So Far

Since moving to Berkeley nearly a month ago:

1) Apartment wasn't cleaned by the owner. The kitchen was pretty gross, even after a several scrubs I couldn't get all the white walls, umm white. The paint work was pretty bad too with much of the hardware partially painted white. After a week or so I made the decision to repaint the kitchen. I'm still at it since there's a lot of trim and I'm trying clean all the hardware.

2) Parking, so in order to park in neighborhood I have Berkeley parking permit. So week one I found out I couldn't get a resident parking permit for my neighborhood in Berkley because my car isn't registered in California. OK, so after spending the week moving my car every two hours and after moving in I found some of my paperwork and spent at most an hour at the DMV to find out that I needed more of my paperwork, smog check and VIN verification.

Great, so today I did the following:
Oil change (it needed it and it insured I'd pass my smog check) - $56 btw.
Smog check
- $89
DMV & VIN check
- $190

So fast forward to 4pm, I've already spent an hour at the Berkeley City hall waiting and they are closing up shop at 4pm when my number is called. "Did you know that they printed your address wrong on your registration?" Huh? "Ya, they wrote Grand instead of Grant for your address." Umm, I have other forms of ID that prove my residence is on Grant. "Ya, we can't help you. You'll need to get the DMV to correct this." "Oh ya, can I sell you a temporary parking permit while you get this straightened out?"

So back to DMV this morning and after waiting in small line I tell them my tale of the address is wrong and City of berkeley won't let me get a parking permit based on that single letter being wrong.
DMV - Um, um, shit. Since this was processed yesturday it locks your info for 2-4 days and we can't make any changes.
Me - Umm, I start a new job on Monday and my ability to come back and get this straightend out kind of drops to zero since I won't have any sick time or work leave for 3 months.
DMV - Shit.
Me - is their a supervisor you or I could talk to about this?
DMV - YES!

An hour later they were able to find my original paperwork (since it wasn't fully processed) and I got the changes I needed. City of Berkeley was happy too.

I'm fairly official again and tickets as of yet.

3) Work: So far their isn't much actual work for me to do. No real tools and no screening room. Shooting is slow at this point too. This should change in the next month or two. Or at least I hope they do.

4)So after a nice trip on BART yesterday and getting home I found out that my water had been turned off. Technically speaking my landlord was suppose to pick up this bill, but never set anything up. Ugh. Of course since it's 7pm they are closed. I try resetting up everything via the internet and only failure is my option. So shower last night, nor was able to wash dishes. Dummy me also flushed the toilet with use of a #1. On the good side, my cleaning room isn't on same plumbing, so I've been able to get water (and thus refill the toilet for further use) and I can laundry. Of course this morning the water company tells me they can't get my water running till Monday. Oh, this will be a great weekend!

Berkeley

I'm here and setting shit up.
The move went very easily as a whole, though Uhaul screwed me on the pick up location. We were still able to get the truck, get back to the homestead and load the 26' truck. Only down side was that I had told everyone not load anything from back left corner of the garage. Well about an hour or two in my middle sister has riffled threw all my elder sister's stuff and mine and loaded them in the truck. Oy vay, what am I going to do with the extra 6- 12 boxes?

Anyway, it was 3ish in the afternoon and made the decision to leave. A quick trip back to Uhaul for the trailer and my element is loaded up and east I go, leaving family and Portland. Hell I was leaving Oregon too, taking the back way down. I headed east so I could skirt Mt Hood and then see eastern Oregon. My plan was hit Bend (which I've visited before) and then travel south. Well some how I missed bend and 10-11ish that night I finally got my bearings that I was near Crater lake. I pulled into 3 different motels as I didn't want to miss Crater lake, but all were full. I ended up traveling farther south and was outside Upper Klamath lake for the night. Much like my trip to Oakland, I some how picked the world's worst motel to stay in. The next morning was bright and beautiful and I was heading south, I made my way through Klamath falls in the morning and hit Weed a lot faster then I expected. The rest of the drive was kind of blur as I've driven it before and really bores me to know end.

The drive into the bay area was without any problems, other then trying to find a place to park the truck/trailer. My hood is pretty tight to begin with and also requires permits for long term parking. I had to park about 2 miles away by some local school. Arriving at my new to me apartment was rather uneventful, except the place was filthy as it the owner never cleaned it. Unloading the next day went fairly easily too, but when I had to take the truck back to the trailer, I found some asshole had parked infront of the trailer. So an hour later and my back aching, I was able to manhandle the full trailer out enough so I could reattach it to the truck. I would note, the entire side of the street was empty except my element and this trailer and asshole had to just park in front if it. After 3 days back I'm reminded of how fucked californians are when it comes to driving (and parking).

Anyway, I just got internet finally set up and I still need to unpack and do loads of cleaning. Ugh. Oh ya, the shower stopped up.