The Trick to Moving

is to realize that you are not just a person. You are a hundred different people in a thousand different databases, and moving all of them at the same time is next to impossible. This is before even bothering with actual cargo. Despite doing everything I can conceive of doing ahead of time, it's still gonna be a major headache.

For instance, I'm required to get a Colorado driver's license immediately upon becoming a resident. I'm pretty sure I need to present a valid DL on my first day at ITT as well. The only problem is, when I get a Colorado license, they will force me to surrender my Alabama one and issue me a fake-looking temporary ID, which will in turn delay everything from a new bank account to a security check to a car tag & smog check to a rent-ability check.

Then there's the medical stuff. Just to continue allergy shots, even with a note from my current allergist, I have to see another doctor out there. Apparently allergists from rival states don't trust one another, or maybe it's just a scam to get more business. Anyway, even though the allergins and Tabasco sauce or whatever they put in the needles will come from my allergist back home, I have to make an appointment to see the new overlord of the dominatrices who call themselves allergy technicians (or maybe I call them that, whatever).

I decided to go with FedEx, since they told me I could just ship my stuff to a FedEx/Kinko's in Co Springs and pick it up there. Then they told me I could only do that if I were sending the package "express," which, incidentally, isn't what the Ex stands for in the first place. I wanted to ship ground, and they said that they can't hold boxes when they ship them on the ground, because they'd have no way to keep track of it. It turns out that, while they can track millions of packages all over the world that are moving at varying speeds via land, sea, and air, if a box stops for some reason, it ceases to exist. Sorta like how photons can have a momentum but no mass. (How many people do you know who can't move an apartment's worth of stuff without using quantum mechanics?) Anyway, I shipped the first batch of boxes to my employer (I love having one of those), whose warehouse will have fun trying to decide what to do with them, since I probably don't exist over there yet.

Now my navigator has gone AWOL on me, so I'm gonna have to use mapquest, yahoo! maps(!), and google maps, and figure the best consensus of the three of them. I figure whatever I lack in direction I can make up in speed; if I drive fast enough at random for a long enough time, I'm sure to hit colorado eventually. They say it's a mile high up there, so all I should have to do is keep driving uphill.

Oh, and my car got new shoes. Apparently when I did my budgeting for the machine I didn't reckon on its preference for V-rated (the V is for expensiVe) tires. They're apparently the Air Jordans of roadware, if Mike played basketball in the mud, rain, and/or snow. This comparison got me to thinking why Nike hasn't come out with a line of tires yet, but I think I'll let somebody else make a million dollars off that idea, since branding isn't really my style. (BTW, I want to start a Hooters spin-off company selling coffee and magazines. I think I'll call it Moe Juggs).

It turns out Colorado is a whole state to the west of where I thought it was; it looks like Kansas swapped places with it or something since I checked the map last.

I'm sorry for not updating during my downtime, but my uplink is down in the dumps. I'm not sure if packets travel faster in the thinner air in the mountains, but we'll see. If anything, the letters should go faster when I'm uploading them downhill.

I thought I'd be on the road by now, but my mother said something about "deep cleaning" after I left, which means I've got to batton down some more hatches if I want any of my stuff to be where I left it. The more irreplacible something is, the more likely she is to throw it away. Plus I still need to back up all my files in case of, I don't know, something bad happening, even though the computer will be riding with me.