It’s Been a Stressful Time
- Moved, In a Hurry
- Got Laid Off
- Web Server Died
January
The landlord tells us he’s raising the rent. The amount is significant.
Real talk. We could have fought it and won, but it also would have meant literally having to fight every year. That isn’t worth it.
We started looking in a hurry.
February
We found an apartment. It’s cheaper by $500 per month BEFORE the rent hike the landlord is asking for. It is about the same size, same number of rooms. Overall the fixtures are nicer, the floors are in better shape. The kitchen counters are quartz surface and not plastic.
It’s just an hour further from New York City, but I’ve been working from home since CoViD, and Jen doesn’t work in the city, but North-East of it.
So, we felt satisfied with Bridgeport, Connecticut. Walking distance to a Metro-North MTA train station.
We signed a lease. My wife and I are no longer New York City residents, or, well, we are, but at this point, we have two months to get out of our Bronx apartment, and neither of us are as young as we were the last time we moved.
We had Internet on by the middle of February. We sometimes sleep on air beds in Connecticut. I work from there some days. Others, I’m in the Bronx packing when I can.
We brought stuff to Bridgeport in the back of the Mini a few times a week.
March
Beginning of March, we continued the pattern of February, though our urgency is mounting.
Then, on the 16th, I got laid off. I was not expecting this to happen, well not this quickly. I’d assumed that the company would have given more time (in months) for product customers to move. I’d been working on software to help customer transition onto other platforms. All of that is left for two managers to deal with whatever that fallout is.
I’m in the Bronx, full time, just trying to get the move done. So much packing to do. So much things to box. We hired movers for the boxes and furniture, but FULL SERVICE movers, especially when I was laid off, was not going to happen.
The last week of March, I turned off my rack-mount server that had been hosting my web sites since 2017. All of my web sites go down.
We did the final move out, the day before the end of the month. We then hired a U-Haul and some junkers to take care of the contents of the garage. We handed over the keys about 6PM on the 31st, and drove the U-Haul to Bridgeport.
I want to pretend that both of us didn’t hurt ourselves during the packing and the move, but we did.
April
The movers had put things in fast. There wasn’t time to properly direct everything, especially as a room that was supposed to get many of the bookshelves was already full of boxes from our self-moving of stuff.
I finally get around to trying to hook up my rack-mount server, and it won’t boot. It seems like it is not harmed, so it is possible the boot media is simply dead.
At some point last year, I had bought a VERY small computer with 64GB RAM, which I’d been meaning to move my web servers to. So, that’s what I’ve been working on between unpacking boxes, applying for jobs, and waiting for my severance money to come in.
Now, it’s the end of April. This blog site is still not fully functional, though my other sites are working.
I’m not even sure when this blog entry will get posted.