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Well, I arrived a week and a half ago. So far it's been very "Don't Stop the Carnival" but hopefully the headaches will end soon. Here's the highlight (bloopers?) reel:
1. Forgot to call to verify arrivals/departures before flying out for the big move. First time I've forgotten that. Sedated the sick kitty, loaded the cab, arrived at the airport in Austin... you guessed it. Flight cancelled. The hotels were all booked (big biker rally weekend) but got my old room back. Good thing, since I left the litterbox there.
2. Successfully flew out the next day. Kitty did fine til the very end, when she was overcome with heat. Plugged her in to the IV bag and perked her back up as soon as I got to the condo. Turned on the A/C unit to cool it down quickly, only to be covered with a faceful of Monserrat ash.
3. Shipping container held hostage by customs pending the production of various ridiculous receipts. Word of advice: Lie lie lie. Do not declare any new items. Understate the value. Call everything "used household items" and say that they're all more than 5 years old. Once all was said and done, though, I only paid $30 in exise tax.
4. After many days, the container (a DoorToDoor pod) was delivered, only to find that my combination lock wouldn't open. I pried, tugged, re-spun the dials while the two kids I'd hired to unpack waited... Called around for bolt cutters and gave it one more try. Sigh. Let go of the lock and it magically fell open.
5. Two nights after arriving I was relaxing in bed, reading and listening to/watching TV. Heard a pop and hissing, looked up and the room was filling with stinky white smoke which was pouring forth from the TV/Cable box. Yikes! Earlier that day I spotted a fire extinguisher outside the building. Leapt up from bed, yanked the rattan dresser (with TV on top) out from the wall, breaking all the ceramic doodads on the dresser as they crashed to the ground, yanked the powercords, ran outside half-naked, wrestled with the fire extinguisher, and ran back inside. Fortunately, flames had not erupted. The dressers would've burned up in a flash. The TV and cable box were toast.
6. The power's gone out briefly many times. No big surprise. This weekend, though, it went out one morning and stayed out... for THREE DAYS. No water, no fans, no AC, cost me a gallon of water each time I finally flushed the stinky toilets. Had a bad headache the whole time. Wanted to curl up in a ball and suck my thumb. This outage was in a limited portion of Mahogany Run. The "fix"-- a temporary power line connect me with a line up the hill. It's sitting on the ground with caution tape all around. I expect it will last until the next big rain.
7. The condo had dial-up internet. Took ~10-+ minutes to load a page. I'm a junkie. That won't do. At the moment I'm trying out a wireless DSL, which picks up a very weak signal from exactly one corner of a bedroom if the modem is turned precisely right. I may try to get satellite DSL, but I have to be in line-of-sight with a relay tower and I may not be. I'm on my laptop computer. My main computer, a desktop, did not survive the move. Won't boot. Naturally, I had not backed up my files before moving 🙂 I'll try to get someone out to take a look.
8. My folks came down for a visit two days ago. Fortunately the power came back on that afternoon. Unfortnately, their flight was four hours late. Like a dummy I stayed at the airport rather than going home. Each time I called, American said it would be another half hour. That stretched into four hours.
All's quiet on the western front right now. Let's hope it stays that way! I want to do NOTHING for several weeks. I'm sick of endless to-do lists. Time to veg.
It's been a rocky start but with repeated tellings I'm sure I'll get some great comic mileage out of all of this. Still happy to be here and looking forward to settling in to island life.
I met STT Resident at her business, Toad and Tart, and enjoyed a most excellent dinner of Fish and Chips. Great Mahi Mahi. She even packed up some mahi for my little kitty, who wolfed it down without even breathing. She looked at me gratefully and then glared as if to say "You've been holding out on me all these years? You BITCH!". Kitty's doing well at the moment, although her renal failure will do her in in the near future. Gonna enjoy every moment with her in the meantime. You won't see much of me around until then because I'll be spending quality time with Tigger.
Other than these things, it's a great day in paradise!
Posted : June 15, 2006 1:50 pm
Thanks for the post. Keep us up to date.
Posted : June 15, 2006 2:09 pm
Hi Jules,
Congratulations on surviving the move and welcome to STT :)!
My husband and I are "newbies" to the island (just moved here in February), but I feel like we are settling in quite comfortably. If you need anything/advice/help -- please feel free to PM me!
You got off to a much rockier start than we did (and thank God I was stateside and missed the power outage), but things will get better.
In the meantime, your excellent sense of humor will definitely get you through!!! I enjoyed reading your post and thanks for the laugh!
Best,
Mell
Posted : June 15, 2006 2:14 pm
Jules, you've already given great comic relief this morning, at least to me! And you do sound very much like Norman Paperman - let us hope you don't succumb to the lure of conveniences like water and electricity and leave.
Word to the wise - send an email to AA (even if it DOES take 10 minutes to dial up) - be crabby about your flight being canceled, and be crabby about your folks being late if they were AA-ers.
1). It will make you feel much better. But they only give you 1500 characters to fuss with, so tell your story fast. I was only 1/3 through mine when space ran out.
2). They will give you a voucher or extra air miles or something to make you go away. (They sent me a voucher AND extra miles, but my kid can use it - EVERYTHING will freeze over before I get on one of their planes anytime in the near future).
Good luck to you from St. Croix!
Posted : June 15, 2006 2:14 pm
Yep, sounds like you arrived in the virgin islands alright! Enjoy our madness 😉
Posted : June 15, 2006 2:42 pm
Jules, welcome. I sent you a PM.
