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T Minus 28 and counting (or so)

08.31.03 (7:36 am) [edit]

With my tickets in hand (well, it's an e-ticket), I have a definate date for the move. There is a chance I will not be ready by then, but I am pretty good doing things at the last minute :) However, with that 28 day clock ticking, things now begin to move into high gear.

A few days ago I went through the old computer room and set up two boxes. The first is "things to go" and includes anything I am likely to want to take with me. The other box is "things to throw" and, will, will get tossed. Over the years I have created many "blue sky" projects to finish. Perhaps it is a power surge protector which needs something replaced. Perhaps it is a CD reader needing testing or is an old slow unit. I need to decide what to do with it.

Years ago I helped at a public TV fundraiser and received a pack of old movie posters. Many are old and folded and have tape marks on them. I had always wanted to create a den with my big screen TV and movie projector, dimmable lights, nice sound system, a popcorn machine and as you entered the room, movie posters along the walls. Bzzzzzzzzzzz. Not gonna happen!

I checked online and these posters don't seem to bring in much money on ebay. At a convention yesterday I saw a guy selling (or more correctly, ATTEMPTING TO SELL) posters for a lot more money. He had them mounted on foamcore. If he will give me a reasonable price, he gets them. It is unfortunate that I don't have more time, but I need to dispose of them and not worry about the profit/loss. As I found out recently, I am penny wise and pound foolish. Still, after all these years it is hard to change.

I have sci-fi books in very good condition and could spend days looking for the best way to unload... errr find new owners for them. Ain't gonna happen... tick tock, tick tock.

I decided to attend a sci-fi convention this weekend and am having fun. I met George Takei (Sulu from the original Star Trek). I had him autograph a copy of his autobiography. I had to remove the paper jacket cover so he would not see that it was on sale ($3.95)! From the jacket description and his description, it will be a good read. Part of the book describes the attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent rounding up of all Japanese related people in the US for "detention".

Because of the Hawaii tie in, during our photo op, I tried to teach George the Hawaiian "shaka" sign, a hand sign used to say "take it easy". As you can see from the photo here, George appears to need more work. He appears to be off in another world at another time... http://www.itskona.com/dcp018... As I mentioned, you can see I removed the jacket from the book. Now you know the REST of the story!

I was hoping to get autographs from a number of other stars at the convention/conference, but a few actors got jobs and decided not to come. I understand, but it would have been nice to see them. Some noteables who did manage to attend, Gil Gerard, Billy Mumy, Angela Cartright and Noah Hathaway. Although Angela did Lost in Space, some audience questions also covered her years on "Make Room For Daddy" with Danny Thomas. This group was discussing growing up as children in the movies and TV. One actor missing was Chris Demetral who did sci fi and played Martin Tuppers son on "Dream On".

All in all, the convention was great, and certainly the largest I have been to. This one spanned more than 2 hotels and covered science fiction, fantasy, anime, writing, filmmaking, filking (don't ask), costumes, role playing and collecting. A complete website about this type of convention is at http://dragoncon.com. Another convention I have attended in the past is at http://www.sfedora.com but have recently scaled back a bit.

because I am short on time tody, I can't post the rest of the photos I took. However, imagine walking through the Hyatt or Marriott and seeing a constant stream of people moving along like ants on the trail of food. Some are dressed in normal street wear (some like me sporting a Hawaiian shirt and tan slacks). Some hoever, have dresseed up in their "personna" of an alien, space cadet or who knows what. A teen and his girlfriend sit on the edge of a planter, discussing which talk they will be attending next. They are well groomed and look like anyone else outside the hotel, except for the Star Trek cadet uniforms they are wearing. true, here at the convention they are just part of the background, but would turn heads outside the hotel.

A "wookie" passes by. People with more jewlery than Mr. T mill past, their faces multicolored and wearing strange robes. Speaking of robes, a teen walks past me looking a lot like Luke Skywalker, except he has a sword instead of a light sabre. I don't ask, I'm just part of the passing crowd.

There are discussion about Stargate and where it is headed. Another discussion is whether they will bring back Farscape (another show dropped by the studios). There appears to be a complete 1 hour discussion about the alternative lifestyle appearing in sci fi.

