Jim's Take On Getting Down To NC and The First Week

Well, I'm finally getting a chance to sit down and type a post. It's been over a week since we got here, and in a previous post, Abbie said that it was an adventure. She wasn't kidding. For your amusement, this is my take on what we went through to get ourselves to NC.

I picked up the U-haul on Wednesday the 9th. We started to pack the truck on the 9th, with the plan that we'd be on the road no later than 10AM. I had calculated that if we left by 11AM, we'd make it in time to Raleigh to get to the apartment complex, get our lease signed and do the walk-thru. Our neighbor, Rich, helped me get the couch and the dresser into the truck. Thank you to Rich because I don't think Abbie and I could've gotten it. So we closed out Wednesday with about 7/16th of the truck full (yes, I did measure, and it came out to 7/16th...John and Terry would be proud of my mathematical acumen) and John and Kat coming to visit. John did help me carry some stuff out, which was nice since I hadn't intended on putting him to work. It was a quietly emotional moment when John and Kat left that night because I think we both realized that we wouldn't have the ability any longer to see each other at any minute. Oh man, just thinking about it is making me tear up. "Tito, get me a tissue".

So, we transitioned to Thursday morning. Naturally, Cooper woke us up early. So we're freaking tired and have quite a bit of...well, junk that we figure we need to live for the next four months, to load. Abbie is packing boxes, while I'm moving them to the U-Haul. Did I mention that it rained all day...sometimes quite hard...while I was hauling out boxes and furniture? 10AM comes and goes. 11AM comes and goes. 12PM comes and goes. 1PM, 2PM, and 3PM come and go. And we're still not fully packed up. Well, by 3PM, we were relatively packed up, Abbie had cleaned the house up while I was still putting small items away. The U-Haul and car trailer was taking up six parking spaces (thankfully, everyone was at work).

At this point, we're both frustrated that we've missed our deadline, pissed off that there's so much stuff and we're pretty much out of space in the U-Haul (front and back), the Saturn, and the Subaru, and we keep finding other items that need to get packed. This is the point where we blow up at each other. Moving is stressful and we started to take the last month's worth of stress out on each other. I accused her of not helping with the heavy stuff and showing no appreciation for the amount of manual labor I've done to get us packed to move...and she accused me of being a whiny ass baby and acting like a child. Fair 'nuff. So, since I'm a whiny ass baby and am acting like a child, I refuse to let her leave to drop off the cable box (she doesn't know where Cox Communications is...so I hold the upper hand here, Sucka!). Of course, she just walks out and is ready to call one of her friends to give her directions. So, that didn't work for me. I give her directions, and she heads out to drop that off and pick up some lunch/dinner for us. Cooper and I are now in this empty house. I go take a shower while he roams around in an empty master bedroom...bored. We end up sitting in the foyer waiting for Abbie....waiting and waiting and waiting. He falls asleep on my shoulder. Unfortunately, I don't have a couch or cushion to put him on, so I have to hold him...and I don't care if the scale says he's only 25lbs, that's a heavy 25lbs after 15 minutes of holding him. We wait and wait and wait. At this point, I'm wondering if Abbie's taken Sullivan and fled. But she shows up, and we get on the road....around 4PM...during rush hour.

We drive up Braddock Rd, thinking we're going to hit the beltway over to I-95 and then South. Yeah, right. Anyone been on I-95 in rush hour? We shortcut it by taking the Fairfax County Parkway, and end up on I-95 just South of Springfield. Welcome to the I-95 parking lot. It takes us, no kidding, two hours to get from FFX County Pkwy to Quantico/Triangle. Abbie's in the Subaru with the boys, and I'm driving the U-Haul pulling the Saturn. Side note: I was concerned about pulling the Saturn b/c I always have this fear of the trailer tipping or the car falling off...and as I'm thinking this, an 18-wheeler drives by me towing on his trailer...you ready for this...a Greyhound bus with 10 flat tires. I start to feel a bit better about hauling a Saturn now.

