refried.org

Heather and I are pleased to announce that we are no longer home owners. No more mortgage payments. No more home owners associations. No more stressing about the falling Twin Cities housing market.

We received an offer on our townhouse on April 12th and closed the transaction on Monday. Instead of being in debt to Wells Fargo for another 25 years, we should be able to pay off the loss in a year. A huge thanks goes out to our parents for making this transaction possible. Thanks also to my brother Tim for giving me an old fax machine which made it much easier to complete the 22 page purchase agreement at 8pm on a Saturday.

It's tax time again. I usually get my taxes done before March starts, but I haven't had the motivation yet. I started it on Saturday morning and had the numbers complete by the afternoon. Now I just need to fill out the forms so they're fit the be submitted. I'm filing three returns this year, federal, Minnesota, and Maine.

The federal return was by far the easiest to prepare. Since I have mortgage interest I file the full 1040 with Schedule A, three pages.

The Minnesota forms are pretty easy too. There are three pages for the M1 and M1W, which are normal. The M1W replaces all W-2's in the envelope which I think is smart. I'm also filling out the M1NR since I moved out-of-state last year. I was disappointed to find that there isn't a fill-in version of the M1NR form. I like to fill them in on the computer so I can save a copy there and print out a nice clean, legible form. In total I should have seven pages for my Minnesota return.

The Maine tax forms are completely different. There aren't any fill-in forms at all. Not even the Maine long form. The long form is two pages, plus another page for Schedules 1 & 2, another page each for Worksheets A and B, and a final page for Schedule NR. That's six pages plus the three for the federal forms, for a total of nine pages, plus W-2's.

Okay, so two pages doesn't seem like that big of a deal. Take a look and compare M1NR with Worksheet A & B and Schedule NR. Worksheet A makes me feel like I am being interrogated. As someone who is returning to the state and bringing their out-of-state income with them, I am insulted. As for Worksheet B, why does it take Maine tax forms five columns where Minnesota only needs two? And finally Schedule NR, where we calculate a tax credit based on non-Maine income. I get a feeling that Maine thinks it is entitled to everything rather than just taking its share.

Being a Maine tax-payer again doesn't give me any warm, fuzzy feelings.

A few weeks ago I stopped drinking Mt. Dew. I ran out and I went through the caffeine withdrawal and thought that it was a good time as any to quit the habit. The problem is, I like the taste more than the caffeine. But I remember Coke had another drink like it but without the caffeine, Mello Yello. Unfortunately I couldn't find Mello Yello in any of the local grocery stores. So now I'm back to drinking one glass of Mt. Dew a day, for the taste.

We got a new toy this week, a Nintendo Wii. I got a small taste of one at Dug and Sharon's house after Christmas. That was enough to turn "Ooo, shiney," into "Gotta get me one of these." After watching Wii Tracker for a few weeks and reading the forum I decided to just preorder a bundle from GameStop.com. I ended up spending more than I should have, but that's what bonuses are for, right?

After going back to GameStop to exchange a few items in the bundle I ended up with the console, two sets of remote with nunchuck, the classic controller, a 1G SD card, Wii Sports, Wii Play, Mario and Sonic at the Olympics, Super Mario Galaxy, and 2000 points to spend on virtual console games at the Wii Store. I think that should keep me entertained for a few months.

With all the connection problems on Fairpoint and our IP address changing three times in two months, I decided to pay for a static IP. This way I won't have to ask Mark to update our DNS entry for a long time. Our email should continue working without interruption and our web site should never disappear for a few days at a time. I think that's certainly worth $5 per month.

One of the things I won't get to see first-hand since we moved back to Maine is the reconstruction of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis. I found a nice high resolution webcam overlooking the construction site.

One of our favorite recipes is Southwest White Chili which I found in the spice aisle on a McCormick recipe card. I'm making a double batch this weekend with the remnants of a whole chicken we roasted.

On a trip to Freeport on Saturday we took a break in the cafe in L.L.Bean. I was looking to get my daily dose of caffeine (Mt. Dew) but instead a bottle of root beer caught my eye. I have a hard time passing up a chance to try a new root beer. It was Maine Root and it was good enough that I peeled the label off the bottle so I would remember to check out their web site. They also make ginger brew and sarsaparilla so I may have to pick up their variety pack.

Before we left for a trip to New York to visit friends our deck was clear. This is what we came back to.

I just saw via Slashdot that qmail is now in the public domain. A few years too late for me. I don't plan on messing with my Postfix config any time soon. qmail was a great MTA. I wonder if this will allow it to get back into Debian. Russ, does this make a large impact on your qmail-related contract work?

Rex has a new favorite hiding spot under my desk. Baxter keeps him supervised at all times.

Wednesday morning just before 8:00 AM we got a call from the Bekins truck. "Where is your house? We're on Ipava." I gave them directions and they backed their massive Mack truck and 53' trailer in front of our house. We met the driver, Scooter, and his girlfriend/assistant, Amy. We walked them through the house to show what was going on the truck and what was not.

Scooter and his crew were very professional. Amy started tagging everything with numbered stickers and recording each item on inventory sheets. Scooter and his local help, two guys from Action Moving, started wrapping furniture in pads and moving everything out to the truck.

