This blog started with a move 3 years ago, and it continues today with another big move, from our beloved Fort Worth to Austin, where Alamofire is relocating.
We will miss you dearly, Cowtown. But we're really looking forward to the adventures ahead.
~The Modern Family
The company I work for has about 200 employees, operations in Fort Worth (3 offices), North Dakota, and Pennsylvania, and active projects in Japan, New Zealand and every energy play in the United States. I was one of three of our directors responsible for moving our main office (approx. 150 employees) to our new digs in downtown Fort Worth. Not much had to be moved. Just people, furniture, computers, files, server stuff, data lines, phone lines, phone systems, more people, more computers, all the executives and finally myself.
We're done now...I think...After two weeks of 8AM-11PM hours, and working on Saturday and Sunday, I sure hope we are done. It was an exhausting process that I do not wish to repeat soon. We did have professional help, but it was still a monumental undertaking. And I'm just coming out of exhaustion back into my normal life. My wife and my bubby are happy about this, as am I.
Sorry for the interruption. Thanks for sticking around. We will now return to our regularly scheduled broadcast.
Well, the move...is done...and boy are we tired. Our move morning started at 6:15AM that Saturday, sleeping out on the floor in the new place (just for fun), when my phone ringing woke us up. Apartment Movers wants to know if they can come early. How early? 'Now.'
...ugh...
So up we jump, race back to the old place to get the last couple things done before the guys get there. About this time is when we realize that I'm beginning to get sick. Jenni goes to Sonic for much needed sustainance (breakfast burrito and Dr. Pepper--what else?), and soon Javier and the other guy whose name we never learned show up, to move the heavy stuff. It didn't take them too long to get it all loaded up, and they offered to take a couple of other items that they hadn't planned on ('...and you can just give us a tip...'), which seemed like a good deal to me. So by around 9:00 or so we were in the car on the way downtown to our new place...
...which was right when the piano movers called to say they were almost to the house (the old place) to pick up the 1600 lb. piano. Nice--I don't hear from them in 10 days and then they 'call to confirm' right at the wrong time.
This is the view out our new bedroom window the day of our move.
Our movers were both great, very careful, quite patient with two of our three elevators busted and un-useable, and we would highly recommend Apartment Movers.
With the paid help gone, in came Brannon, Brad and Wayne to help us out with the rest.
See how hard they work:
...they were so focused and serious in their work, and man, they didn't waste time:
...Brannon doing heavy lifting:
After all that hard work, it was time to play some basketball...at Chipotle...with uh, garbage...
...yeah, they all missed. IT'S A GARBAGE CAN, GUYS, FROM 8 FEET!!! HOW CAN YOU MISS?!!
=^)
With everything unloaded, our bellies full, and our last bit of strength gone, time to check out the disaster zone:
There are many differences between suburban living and urban living. For instance, at our old house, when people left junk out on their driveway, well, that was because they were either flithy slobs (95% of our street) or they were having a garage sale (5%--us).
In the urban environment, however, leaving stuff on the side of the street is called a bomb scare. The Star Telegram reports that a forgotten/abandoned blue nylon bag cause quite a stir this morning. The picture below was just across the street from our new apartment. We got down to the ground, Noah in tow, ready for the walk to work, to see the street cordoned off, fire trucks and emergency personnel everywhere, and people scattering.
It was actually kind of funny to us.
...yes, we're still alive and kicking...kicking our way through boxes to make it out of the apartment and just to find some clean undies...don't worry, as soon as I can find the computer, I'll be posting pics and maybe even a video clip or two of our move. In the meantime, tons of thanks to Mom Mary Beth, Mom Mary, Dad, Matthew, Brannon, Brad, and Wesley, and sour grapes to our friend Wayne, who just really, really sucks at helping you move stuff.
=^)
...more soon to come!
...and other things you don't want the movers dropping...
At lunch yesterday, we picked up our keys, our garage remote and our corner apartment officially became ours. Right after work, we began the process of unloading fragile dishes and whatnot, and then we headed back to our old house (I love saying that!) to load up the Jetta again, as well as Mom and Dad's van and Matthew's Element.
Mucho, muchisimo thanks go out to Mom and Matthew (Dad was flying and is helping us today and Saturday) for their availability in the inordinant heat, and for their patience with the fact that we were down to only one elevator at the building, which made things take a decent amount longer.
We got to the new place about 9:00 and with very little traffic parked directly in front of the building (in the No Standing/Stopping Zone), and Mom and Noah headed up to the apartment while Matthew and Jenni and I began loading the carts and the dollies down on the street and then making elevator runs up to the 6th floor.
