During most, if not all, of our sojourn at 8046 Earl NW there was a light on. Nizzibet liked it that way. The house had multiple rooms and odd corners and an upstairs and downstairs and was full of stuff to bump into and trip on. Nizzibet liked to have a light to guide her and wake her up.

Last night I left a front door key on a kitchen counter, wrote a note for the landlord regarding stuff that still needs to be disposed of and turned out all the lights on my way out the door.

Peace and thank you to everyone we shared the house with over the last decade –
Paliki
Scary
Chainsaw
Shep Hendrix
Pia Guerra
Ryan Proctor
Helen Ingersoll
Jason Oxrieder
Jonathan Williams
Lori Alexander

So it goes and it goes ever onward.

There are many ways to get rid of unwanted things.

One way is to simply throw them in the trash. This is good for things that have outlived their usefulness or just don’t work anymore (like old computer cables or mismatched tupperware). It’s also a way to get rid of small items that you don’t want to spend time trying to find a new home for (like packages of nails or screws or fish food).

Another way to get rid of things is to sidewalk them – put them out next to the sidewalk with a “free” sign on them. Interested parties can then simply walk off with the items they fancy. This works for larger items like chairs or shelves or potted plants. It’s not so good for very large items like couches or mattresses. It can be especially bad for couches or mattresses if they get rained on. Nobody wants a soggy place to sit or sleep.

A third alternative is to list your items on Freecycle. You say you’re offering something and interested people let you know they want it and they come take it off your hands. This lets more people know you have something available than if you sidewalked it and it keeps items out of the rain until they are picked up. It’s not a perfect system – people are involved. Sometimes they decide they don’t want an item after all. Sometimes they say they want something and then keep not showing up for arranged pickup times. But heck, you get to get rid of stuff. Maybe you could sell it but, if you’re like me and you got most of your furniture for free, giving stuff away is fun. (And the amount of money I might make selling the stuff is minimal at best.)

The house is almost empty. I’ve got to do some touch up painting on Sunday.

The cat moves to the apartment on Monday. Monday and Tuesday nights will be cleaning days with Wednesday held in reserve if absolutely necessary.

At the same time I need to spend a little time every day getting shelves set up and having books tossed on to them. Yay!

The move is not completed. The old house still needs cleaning and there’s furniture that must be sent to new homes. The bookcases and the zillions of books that live on them? Those got moved this Sunday. Many, many, many thanks go to Jeff and Teresa, Maya and Terra, and Jason and Emily for all their help. The move took about four and a half hours.

The second bedroom at the apartment is filled with boxes. Getting to the closet is a job for a chimpanzee. The porch is a full of bookcases stacked two high. I’ll be alternating mating books with shelves at the apartment with doing the final empty of the house throughout the week. Sometime in there we’ll need to kidnap the cat, get her flea dipped and then bring her home. She’ll LOVE that.

Haymaker

You are one of life’s enjoyers, determined to get the most you can out of your brief spell on Earth. Probably what first attracted you to atheism was the prospect of liberation from the Ten Commandments, few of which are compatible with a life of pleasure. You play hard and work quite hard, have a strong sense of loyalty and a relaxed but consistent approach to your philosophy.

You can’t see the point of abstract principles and probably wouldn’t lay down your life for a concept though you might for a friend. Something of a champagne humanist, you admire George Bernard Shaw for his cheerful agnosticism and pursuit of sensual rewards and your Hollywood hero is Marlon Brando, who was beautiful, irascible and aimed for goodness in his own tortured way.

Sometimes you might be tempted to allow your own pleasures to take precedence over your ethics. But everyone is striving for that elusive balance between the good and the happy life. You’d probably open another bottle and say there’s no contest.

What kind of humanist are you? Click here to find out.

We slept in the new apartment for the first time last night. Other than sitting on the couch that’s about all we could do. We haven’t got any clothes or kitchen supplies over there yet. We expect to be sleeping there nights and coming back to the house to pack, eat and use the phone at the house during the day.