Heather and I felt very comfortable and lucky. Scooter and Amy were a lot of fun to talk to. We heard lots of stories about different people they've moved, both good and bad. Scooter recommended we rent "Moving" with Richard Pryor. We probably chatted with Scooter too much because they didn't get out of there until 12:30 PM. After a quick lunch with Aunt Peg we hit the road.

Our three day drive back to Maine was largely uneventful. We stopped at Mark and Laura's at the end of day two. Thanks again for letting us crash there. We arrived in Maine two days later than scheduled. I think that's pretty good, all things considered.

So when were we going to get our stuff? November 19th. That's a long time to be without our stuff, but we did it. Scooter arrived with our stuff on the 19th just as planned. Looks like everything made it intact. We got everything into the house except our couch. We couldn't get it to fit through any of the doors.

So what was the "ordeal" with the moving companies? Let me tell you a story. This might get a little long. Heather used one of those Internet forms to get quotes from a bunch of moving companies. She talked on the phone with a few of them and we decided to go with Nationwide Relocation. The sales man, James, promised that our stuff would be the only stuff on the truck and that it would be moved directly to Maine. No stops or other pick ups. We checked them out with the Better Business Buerau and they have a A- score with almost 600 complaints in the last 36 months. We didn't know what to think about the 600 complaints, perhaps they just do a lot more business than anyone else. That's a good thing, right?

According to the contract we signed they were guaranteed to arrive on Saturday or Sunday, November 3rd or 4th. They would give us 28-48 hours advanced notice for the pick-up time. Friday afternoon rolls around and Heather hasn't heard from the company yet. She calls to find what the pick-up time will be. They say they can make 10 PM on Sunday, which is still inside their guaranteed pick-up window. Digusted we choose Monday morning at 7:00 AM instead.

Monday morning arrives and we get up at 5:30 to finish the last bits of packing. Heather leaves around 7:30 to pick up some coffee and possibly some touch-up paint. The truck still hasn't arrived and we haven't heard anything yet from the moving company. She gets back at 8:30 after deciding that it isn't worth it to spend $30 on a gallon of paint. The truck still hasn't arrived and no phone calls. She starts calling people at 8:45 and can't get a hold of anyone at Nationwide or South Moving and Storage (the subcontractor).

After a dozen phone calls, including a few to Heather's mother to find out more about this "South" company, she gets a hold of the owner of South on his cell phone. He can't speak very good English so he hands the phone to a woman who puts the phone down and starts yelling back and forth with the owner in another language. Finally she says that the truck will be there between noon and 4:00 PM.

To kill the time until noon we decided take Baxter to the dog park. After getting back from lunch, Heather started calling again. She finally got a hold of James and expressed her digust. He "made a few calls" and said the truck was 30 minutes to an hour away. Heather wasn't feeling well so we took a nap and after two hours I woke her up to start making calls again.

After a few calls she got Traci in customer service. From her we found that we could cancel now and get a full refund. They missed their guaranteed pick-up window and broke their end of the contract. After a few minutes of discussion we decided to call back and cancel. James had lied to us, the company didn't call us at all, and we didn't trust them anymore to return our stuff if they did take it. Traci transfered us to Cheryl in the cancellation department. Cheryl didn't seem very competent to do anything but we made sure she knew we were cancelling at 5pm Eastern Time and to make sure everyone else knew.

At this point we went to our friends' house to have dinner and use the Internet. We cancelled our hotel reservation in Indiana. We didn't know when we were going to get that far. I started submitting requests for estimates to any moving company I could find. I submitted to ABF, United, Mayflower, and Bekins.

Tuesday morning before 7 AM we received a few calls from the truck driver of South, but we didn't answer them. We cancelled through Nationwide and if they can't notify their drivers in a timely fashion, that's their problem.

At 8:20 I got a call from the local Bekins estimator and scheduled him to come by at 9:30. An estimator from Mohawk United called shortly after that and made an appointment for 2:00 PM. After going to get some breakfast food I met with Matt from Bekins. He was very professional and gave us an estimate before he left. It was better than the contract we signed with Nationwide.

While I'm talking to the Bekins guy, Heather starts getting a ton of calls from Nationwide and South about the cancellation. They want to make thing better. They want to keep our business. The truck is only eight miles from our house. It's in our neighborhood. Heather got calls all the way up the management chain. She did a great job of being firm and professional with them. I wouldn't have been so calm.

During lunch I got a call back from Matt at Bekins. He learned of a cancellation on a truck that was heading back east. They could pick up our stuff on Wednesday morning, but we needed to act fast to reserve it. I wanted to get the other estimate done, but there really was no time. We decided to go with Bekins. Tuesday afternoon we signed our contract and headed to U-haul to pick up a mattress bag.

Tuesday night we went back to our friends' house for dinner with a totally different state of mind. We were much more relaxed and comfortable with the moving process. We knew our stuff wouldn't go directly to Maine, but we were okay with that. We were much more confident that it would get there.

After what it seemed like an eternity waiting for our stuff, we're back online. If you're seeing this message, Mark has updated our DNS entry and our email should be working again.

That's right, we're moving back to Maine. We still haven't sold our townhouse, but we got an offer to rent that we couldn't refuse. We've already booked the movers and sold off my yellow Mazda3. I will be working from home after we move. We're packing like crazy and getting rid of anything we can.

The truck is scheduled to come the weekend of November 3rd. Our web site and email will be on the truck so refried.org will be down for about a week. Mark is going to set up a server to collect our email so we should get it once I get our server back on the net in Maine.