everwas

a blog by Ian Kennedy

Category: Home

  • Temporary Space

    We left Pennington, our home of four years, in the early morning fog to catch our flight to California. The limo driver said that he’s been taking a lot of people out to the airport for their moves out of New Jersey. This echoed what our mover said in that they’ve been extremely busy because Sony just shut down their New Jersey campus and have moved a lot of people out West. It seem like those involved in the relocation business have a good sense of the economy and from talking with them, it seems like things are picking up. The tide rises and the boats start to drift around.

    We’re now in a furnished apartment in Alameda, where we eventually want to live. More house-hunting this weekend but at least we’ve got a rental contract that we can take to the School District office so we can get Tyler enrolled in the local Kindergarten.

    I’ll try and get the digital camera hooked up so I can post some pictures from our various goodbye parties. Lots of tears and I think it really hit Tyler pretty hard in ways that we will not fully appreciate until we see how things go at his new school. It’s always sad to leave friends behind.

  • 350 boxes on the wall. . .

    Just got through packing up 350 boxes of stuff that’s all going on a trailer truck tomorrow. When we moved here four years ago we had 150 boxes on half a container, my how we’ve grown.

  • Breather

    We took some time off from the house hunt today to spend some time enjoying the beautiful weather with the kids who were fraying at the edges after three solid days in which we must have previewed over 20 homes around the Bay Area.

    We first headed over to Alameda to check out the 20th Annual Park Street Art & Wine Faire. We then caught a ferry over to the Ferry Building in San Francisco to peruse the shops and the weekend farmer’s market. We then hopped on the F line, with it’s historic trolley cars, up to Pier 39 to see the fishies in the Aquarium of the Bay which I highly recommend for it’s two 300 foot glass-walled tunnels which give you a unique view of the fish. We wrapped up the day with a meal at the No. 9 Fishermen’s Grotto, one of those totally tacky 1950’s era SF attractions that is actually quite good.

    Tomorrow is open house day so we’re back in the saddle for another day of looking at how other people live.

  • Touchdown

    We took JetBlue from JFK to Oakland for a change of pace. And what a pleasant surprise! The people were nice for a change and seemed truly happy to have us aboard. Our fellow passengers also seemed generally jovial and it’s can-do cheekiness reminded me of the early days of Virgin Air. Our arrival in Oakland was painless and Izumi was amazed to see that people actually seemed civil and polite, holding open a door here, thanking us for something there, and waving and smiling even when the situation didn’t call for such niceties.

    We stopped in at the Six Apart offices so I could pick up my laptop and other Six Apart-branded goodies (notepad for written notes, USB key for electronic, kit bag to hold it all) and my sister was there to moblog it all.

    Tomorrow we visit the first of our scheduled realtors and start looking for a place to live in earnest.

  • Geranimo!

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    Tyler’s got the right idea – this is the way to enjoy Summer. We’re off on Tuesday for a house-hunting trip in the Bay Area and after all the fun this weekend, we have changed our plans to to a hotel that includes a pool.

  • Expensive Tastes

    Julia, who often sleeps between us, woke up this morning and let us know her breakfast wishes.

    “I’m hungry. I want sushi.”

    Yikes.

  • Tokyo & New York Photos

    I finally got around to posting pictures from my trip to Japan and while I was at it, a weekend trip to New York City where Tyler asked another good question.

  • For Sale

    On Wednesday, the real estate agent’s “For Sale” sign went up on our home. I knew this would be traumatic for us all but I had no idea how much. Of course we had prepped the neighbors but seeing the sign out there, with it’s brash “Buy Me” red letters really drove a stake through the neighborhood. Izumi called me at the office to tell me the sign was going in and she sounded so sad, “It’s happening. . .all the neighbors have come out to look.”

    Tyler took it the hardest. We have been talking to him about this move, why it was necessary and why he would have a great time in San Francisco (“They have sea lions there! Right in the harbor!”). Yet this home is all he really knows. The friends he’s made on this blocks are his only friends. San Francisco is too far away for them to come play. “Do they speak English there?” he asked.

    When the sign went in, he ran outside and tried to tear the sign out of the ground so no one would buy this house and take it away from us. I know he’ll be fine. Heck, I barely remember where I was living when I was five. But hearing this ripped a hole in my heart.

  • Back “home”

    We made it back to rainy New Jersey late yesterday. Before unpacking, we let some of our neighbors know that we’re planning on pulling up stakes to move to San Francisco. It really starts to hit home when you tell families that you’ve been sharing your lives with that you’re going to be pulling away.

    After unpacking and eating take away Chinese, we finally hit the sack around 11 pm. Jet lag set in on the kids with first Julia, then Tyler making their way to our bedroom for some company. After several attempts of telling them to try and get some sleep, at 4 am Izumi turned over to see both Tyler & Julia, quiet as can be, side-by-side between us in bed, staring straight up at the ceiling, eyes wide open. We finally gave up at 5 am and got up to fix some breakfast.

    Julia just came by and said to me, “How’ya doin’” in a perfect New Jersey twang, I think it’s time for us to move on.