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22 OCT 2008 - Move Day: -2
So, here I am in a local Hampton Suites. My apartment? All boxed up. Tomorrow, the movers come to pick everything up. Friday morning, I hit the road. I am beyond exhausted right now, so don't expect a really pretty web page...though, who are we kidding? I write my pages to be easy-to-maintain and load quickly on any browser. I'm never going to write a 'pretty' or 'fancy" page. So we can all just get over that now, m'kay? :)

Everything is pretty much on-track, and certainly in a state that not much will change it.

23 OCT 2008 - Move Day: -1
Last night here in Atlanta. All-systems are go for launch! Movers loaded up the truck this morning. I am officially homeless *and* unemployed. Pretty awesome, huh? :)
Managed to snag a couple of pics from my cell-phone, which I will post HERE (there's only a couple of them, but they're a little large if you're on dial-up).
Communicated with the relocation specialist that's helping me find a new apartment. She found a load of pretty awesome looking options. I'm feeling pretty optimistic on that front.
After answering the same questions a few too many times, I've gone ahead and thrown together a little FAQ. I probably should have done this several weeks ago. Oh well. Lessons learned, and all that.

24 OCT 2008 - Move Day: 1
First day of real driving? DONE! Went from Atlanta, to Birmingham, up to Memphis where I'm staying the night. Actually, I'm just outside of Memphis - I found a Holiday Inn Express right next door to a good looking BBQ place, a match made in heaven.
Actually, the BBQ was only "eh", and the hotel, while not bad, has a pretty poor excuse for an Internet service. But still, it's a good combo.
The drive today was pretty uneventful. The biggest challenges were some rain in the morning, and then soul-crushing boredom in the afternoon. The terrain was attractive enough, but booooring. I didn't bother to take any pics, since after the first few minutes it all just looked like the same thing over and over again. I *will* try and get some more pics, but only if the shot seems worth while. I very, very rarely find it worth stopping just for a possible photo, and that leaves the times I would have already stopped (and how many of you are really interested in pics of mid-range motels and gas stations?)
Next stop: Oklahoma City!

25 OCT 2008 - Move Day: 2
Day two complete. About 700-odd miles into the run, or about a quarter of the way there (left the notepad with my milage log in the car - and i'm just too tired to go get it and be precise; sorry). Didn't really snap any pics worth sharing, but i'll try to do better about that tomorrow.
Tonight I'm back in a Hampton Inn. As part of the Hilton empire, I like to thing that staying here helps contribute to Paris's next pair of "hot" shoes. Plus, the HOliday Inn Express I was in last night was a little sub-standard. Hampton's are a couple of dollars more expensive, but have thus-far been more than worth it.
Dinner tonight was at a local Italian place. Not bad. I was in the mood for Italian, so this worked out nicely. The other food experiences today were uneventful.
Tonight I'm in Oklahoma City, OK. Tomorrow's destination in Alburquerque, NM. It'll be about 550 miles over 8 hours. Pretty much as far as I like to push in any given day. Well, except for the last day - I don't mind a long day then, since I know I don't need to do anything the next day.
States visited so far: Georgia (duh), Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas and now Okalahoma. Six down. Six more to go. Estimated 2,300 miles to go. Woof.
Semi-secret confession? I've both really enjoyed and really hated having access to cable TV again. (for those out of the loop: I ditched my pay-TV services about a year or so ago) I have to admit, I've missed having some stations back like Cartoon Network, Sci-fi, HBO, etc. Of course, there's also been some good reminders of why I ditched the $1000/year monkey-off-my-back - Fox News, Home Shopping Network, all those crappy stations that show mostly ads with an occasional snippet of entertainment. Services like hulu.com are much more to my liking. I might have look into some kind of entertainment PC in my new digs so I can watch online stuff on the big screen (because, yeah, what he needed was another computer...).