The vendor/dealer areas are packed with people and goods. There are attendees sitting at tables where they roleplay. There are comics and books, swords and potions, wigs and costumes, knives and battle axes and the ever present toys and collectables.

In yet another area of the hotel are the actors, (we understand without much airconditioning) signing photos for people. Every convention offers this opportunity, and each varies in how it works. In this one, you pay a smaller fee to get in, then pay more for each autograph. I would have loved to have walked down the lines and grabbed autographs from Walter Koenig, Lou Ferrigno, Gil Gerard and Christopher Judge, but the cost was like $40 a photo! That is out of my price range at the moment. I have many of the other actors photos for the cost of a $5 or $10 photo. It just depends upon the format of the convention and the entrance fees. It's a lot like "pay me now or pay me later". :)

Anyway, onther day or two and I will be done with the conference and will be heading down the stretch towards the airport. I'll be leaving the days of meeting celebrities behind and focusing on coffee and mac nuts. Hey wait a second, perhaps I can take the video camera with me to the conference and get Christopher Judge to say "What brings me back home from a mission through the Stargate? The thought of a hot cup of Kona Coffee from LavaRock Farms...." It COULD happen...!!!

Well, time to close out this blog because I have to head back downtown for the last day or so of the conference... all this with the clock silently ticking in the background. Tick tock, tick tock.

T Minus 28 and counting (or so)

08.31.03 (7:36 am) [edit]

My Fate is Sealed!

08.22.03 (10:21 pm) [edit]

:D Minutes ago I booked my one-way ticket from Atlanta to Hawaii. That means that on September 28th, I will have to be ready to move.

The house will have to be on the market, I will have figured out what to do with the few antiques I have and contracted for someone to sell my furniture after I have a contract on the house.

This has been a long time coming and is not quite time yet. However, I booked a first class seat (on sale of course) and will get a TON of frequent flier miles for the trip.

Soon I will be posting a link to pictures about my new town (and a small town it is). I go from 6 lane interstates to small winding roads. I go from people honking and beeping, to people waving at you to cut in front of them in traffic!

I'll be in town in time for the world famous Ironman Competition (not that I am going to be in it).

The pace should pick up right until I move, then slack way off as I get settled out there. Then I can start the project where I plant 2,000 caffee plants.

WHAT THE HELL DID I GET MYSELF INTO? :-)

Last Supper

08.14.03 (4:18 am) [edit]

Last night I decided to treat myself to a steak. For most, that is not a momentous occasion, but for me, last night, is was to be.

I have taken most of the pots, pans, dishes, glasses and silverwear out of the cupboards and gotten them ready for sale. I have also been eating Chinese food so much lately that they are giving me that look. You kow the look, like when you order something and walk away from the counter, then come back 5 minutes later for something you forgot? THAT LOOK, except that it is two days later and they are thinking I'm nuts!

On my way out to dinner I stopped by the neighbors to drop a book called "So You Want To Move To Hawaii". They had mentioned the possibility and I had the book. I hadn't expected to stop for long, but they invited me in for a minute and it turned out that we talked for at least half an hour. As I finally got in the car, I saw it was just after 9pm and wondered the whole time heading towards Ryan's, if they would be open.

The sign says they close at 9:30 so I slipped in and ordered a steak and the salad bar. I figured I could get a couple trips to the salad bar in and not have to eat for a few days :D

There were few of us there and I sat next to a family and close to the food. The husband was wearing a jacket and emblazoned on the back was the name of my old company. It tuns out I used to work with him and his wife and that he has recently heard that his job *may* be going away. The company has been drastically downsizing and changing their business focus.

I mentioned my upcoming move and talked more than they wanted to hear about the islands. I get so carried away and can't stop. All the caffeine I had didn't help either :D

So much for my dinner. I talked so much I just barely finished my steak and my one trip to the salad bar.

I have to admit, by the prices I have seen, land can be inexpensive on the Big Island. I have seen 1 acre lots with a view of the Pacific for $1,000 to $2,000. There ARE some drawbacks to some of the lots, but there can be some bargains out there. There are also some house deals and deals on farms.

