Kevin’s Berkeley-Chicago Roadtrip, Part Three

So upon arriving at my new apartment at Chicago on Friday, at around noon, I was stuck waiting for my landlady to give me the keys to the apartment and show me around. Since she only lived a block and a half from the apartment complex, I decided to check it out myself.

The apartment buildings (2 – 10 story buildings with about 20 1-2 bedroom apartments on each floor) is well secured – completely fenced in with two entry points manned by security 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. After some brief inquiries, I decided to go over to the building offices (I am guessing that the building is owned by some big company that hires building staff to run it and sell the apartments individually to other people, who in turn can live there or rent it out to people like Shareena and myself). Upon talking with the building people, I found out that I was suppose to schedule a “move-in” date with them 2 weeks in advance and that we had to pay them $115 ($40 for elevator fee + $75 for security). Of course, I was shocked and at first I tried to set up a date ASAP as I had to pick Shareena, her mom, and our two cats from the airport on the next day (Saturday). They just told me that that is the policy (even though all I had was a car-ful of clothing, computing equipment and misc (bath, kitchen) stuff) and that I should talk with my landlady about this.

So I did and the landlady’s response was that she thought that since Shareena and I were not moving any major furniture or other large items (the largest thing was Shareena’s tub full of bath products…yes, it was larger and heavier than the 19-inch TV and her computer), that we would not have to pay the “move-in” fee. She has a point, but she really should have checked with the building people first before making her own decision about it…

So what did I do? Haha, you will have to wait until the next installment to find out (or just ask me or you already know…)!

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Kevin’s Berkeley-Chicago Roadtrip, Part Two

Much of the rest of the drive from the California/Nevada border to Chicago were pretty boring. For Wed, Sept 3 and Thurs, Sept 4, I drove about 10-11 hours each day (on 3-4 hour shifts depending on my mood). Interstate-80 is a pretty boring stretch of highway pretty much all the way until I got closer to Chicago. I mean, Salt Lake City and Cheyenne are not exactly large metropolitan cities.

So basically, I listened to a lot of music (picking out 2-3 CDs at every stop) and ate almost exclusively at Subway (fast food without the grease) and random snacks (chips, candy, Gatorade) to keep me going. Incidentally, I stopped at Evanston, Wyoming (on the border of Utah and Wyoming) and Adair, Iowa (about 1 hour west of Des Moine); the latter stay at the “Budget Inn” happens to be (from later discussion) to be the place that Lea and her family often stayed. Very small world (or we are all just good bargain hunters as that place was quite inexpensive).

Even though the drive was boring (or perhaps because it was boring), I did not have too many “close calls” on the highway. I mean you pretty much just stay in your lane and switch when you had to pass someone. The only real oddity on the road was an odd detour off the freeway for about 15 miles in Western Nebraska. One line road with trucks sure is one way to kill your miles per hour average. But all in all, I did about 900 miles on these first two days and set myself nicely to get into Chicago at about noon on Friday, Sept. 5, as I planned.

Part three should arrive before this Friday…when I move to Chicago (maybe)…

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Kevin’s Berkeley-Chicago Roadtrip, Part One

On the evening of Tuesday, September 2nd, Shareena, Lea (our housemate and Shareena’s best friend) and I packed up Shareena’s 2002 Honda Civic with as much of Shareena’s stuff-to-Chicago as possible. Upon completion of this monumental task, we were left with just a bit of clothing that Shareena had to ship and the whole car was full (minus the driver seat and enough room in the passenger seat for me to see out the passenger side mirror) and a little bit over the 850 lb suggested capacity of the car. We went to bed feeling pretty good…

On early Wednesday, September 3rd, after a fitly night of virtual non-sleep, I departed from Berkeley for a fun filled two and a half day road trip to Chicago. Right from the start, I notice that the frame of the car was sitting a bit low at the rear wheels…so I decided to take it easy on the car at first…hoping that the fact that we did not adhere to the 850 lb capacity was not going to ruin my trip before I make it to Nevada.

At about 60 miles to the California/Nevada border, I took my first break and examined the car. Everything checked out ok, though I was still a bit worried about what prolong “lowering” of the car via extra weight might do to Shareena’s car in the long term. But I figure, as long as I am still going, I will not worry about it too much.

Part Two, coming tomorrow (or the next time I need a break from work)

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Moving Time

1. Plan and execute your move as early as possible
2. Set up utilites before you get to your new place (it sure would have been nice to at least have dial-up connection when I was in Chicago after a long drive)
3. Driving 12 hours a day is quite draining
4. Loading a 2002 Honda Civic over the “suggested capacity limit” of 850 lbs and driving 2400 miles may cause the maintenance light to come on
5. Make sure your landlord knows what he/she is talking about (especially if they are new at this and the apartment that he/she owns is actually run by another entity)

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