The Bowyer came over to the house last night and he and I loaded the couch and the bed into his truck. Getting the couch out of the house was the hardest part. It’s long enough for Nizzibet and I to both nap on it. The front door opens into a small foyer. From there you can go through a narrow door to enter the living room or a narrow door to enter the first bedroom. The couch had to be angled through the living room door into an on-end position in the foyer, turned and then angled out the front door. The bed frame and mattress followed much more easily.

The box spring that goes with the mattress has been hibernating in the garage for the last four years. It wouldn’t fit down the stairs for our bedroom at the house. We had it well wrapped in black plastic and sitting on a pallet. No mold or bugs or squirrel nests, yay!

It felt a little odd sleeping on the bed last night. Until now the mattress has been sitting on a single boxspring paired with doubled over foam pallet. Sitting at a list I might add.

In a half an hour or so I’ll begin waking up Nizzibet. Fifteen minutes to a half hour after that she’ll be awake enough to stagger upstairs. Once she’s out of bed I’ll take the bed apart and haul the components upstairs.

We take possession of our apartment today. A friend will be coming by with a truck this evening to haul over some large pieces of furniture – the bed and the couch that we’re planning to keep. Then I’ll spend the next week moving minor day to day necessities over (clothes, food, dishes, cooking utensils and suchlike) while sorting out the leave-behinds.

The first installment of Misspent Youths #1 got posted yesterday. Expect a page a week for the next 32 weeks.

After I’d listed Misspent Youths #2-5 at Webcomics Nation’s sales site it started to dawn on me what should be serialized on my Nation pages. Misspent Youths #1 of course. I don’t have any copies of that issue to sell. Might as well give it away.

I’ve got some scanning to do over the weekend. Then on Tuesday the 9th, for the next 33 weeks, Moe and Detritus and the gang get a rerun.

So I’ve got a Webcomics Nation account right? Not ’cause I had big plans. I’m too tired these days to have big plans. (Okay, not true. I’ve often had big plans while being way too tired and busy.) I’m already committed to Finnegan and Oz Squad and anything new would just cut in to the little time I’ve currently got. But the Nation opened its borders and there was money in my Paypal account and their offer was a discount for life so I became a citizen.

The Nation is a capitalist one. It’s set up to help its citizens live their capitalist dreams. And I’ve got a few copies of comics I created filling up boxes that I’ll just keep moving around with me if I don’t sell them. So I’m putting copies of Misspent Youths and GLYPH and Last Dangerous Christmas up for sale at the Small Press Swapmeet.

I’m on the AFA.net mailing list. Know thy enemy and all that. Mostly I ignore their whinings. Once in a while I look. Then I get a head ache.

The latest poll asks –

Should Intelligent Design be taught in public schools alongside evolution?

No, the theory of evolution is the only theory which should be taught in public schools.

The Yes box in their form is prechecked. God forbid that someone actually has to consider whether to check yes or no. Someone might notice that no opinion is actually being asked for – just a rubber stamp on a dull and ignorant view of the world.

Should students be exposed to different ideas, or should they be shielded from information about intelligent design? Oh please, expose them to intelligent design. In fact, why not actually expose them to different ideas? Make them read Lovecraft and Phillip K. Dick. Make them watch X the Unknown. Tell the little darlings about spontaneous generation. Teach the little fuckers to apply critical thinking to every dumbass statement that their elders’ try to pass off as truth.

The AFA form, by the way, doesn’t provide you with a place to give your opinion. The only options are the AFA qualified Yess or Nos.

We’ve got an apartment reserved. Twice.

First Nizzibet found a one bedroom that she liked and put a down payment on it. The building manager mentioned that there was a two bedroom available if she was interested. She passed.

She and I discussed it this morning and decided to at least look at the place.

She liked the two bedroom place much more. Aside from having another room it also has a balcony and it’s on a side of the building away from the street so it’s quieter. Slightly more expensive for a much nicer arrangement. Unfortunately it needs to have some repair done on it so it won’t be available for move in until next week. So this week we’ll be concentrating on doing more packing, giving things away and trashing the rest.