The server died last Wednesday. If a blog server crashes and no one reads it, does it make a sound?

For the past few years, tsaiberspace.net was running on a series of recycled computers, first a P2-400MHz, then a P3-700MHz. Then it mysteriously gave up the host. The machine wouldn’t boot, with nary a BIOS error on-screen.

After half a week, I finally transplanted the brains (the hard drive) to a better, stronger, faster machine (another hand-me-down) – a P4-2.6GHz with hyper-threading – and there weren’t any failure messages in the logfiles in the last minutes of life. Oh well.

tsaiberspace.net, web site. A site barely alive. Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world’s first tsaiberspace blog. tsaiberspace.net will be that blog. Better than it was before. Better, stronger, faster.

I moved mid-December last year and was without home internet access (and therefore tsaiberspace.net was down) for almost a whole month. Right after a move is one of the worst times to be without internet. It was extremely difficult to do a bunch of things:

• Filling out numerous change-of-address forms with banks, credit cards companies, utility companies, work benefits, etc.
• Shopping for the myriad things one needs just after moving.
• Finding nearby business at which do said shopping.
• Re-registering for online bill payment under the new address.

We were making trips to the public library for wireless internet to do a bunch of stuff. We’re just about settled in now. The last thing we have to do is to buy a washer and dryer (from craigslist) and find a guy with a truck to help deliver it.

We’re basically unpacked now.

The moving company billed us for a total weight of 4460 lbs. The total weight of the boxes was 3490 lbs. (previously blogged). Generously estimating the weight of furniture and other padding materials (all our furniture, mattress, TV, etc., was wrapped in big heavy blankets), I ended up with 4360 lbs., which is still less than the billed weight, but close enough for me to not raise a fuss. The total charge was $5135.42, which is of course very conveniently just under the original binding do-not-exceed estimate of $5365.48. But I guess I was expecting that kind of shadiness.

The mover in Boston did comment that it was the first time in his 15 years of moving that he had seen anyone label all the boxes with their weight.

The car arrived without incident, although I had to wait a lot longer for my car because the girl who normally drives cars out from the garage to the customer pick-up area didn’t know how to drive manual transmission. This was my second time using Dependable Auto Shippers (the previous time was a California-to-Atlanta move back in September 2001), and there were again no problems. I didn’t purchase any of the extra options (covered transport, top-level transport, or expedited delivery).

There were a few slight problems with the move:

• The local moving company didn’t have any complementary paperwork, so we had to work with our own inventory of items and boxes.
• I’m missing one box that I inventoried as a 15-lb. box of “Dell 2+1 speakers”. Hopefully I didn’t stash anything else valuable in there, which means I’m only out a set of plain computer speakers. This means we have to file a claim for lost property reimbursement.
• We somehow picked up an extra metal support strut for someone’s bed frame. So we have to wait for the local moving company to send someone to pick up this extra piece.

The move was not a total disaster, but the one box could have very easily contained something more important or valuable. Given that there are many many other options out there, I will probably go back to using Wheaton Worldwide the next time I need long-haul moving services.

Final tally:

• “Medium” boxes (18×14x12, $44 for 20): 38
• “Large” boxes (20×20x15, $46 for 15): 15
• “Extra-large” boxes (23×23x16, $44 for 10): 10
• Packing tape (4 x 110-yard rolls for $14): 4
• Packing tape (Scotch packing tape, 40 yards for $6): 3
• Total bill: approximately $220

Tonnage: 3490 lbs., does not include:

• Sofa
• Love seat
• Queen mattress and box spring
• Two end tables
• Coffee table
• Folding table
• Two bookshelves

I estimate the total weight at 3890 lbs. The car is in Youngstown, OH, and still scheduled for September 1st delivery.

Packing for moving day is a real pain; the movers come Friday morning and we will just barely make it. Materials were mostly purchased online at DirectMovingBoxes. It seems that a company Smart Pack Solutions makes/sells/distributes the actual boxes and packing materials, and a bunch of different websites all sell the exact same things at the exact same prices in some kind of affiliate network.

• “Medium” boxes (18×14x12, $44 for 20): 34
• “Large” boxes (20×20x15, $46 for 15): 13
• “Extra-large” boxes (23×23x16, $44 for 10): 5
• Packing tape (4 x 110-yard rolls for $14): 4
• Packing tape (Scotch packing tape, 40 yards for $6): 1
• Total bill: approximately $200

Current tonnage: 2262 lbs., does not include things like TV, sofa, couch, or other furniture.

Still to go:

• Long desk
• Corner workstation desk
• HumanScale keyboard tray
• Desktop computer, monitor, and speakers
• Server computer
• Laser printer
• Mattress and box springs
• Miscellaneous desk items (about 2 boxes’ worth).
• Framed pictures

My car is currently in Providence, RI, and is scheduled to arrive in California on September 1st. Sweet!

