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I have a round trip ticket for next weekend (late thu to late sun) to Seattle. I plan on looking at apartments and maybe dropping by the Seattle office to check things out, and generally attempting to assuage my [reasonable] anxiety about my impending move.

Thu April 3rd
Depart Chicago (MDW) at 8:05 PM
Arrive in Seattle (SEA) at 10:30 PM

Sun April 6th
Depart Seattle (SEA) at 6:15 PM
Arrive in Chicago (MDW) at 12:10 AM

Um, whee?

-Stephen

So, I did a little math and figured out that u-haul move to Seattle would cost about $1.3k, not including meals, time off, or lodging along the way. (nor including some hang out time in Minneapolis, and some potential camping experiences along the way). But if I could find someone to share the move with, that would be the clear financial winner.

Otoh, if I let door-to-door moving deal with it all for me, that’s 1.4k (for one container, which would require me to pare my stuff down alot). Problem #1: I can’t have the moving container on the street here. So, I’d have to uhaul my stuff out to their facility out by O’hare. (easily $100, plus, it’s the worst part of a uhaul move anyway). Or, I could pay $300 / container (estimate) to have burly men do that part for me.

If I go door to door, I can also just hop on a plane to denver for training on april 28, and fly to Seattle on april 30, all on the work dime. Simplicity has its price.

• See Wicked
• Visit the Chicago Nature Museum
• Visit the Chicago History Museum
• Eat Breakfast at Victory’s Banner
• … I had one other thing I wanted to do, but can’t remember it now. I’m sure there were 5, though.

Others interested in joining me for one or more of these, should say something.

Ideas for other things I should do also appreciated.

Thursday evening, I had a solo dinner (mild flirtation with a bartender), while chatting with Brian (I think) on my sidekick, then went out to Green Lantern for SMDF, where I saw , , and . Also, a cute, short, ex-airforce guy gave me and Duncan free drinks. (he left with . I didn’t make it back to Chris’s until 6am.

Friday, I had dinner and long rambling conversation with and . This was followed by WoWing until I dropped. (Karazhan, including Attumen, Moroes and Maiden)

Saturday, I played about 4 games of race for the galaxy with and , some socialist v capitalist game, the origins of WWII (I played Russia, Doug played France, Steve played Germany. our scores were 9, 8, and 18 respectively). We also played munchkin. I was insufficiently agggressive about trying to steal someone’s flaming polearm, so Steve won. I was a dwarven thief with three flaming fists. =)

Somewhere in there we had athor quality time. I also ate a calzone as big as my head.

Sunday we had french toast and easter candy.

My digestive system has been tres unhappy all week. I cite excess dairy, alcohol, and occasional passing green pepper exposure as contributing factors. It hasn’t bothered me in the past 8-16 hours. Maybe I should just blame DC. =)

Being in DC didn’t help me work out, despite the warmer weather.

Thursday morning, I ran 4 miles in 45 minutes. I started out running east, because that had to be the way to the capitol and was very confused when I encountered the stadium station. I ran south, then north, then a little further east, and yup, there weas the stadium and the river. Had a “duh” moment and turned around and ran west. I wasn’t in Chicago. The capitol was west. Ran around the library of congress and back to my host’s place.

Due to late friday world of warcraft, I didn’t make it to Saturday morning frontrunners. Sunday morning provided me with a little coaching. Ran one mile in 9:30ish. Then he watched my form for another mile which I ran in 7:11.(1:48, 1:50, 1:51, 1:52 splits) (I so could not run 10 miles at that pace.) He suggested I might want to try working on rolling more and stomping less, as well as opening up my torso rather than hunching forward, but that otherwise I seemed to be running with pretty good form. (thank you fleet feet for the new shoes).

My roommate is moving to LA. His new job starts april 14th. He’ll pay the rent through may 1, the end of our lease. Le Sigh. I kinda wanted to stay in Chicago until June or July. This makes that more complicated.

This past week I got the verbal okay to move to Seattle while retaining my job. And, frankly, nobody seems to care when I go from that end. Though there are the non-work (and probably some work) people here who want me to never leave. Not easy.

I could sublet for a couple months here. That involves moving twice within a short span of time, but I’m no stranger to that.

Then again, I could just go. Move to Seattle. Come back and visit a couple times. The money saved from the move should be sufficient for a discount round trip some weekend.

Or find someone to take over his spot for two months. I can put up with most people for two months. My desires in this regard are unclear.