With only one elevator, we had them pretty full with our stuff and often were bumping into other residents, all of whom were very friendly and kept telling us how great it is there and how much we're going to love it. In fact, when we were first unloading our dishes (in the early afternoon), we met our next door neighbor Stefan (sp?), a real nice guy who probably has the shortest commute to work of anyone downtown at all: he works at the Star-Telegram, which is on the street level of our building (in the annex portion that was the RKO Hollywood Theatre), so pretty much, he rolls out of bed into the elevator and he's at work. You don't even have time to fumble for your iPod.
Anyhoo, a few hours later, and it was all unloaded. All these pictures are from the street because I was the one loading the carts and staying with the vehicles...and because Rob and Clint were apparently too busy to pick up their phones...=^)
So thanks, Mom and Matthew, for your sweaty help. And thank you, Sonic, for making another move possible.
...and a PS...32 new reasons why, even though we are so super-thrilled with our new downtown Fort Worth digs, we are resolute in our determination that this is just a temporary stop:
This is the day, ladies and gentlemen! We get our keys, get our garage remotes (yah, we got in the building downstairs garage!), and move the breakables and our sleeping bags to the elevator house...
...we are busting at the seems with excitement...
So the boxes are almost all packed, and we are getting really excited, and the Bubby is getting somewhat exasperated that there is no place in the house to play. But he is very good natured (thank you, Lord!) and is doing quite well with it all...We sold his baby furniture recently to a good friend who is having a new one, and prepped him by telling him he was about to get a new, special, Big-Boy bed. We forgot to mention that he wouldn't be getting the new special bed for a few days. So when we pulled out the air mattress to inflate it for his last couple nights of sleep at the little house, he jumped up and down and screamed for joy:
"MY NEW SPEH-SULL BED!!! MY NEW SPEH-SULL BED!!! "
...we have the greatest kid of all time...
Here he is on his new (in-between) speh-sull bed:
Oh, and the rest of our house looks great. For instance:
The Piano Room
The Room with the Couch
The Video Game Room
(yeah, that look on Noah's face is, 'Where are the DEE-oh games?!')
...so we've officially begun the 'Firsts of the Lasts,' meaning (Lord willing) "the last time we will ____________ [fill-in-the-blank]." Like, the last time we will spend a Thursday night at our little house. The last time Jenni will do laundry at the house on Ruidosa. Stuff like that.
This morning included the last time I will do a donut carpool. See, on Fridays lately, I have been carpooling into work with our office manager who lives about a block away from our little house, and she stops to get the office 'donuts' and bagels on Fridays. (I put quotes around the word 'donuts' because I have a hard time calling what Tom Thumb scrapes out of their deli 'donuts,' and remember, this is me we're talking about, the one with no scruples at all when it comes to donuts.) So today was the last one of those trips, the last time I get to personally pick out my own fried breakfast food...
...and wouldn't you know it, on this, the last time, they finally had something I wanted, a vanilla cream filled eclair:
...dang it...
Alleys:
...look like this
...and then it's just walking, baby! In the morning, even with as hot as it's been lately, the walk in is almost pleasant. There's a life to the street, a bustle, a flow that is envigorating. Have we mentioned that we are utterly urban? We get our keys in 9 days, and we are so excited. Our house is almost completely packed, and we are ready to leave. So is the Bubby!
Elevator house, here we come!
More photos of the new place! Okay they're actually old photos of the new place, but we have been getting a lot of comments and questions about the history of the building, and thought a couple more pics would be fun.
You can see the lower sign for Texas Electric Service Co. in this picture. Our unit is visible in this shot from 1955, being on the left corner, six stories up, just above the strip of stone work, on the corner. Also, if you compare this picture with the 1930 picture in the previous post, you'll notice that originally, the Hollywood was one of the famed RKO theaters, but that by 1955, the "RKO" had been removed from the signage:
If you zoom in a bit, you can read the marquee from the Hollywood Theater. What picture was showing on that date in 1955?
Love Me or Leave Me, starring James Cagne and Doris Day.
...leaving the era of the silver screen, back to today...
Okay, this is the view from the end of the hallway on the 16th floor. I work in the right-most tower, Just 4 blocks north.
It not only is an exciting part of our immediate future, the building is also an integral part of Fort Worth's storied past. Its name is "The Historic Electric Building," having been added to the national registry of historic buildings in 1995. One part of the building (the 18-story section) was the Texas Electric Service Co., and the side section of the building (the 6-story part) was the art deco Hollywood Theater of the 1930's. You can see the signs for both in the photo below:
...a few things we're looking forward to about being downtown:
So goodbye, dear suburbia. Don't let the door smack your butt on the way out. You will not be missed.