I am slowly (temporarily) letting go of all my worldly possessions, hopefully to be reunited with them in California. I drop off my car on Monday. That shouldn’t hurt too much; I walk to work, and we otherwise hardly drive. In fact, I will save money by not having to pay to park the darn thing ($300/month).

In two weeks, the movers come to take everything else away, leaving us to “rough it” for a week (I make no pretense at asceticism). In particular, the following things will be gone:

• No Bed. We’ll be keeping a “Coleman Quickbed” airbed with us; it is quite serviceable in place of our real bed. The packaging for the airbed is quite ridiculously laughable. It is predominantly green-colored, with pictures of a tent and a sleeping bag, all to evoke images of roughing it in the great outdoors. Even better, these airbeds are sold in the “outdoor sporting goods” section at Target and other retailers. I bet none of these things have ever tasted the great outdoors, except maybe on its way from the store to the car. Many of them eventually leak (many web reviews complain about this). Our first one did leak, but our next two have both survived several guests’ stays. At $20-30 a piece, one can’t complain too much.
• No Kitchen Appliances. I’m already tired of the food court in the mall across the street. Even if we splurge and eat out every night, we have no way to re-heat our leftovers.
• No TV. I have some books and a huge pile of unread magazines saved up for that week. I would normally look forward to going without TV for a week, except that the new fall season seems to be starting early this year, so I will probably be missing a week or two of all my favorite shows.
• No Computers. This will hurt. No computer = no DVR (see “No TV”, above), no e-mail or web-surfing, no Quicken, and finally, no Tsaiberspace (yes, this hurts you, too, I’m sure).
• No Internet. (See “No Computers”, above.)

I planned my vehicle drop-off and movers pick-up so that everything would arrive in California a day or two after we get there (according to the best estimates the auto-shipper and movers could give me); hopefully things will work out. It will be much more difficult/expensive to go without a car on the West Coast than it is to do so here in Boston.

No posts last week; I was busy looking for an apartment for the upcoming move.

Finding a place to live in the San Francisco Bay Area can be very easy. All one needs to do is browse some number of online directories for managed apartment properties, and pick one based on price, location, amenities, etc. However, this approach usually leaves one paying about $200/mo. more for the convenient shopping.

If one is willing to do a little legwork, one can save a lot of money for a much nicer place by finding properties that are rented out directly by the owner or a broker (e.g., a private property in a condo building, or a townhouse complex, or even a whole house). These used to be very hard to find because they were generally only findable via newspaper classifieds and brokers, but thanks to mediums like Craigslist, they are now almost just as easy to find as managed properties (sometimes easier).

Besides the legwork, the other problem is that there are other savvy apartment-hunters with the same idea, so it can be quite competitive. Also, since private property is at stake, landlords want to know everything about the prospective tenant. To be prepared, one needs to bring the following items to the appointment or to the open house:

• Credit report: some people will accept your copy; others will want to do the lookup themselves and charge you $25-30 for it.
• Checkbook: to pay for the credit reports, and if you’re lucky, the security deposit and first month’s rent.
• Recent paystubs: so the landlord can verify your income.
• A cover letter, photograph, and cheery disposition: this is effectively an interview.

That last item leads to a very competitive atmosphere, especially in an open-house environment where all prospective tenants can size each other up.

We saw one property that was very nice: a top-floor 2BR condo in a nice complex in a nice location with air-conditioning, full-size in-unit washer/dryer, new kitchen appliances, garaged parking, etc. Furthermore, it was very reasonably priced, at below market value: the landlord was asking $1750/mo.; similar properties in similar neighborhoods were going for $2000-2400/mo.

Everyone was instantly on their best behavior, vying to keep the landlord’s attention as the landlord took notes on everyone they spoke to. Also, everyone was delivering their carefully-rehearsed story as to why they were the perfect tenant(s). Even more absurdly (IMHO), everyone’s strategy usually had some sob-story quality to it. As I filled out the rental application paperwork, I eavesdropped on some of the competition’s tactics:

• “We currently live in Hayward, but my kids are starting school next year, and I really want them to go to the Foster City school district. But everyone looks at my kids and says they don’t want us living there …”
• “We’ve been living and working in Foster City for the past <n> years and love the community. We currently live down the street, but with our first baby on the way, we think we need a bigger place …”

We had the disadvantage of moving in from out of state: we couldn’t say we were long-time pillars of the community, and it would be harder for the landlord to check our references from three time zones away. As I filled out the paperwork, my better half was left with no choice but to casually mention to the landlord’s husband that we were moving from Boston (“honey, don’t forget to drop the [H]-bombs …”) and that we were a just-starting-out professional married non-smoking couple with no children and no pets.