So, we get into the open road and start going faster. Now, I've got the radio going (ain't no CD player, so I'm thinking I'm miserable b/c of that), but when I call Abbie, here's what I hear..."WAAAAAHHHHHH! Hello? WAAAAAAHHHHHHH! WAAAAAAAHHHHHH!" That's about how the entire drive went for Abbie. They were like a buddy team performing Psyops on their mom....one would sleep while the other would wail, and when that one started to wind down to sleep, the other would wake and start screaming. I've no doubt that at some point, Abbie was ready to pull over and bitch slap the little shits...but, that's just my assessment. I did offer to switch with her and she could drive the U-Haul while I drove the screamers. She said no to that. Here's how to see it...imagine a movie with two scenes intercut with each other...me in the U-Haul with a little Willie Nelson singing "On the Road Again", and Abbie in the Subaru with her face all crunched up in mental anguish, balling her ass off b/c she can't help them, and all you can hear is Cooper or Sully wailing. I gotta lotta respect for her for keeping that up for eight hours. Oh, wait, she tells me they only cried for 5 hours of that...my respect is gone.

Yeah, it took us eight hours. That includes long rest stops, though. We hit Petersburg (we missed rush hour going through Richmond thankfully), and turn onto I-85. We know when we cross into NC because the quality of the road suddenly shifts from smooth to completely crappy and unkept. That helps keep us awake a bit. Around 11PM, I realize that we need to find a hotel for the night. We need something with a kitchen...which gives us limited choices...Homestead, Candlewood, or Extended Stay. So I punch in the GPS to look for hotels near our destination...and I find a Homestead about 1.5 miles from the apartment complex. I call and reserve a room with two full sized beds (it was late, so I would've taken a room with a single twin bed if that was all they had available...I'm sure Abbie and the boys would've been comfortable on the floor. Ooooh, I'm only joking. You people take things too seriously).

We get to the Homestead, check in, and drive around to find our room. It's 12:30AM at this point, and as we turn the corner, there's a group of guys out having a cookout, drunk, and they start jeering at Abbie. She's just like, "F-off, I've been in a car with screaming chillins for 8 hours". So we park, get the kids and Abbie into the room, and they all fall asleep. BUT, big daddy has to go out and get ice to keep all the frozen and refrigerated foods cold throughout the night. I finally get to bed at 1AM...fearing that one of those hoodlums getting drunk at the BBQ pit are going to break into our U-Haul and clean us out. Abbie and Sully rack out in one bed, and Cooper and I in the other. It was actually a sweet ending to a rough day.

That's my take on us getting to NC. My first week at work has been a learning curve. I forgot how different it is to have to be at work versus being a "work at home realtor" and being able to get up at 10AM (if the chillins allow). Since I've not been to any of the necessary training courses, I've spent a lot of time with my nose in my predecessor's notebooks and files trying to make heads or tails of how to go about my job. My boss, LTC Haynes, has said that I'm the interim Recruiting Operations Officer and our focus is on our partnership school, Shaw University. I'm starting to just make it up as I go. What I've realized though, is that the recruiting efforts as determined by the Army may not necessarily be the best for HBCU's...that's "Historically Black Colleges and University's" for those of you not in the know. I actually thought that I'd be the only white person at the program, but the cadre is a good mix representing the diversity of the Army. It's actually very fun working with these people. LTC Haynes told me that she's going to have me teaching classes at Shaw which I think is going to be the bomb-diggity. :-) John, there's still a position at University of Richmond with COMTek. If you're interested, let me know and I'll send you my POC's name and email.

The first week was a bit busy trying to learn it all. I had to work on Saturday at a recruiting event, which I have a feeling is going to be very common. But, my time at St Augustine's may be short lived if 1) the position isn't extended beyond October and/or 2) a permanent position opens up at NC State.

Anyways, that's my update and I'm sticking to it. I hope y'all enjoyed it. We miss everyone back in NoVA and want to say this, "Enjoy the traffic, Suckers!"