primavista, which as the name implies, sits on the hill overlooking Cincinnati and the river. Very lovely view, and the food was OK. It was good to catch up with some of my co-workers in an informal setting. This weekend Dave D. from work hosted all the associates and spouses/girlfriends over for dinner. That was fun, lasted far longer into the evening that I would have expected. Of course we showed up first, and we were 25 minutes late! Apparently that's how people roll on the weekend, just showing up 30-45 minutes late to come in fashionably late or whatever. Next up on the firm calendar is the Attorney-Spouse annual outing, this year it's a dinner cruise on a riverboat. That should be interesting.

It finally feels like things are settling down (financially as well as otherwise). Bar exam classes started this past week, and so I tried to go to the live class I signed up for. There's only like 5-6 people in there and all are from UC, so I'll just stick with the DVD's. Plus it saves me lots of money on parking at UC garages and eating dinner out every night. Let the diligent 8 weeks of studying begin this week, as I tackle Contracts and Torts. What fun!

If you don't watch Lost, you should really borrow or buy the DVD sets of the three seasons and the fourth when it comes out this fall and catch up. It is definitely the deepest show on TV right now, and this past season you could tell the writers have found their direction in storytelling again. In addition, House had a fantastic finale as well. Guess those writers had some good ideas percolating while they went on strike! Now it's on to summertime, where TV is terrible so we watch a lot of movies and Reds games.

So that's all for now. Don't know how often we'll update this blog, but hopefully some house pictures once everything is truly settled. Onto bar studying!