I was optimistic about our chances, almost thinking that we were a lock. The competition was busy trying to shush children (the ones that would be drawing on the walls), or were single (the ones that would be unstable and likely to move back out very soon), or were executives of some sort (too rich and therefore too likely to buy a home very soon and move out), or were not social enough to engage the landlord in conversation (out of sight and out of mind).

I was wrong. We didn’t get it. The legwork was not a total failure; we did end up taking over some other person’s below-market-rate lease on their apartment (he was moving out early). But I’m still trying to figure out what makes the perfect tenant.

We will be moving back to Northern California (San Francisco Bay Area) over Labor Day weekend. After five years to the day, I will finally get to go back :). Five years ago I simply boxed up my few belongings and shipped them via UPS. This time, for the move back, after having accumulated a spouse and a few more things, UPS simply will not do. I need full-service movers.

Moving is a stressful event. No matter how many times I move, whether across town or across the country, I hate it. Involving a moving company only makes it worse. I’ve never had a problem dealing with the people; the moving company agents have always been very professional and personable, and answered all my questions, even though they must answer the same questions a thousand times a day.

The problem I have with moving companies is the lack of information. There was not a single place I could find online that would spell out the formula used to determine the charge for a move: dollars per pound per mile, fuel, insurance, governmental fees and surcharges, moving during peak or non-peak dates, and whatever line items they decide to factor in to the final price.

Moving companies claim to charge based on actual weight of goods moved (e.g., they weigh the shipping container before and after they’ve loaded your goods). Therefore, the only real information one needs from an in-person estimate that can not be made available online is an estimate of the weight and volume of the goods to be moved, from a person who knows how to do that kind of thing. This kind of estimate could in fact be done by a third party, although a binding not-to-exceed estimate would probably need to be done by an agent of the moving company. This would still leave moving companies free to differentiate themselves with the different line items they will charge for.

Still fuming, and after many many weeks of procrastination, I’ve finally gotten estimates from two moving companies. The first moving company provided the following estimate (Olympic Moving & Storage, a local agent for Wheaton World Wide Moving):

There were some good things about this conversation:

• The representative was good enough to tell me that a pick-up date up through August 24 would cost less than a pick-up on or after August 25 (peak season). Sounds easy enough to understand.
• He said that the estimate of 4888 lbs. seemed kind of high, especially since my move here to Boston three years ago only had 2800 lbs. on the bill. We both agreed that it seemed unlikely that I had acquired 2000 lbs. worth of household goods. He offered to provide a new estimate if I obtained a drastically-different weight estimate from another mover during the course of my comparison shopping.

There were some bad things:

• He could not easily tell me how my quote would change if I elected to leave certain large-ish things behind (old couch, love seat, coffee table, etc.). The only way I could get this information would be for him to re-enter my inventory without selected items. He could not just give me a per-pound rate given my distance and date. I don’t think he was being secretive or sleazy in any way; I believe that the corporate software application he was using simply could not (or would not) provide that information, which IMHO should have been easily available online anyway.
• He only quoted me for a $0 deductible and did not offer the $250 or $500 deductible options (the information above was discovered after reading all the paperwork). This is almost inexcusable, but perhaps only merely dumb, since it makes his quote look higher when compared against other movers. It could have been an honest mistake since I hadn’t asked about it at the time.

The second moving company (Rainbow Worldwide Relocation & Logistics, a local agent for North American Van Lines) provided the following estimate:

This was also a very professional experience; the agent (actually a partner in his company) walked around the apartment punching everything into his PDA. I would be willing to bet that they use the same PDA software, because they both ended up with 4888 lbs. The volume was slightly different, but that was probably a result of different levels of eye-balling of things like piles of books and whatnot.

The information given to me by the second person:

• Pickups on any day in the month of August would cost the same.
• The current estimate was at a 63% discount. The discount would decrease over time, based on available capacity at the time the move is actually scheduled. (Basically, it is better for everyone involved to book early.)
• When I asked about leaving certain select pieces of furniture behind, he told me that given the distance of the move and the estimated weight of my goods, I was looking at about $107 for every 100 lbs. ($1.07/lb.). I still think this information should have been made available online, but at least I have this information.
• North American Van Lines had done away with line-item charges for factors like elevators or flights of stairs, etc. (I told him we actually didn’t have a destination address yet and couldn’t tell him about the presence or absence of elevators, or number of flights of stairs.)
• I asked him about recommended tips; he said about $40-50 for a driver for that distance, and about $10-15 for each mover, plus maybe a little extra for factors like many stairs or long carries between the truck and the residence.

I was actually rooting for Olympic Moving & Storage since they were a “known” party, having moved us without incident from Atlanta to Boston three years ago. Howver, given the price and the open information, I think we will have to go with Rainbow Movers. One might argue that a $100 premium is reasonable for going with a known party, but I already place a premium on openness, I don’t have any particularly valuable possessions, and it happens to still be cheaper.