Posted : June 15, 2006 6:21 pm
Your arrival sounds pretty typical. Keep your sense of humor. It took about three months ror me to feel really settled in and things were going smoothly. I don't know if it was really going more smoothly or if I was adapting to island life.
Posted : June 15, 2006 6:48 pm
Although I live on the island of St. Croix, our blooper reels could be very similar indeed. Glad you made it, and things will settle down into a dull roar,then into sort of a peaceful glow.
Best wishes for you and yours,
Dan G.
Posted : June 16, 2006 5:46 pm
Although I did not get the "pun" I just arrived 10 days ago, but to St. Croix.
Thanks for the AA complaint info - I have only checked luggage twice in my life, and it was lost on my "big-move" of course everything else was in Cargo.
Except for the bugs that like to hang out with me, I guess they feel invited because of the giant holes in the screens all is ok. No power outages here, and the temperature is so great. The birds and frogs have replaced the sirens and car noises - I have never been a morning person, but I feel that I am in Jurassic Park! Its 8:15am and they are still going at it!
So thanks Daniel / Norman, no more new items for me - I even had the receipts, After faxing them: the text was to small, then to big, then to light. Finally Kinko's came to the rescure and my Living Room and two new ceiling fans were released from customs.
Posted : June 17, 2006 12:07 pm
Did you get the pun after a while? He's talking about Norman Paperman, the chief character in Don't Stop the Carnival, a book by Herman Wouk....a worthwhile read for anyone considering the islands. It takes place decades ago, but it's amazing how much of it is still true! By it and read it - then sit it back and read it again in a couple of months. It will make SO much more sense then!
Call the pest control man about the bugs and plug up as many places as you can....and yes, it's weird - our birds in Arkansas pretty much stopped singing at dusk, but these carry on all night! The geckos - well, you just get used to them wandering in and out whenever they please. Even my dogs don't pay attention to them anymore.
Welcome to St. Croix - you got here in spite of American Airlines, good for you! (Can anyone tell I have a REALLY BIG obsessive disorder right now about that company, LOL????)
Posted : June 17, 2006 2:12 pm
Becky R,
I'd give you a hug if I were not in Baltimore @ the moment. Best of luck, keep smiling and enjoy the islands.
Jamie
Posted : June 20, 2006 1:13 am
As long as you're not an employee of American, the hug would be accepted - but I don't take hugs from strangers, and that is one strange group...just a little update on this, they've done everything BUT hug me...I have been given free air miles. I have been given a voucher. I have received a phone call and a terribly tragic letter of apology from American. I swear I saw tearstains on it. Seems they really do want my business. I hate it for them that they will not see my face until one of my children (a.k.a. guinea pig) makes a run for me and can see if there is really any effort being made to correct things at all. I suspect there will be no improvement, except that the people in customer service who get paid to send out letters, vouchers, emails and phone calls will have job security. So I have contributed to the employment rate in America. For these small things we are grateful.
Word to the wise - avoid Chicago like the plague if you have to fly with them - that seems to be the major jam up.
Yes, I'm still in my obsessive state....surely the medication will kick in one day and The Voices will be quieted....HA!
Posted : June 20, 2006 11:33 am
Ahhhh, the voices will be quieted soon. You will survive and enjoy a gorgeous sunset in the very near future. Life in the islands. Have often thought of giving up this life for one down there. One day soon, hopefully. I do not work for American so I am safe there. Cheers...
Posted : June 20, 2006 12:01 pm
Topic starter
Update--
Things have been going pretty well in the past week. Except that this morning the dishwasher went up in an electrical puff of smoke and the phone has been out for a day or so...
My Cingular cell phone signal tends to disappear during the day so I do need a regular phone. As for the dishwaher, I can live without it if it's not replaced (I'm renting). But if the washer/dryer goes I'll have a fit.
I think I'm going to return the Choice wireless DSL modem. The signal is weak and sometime absent. In the last couple of days something's been wrong with sending/receiving email. Don't know if it times out due to the weak signal or if it's something else. Seems like it started right after I installed the latest batch of Windows Updates.
Looks like appliances which are digitally controlled are prone to fail. Also looks like EVERY outlet should be equipped with a surge protector and line voltage regulator (not sure if that's the correct name for the latter device). I wonder if a "whole-house" device can be installed to accomplish the same thing? I'm going to ask the agency to send an electrician out here. I'm not going to feel safe until things are checked out.
Still, life is good 🙂
Posted : June 20, 2006 12:45 pm
Jules -
I think there was a recent thread regarding that whole-house thing-y not too long ago...you might do a search, or maybe one of the regulars will remember what was said and when.
Glad to hear you are settling in - well, sort of....
Posted : June 20, 2006 5:51 pm
Choice is having a temporary problem with their primary equipment. They say they have technicians on it. This has been one of only a couple of short outages I've suffered with Choice in the past 14 months since I hooked up to their service. By and large they've had much better connectivity than other services I've tried. The receptionist answering their phone didn't know when the service would be back to full operation, but at least she did admit they're working on a fix and didn't just say that it was probably my equipment and leave me trying to trouble shoot it myself when the problems is on the other end.
Posted : June 20, 2006 6:21 pm
Hi Jules,
Glad to hear that things are getting better for you.
Electrical appliances going out in a puff of smoke certainly doesn't sound normal, even by STT standards of normality and even if the appliances are not surge protected.
I hope the rental agency sends someone out to check your electrical issues A.S.A.P. as I think your concerns about safety are quite valid.
Posted : June 20, 2006 9:52 pm