26 OCT 2008 - Move Day: 3
Day three down. Officially bored with driving - Texas and Oklahoma will do that do a person. Flat, nothing but the curve-of-the-earth on the horizon. Roads so straight you could build protractors to their specifications. No new pics' today. All of the best shots were, again, in areas that I couldn't stop and the areas that I could (or would) stop had crappy photo-ops. Still, I remembered to snag the cable so i could pull the couple of pics from yesterday and post them. (Day 2 Pics)
Sleeping in Albuquerque today, staying in another Hampton Inn tonight. This one's pretty weak, it doesn't even have a mini-fridge in the room. But on the plusside, the guy-at-the-desk was pretty cool and hooked me up with a link to a local pizza place that wasn't too bad. Bed's kind weak, but the wifi has been very solid so far.
The drives from here on out will get longer and longer i think. Tomorrow was supposed to get me into Bakersfield, CA, but depending on the source you use, that could be a nearly 12 hour run. So...we'll see. Trying to make it to Seattle by Wednesday night, but might end up pushing that out an extra day. There's no good reason to over extend myself, but we'll see. I keep rerunning the numbers and...still don't have a good conclusion. Meh.
One thing i was pleased to see on my approach into New Mexico was the appearance of mountainous terrain. OK and TX are both so insanely flat and the mountains here are so beautiful to begin with that they are a breath of fresh air. The car may occassionally complain when pusing 75mph up hill with a full load...but eh, it'll learn to deal with it's issues. :)

27 OCT 2008 - Move Day: 4
This was a big day - made a hard push and made it all the way from Albuquerque, NM to Barstow, CA - 700 miles almost exactly. This brings the total distance traveled to 2,156 miles. The tricky part is now how to divide up the remaining distance, it'll be another two very long days, or three fairly short days. Today I had the benefit of crossing two time zones, I won't have that boost going forward
Barstow is, frankly, pretty lame. The "Quality Inn"...well...I'm thinking they must be using that name ironically. Though perhaps I'm being too harsh. The Internet is fast, free and stable. There's a reasonable mexican place attached to the motel.
One thing I'm looking forward to is being out of the damn desert. There's still some semi-arid sections to pass through, but most of it is farm land, and then you're in the hills/mountains of northern california.
Hard to believe, but by this time next week, I'll be reflecting on my first day of work with my new employer.
Re-did the photo's page, consolidating the two pre-existing pages. You can click on any of the images to get the full-sized version. Also managed to make up for the first couple of days by getting a lot of shots today. Not surprisingly, most are desert shots. Deal with it.
Otherwise a pretty short entry tonight. Just going to post up the photo-changes/updates, hit some email and call it an early night. The clock reads 9:30p, but a fair bit of me still thinks it should be 12:30a.
Next stop...who knows??

28 OCT 2008 - Move Day: 5
Since yesterday's long-haul was such a blast, I thought I'd try and top that today. Leveraging a bit of the jet-lag from yesterday (I crossed two time zones yesterday), I was out on the road an hour earlier than normal. I didn't stop until about 14 hours later. In one day, I tacked on about 850 miles to my total.
I've parked myself in the ol' Windmill Inn in Roseburg, OR. The Windmill and I go way back. When I first made this move back in '99, this was where I spent my first night. When I came back through in '00, this was my last night's stay. And thus the tradition continues. There's also a restaurant right next door that makes a killer BLT. They were already closed by the time I got in, but I'm hoping for a "breakfast BLT" in the morning.
Not much else to report today. No new pics or anything either. It was just an intense day of "power driving". Tomorrow afternoon, I'll pull into Seattle and this story will come to a close. Note: traditionally, i never quite get around to posting a 'final' entry to these blogs. While I'll try and post the conclusion tomorrow, don't take it personally if i don't. :)

29 OCT 2008 - Move Day: 6 (last day)
So... there ya' go. I made it to Seattle this afternoon after a (comparitively) short drive. Not much to describe about the drive today. The most exciting part was around Olympia when I started to be able to tune-in the local Seattle stations that I had been missing. As a kid it was always the boundaries of my 'home' where the local stations faded in/out.
I have a few comments/thoughts about technology for travelers, but I'll probably have to do that later - it's late and I'm still mulling over some thoughts/conclusions.
Lessee...what else to say? Hmm... glad to be off the road. Still have some "bouncing" around before I can REALLY settle. Living out of a suitcase for over a week now - the 'excitement factor' has long since worn off.
Did i miss anything? Hmmm...