For someone who has to (or wants to) start over, and for someone tired of the rat race in a large city, paradise *might* be an option. Two miles from me are dolphin. I have farms all around me. There is a definate lack of hustle and bustle. One person I know who just moved there from Boston is talking about how she has to get used to people stopping in the middle of the road to change drivers or "talk story" with someone walking by. People wave you into traffic in front of them and rarely, very rarely, do you ever hear a car horn. People in Hawaii don't use that blaring noise when an "Aloha" or "Howzit brudda" will do. The "shaka" is seen often. Shaka is when you make a fist and hold your thumb and pinky extended and move your hand horizontally. It means "take it easy" or "everyting all right brudda".

My mission is not necessarily to get everyone I meet to move to Hawaii, but at least let them know that many of the things they have been told are not correct. You CAN buy land in Hawaii, although part of the United States it is also a world apart, and you do NOT have to pay alot to visit or live there. People go on a vacation, pay too much and eat out every night at a restaurant. Of course eating out can be expensive, but most locals don't go to the best steak house in town every night. Most locals don't pay to get on a boat and see dolphins, they go out on their neighbors boat. Most locals don't go shopping at the little trendy stores along the waterfront, they buy their swimsuits at Wal-Mart or COSTCO.

See? Life IS different in Hawaii :D

Are you confused yet?

08.13.03 (9:16 am) [edit]

Over the weekend I decided to look into cheap long distance out in Hawaii. Many people use cell phones and that is always a possibility for me. On an island as large as Hawaii itself (90 miles by 90 miles) it is easy to be an hours drive from other people you are meeting, etc.

However, I also wanted to solve my business and toll free problems. My toll free business number is something like 6 cents a minute between the 48 mainland states and jumps up to 15 cents a minute inbound to Hawaii. Hawaii TO Hawaii is even higher!

Here on the mainland I use BigZoo (bigzoo.com) for my long distance. They charge 75 cents a month and either 2.9 cents or 3.9 cents a minute depending whether you have a BigZoo number in your city or have to call their 800# instead. This is cheaper than the 10-10-987 they advertise on TV. However, 10-10 numbers you use on a call by call basis. I signed up with bigZoo and funded my account with $5 the first time to see how well it workd and used it ever since. I have been very happy with Big Zoo, but they charge too much to call Hawaii and they don't work FROM Hawaii (as many systems don't) because of the call costs from islands to the mainland.

After a lot of research, I stumbled on a company called Packet8.Net. They offer a terminal adapter that you connect to your computer line (high speed preferred) and will let you make unlimited calls for $20 a month. They offer international rates, but at this point, I don't call internationally, so I can't tell if they are cheaper there than other services. I also get unlimited inbound calls. I had a choice of many cities to "host" my inbound telephone number. Although I know lots of people here in Atlanta, I chose a daytona beach Florida number so that my family can call me in Hawaii as a local Daytona call and they pay nothing. Otherwise, they would have had to still pay a long distance call from Daytona Beach to Atlanta, if I had chosen the number here.

I know, it gets a bit complex :D and now on the the toll free number. Rather than pay 15 cents a minute to send those calls to Hawai directly, I only have to spend 6 cents a minute and send them to (drum roll) Daytona Beach! I'll let Packet8 ship them to me in Hawaii for, oh I don't know, let me think... the $20 a month that I am already paying!!!

So to review, if I have a local number in Hawaii, they can call me on that directly. That phone might just be a cell phone but will be seperate from everything else.

If they call my toll free number (hosted in Canada somewhere). It will be forwarded to a number in Daytona Beach Florida.

The telephone number in Florida, is just that. A number with no phone, that accepts calls, digitizes the voice, ships it to Hawaii via the internet, gets sent through verizon and/or a cable TV company (if I have a cable modem) to a box sitting next to my computer. That box has a phone plugged into it and it rings. If that phone is a cordless phone, the phone on my belt, out on the tractor will ring. technology at it's finest! Of course, if I'm out swimming with the dolphin, some voice mail system in Canada takes the message!

Now I am just waiting for the terminal unit (phone unit) to arrive so I can test it here in Atlanta. If it doesn't work well here, it will work even less in Hawaii. However, I hear good things about the company.

My main reasons for choosing this over some type of MCI neighborhood deal is that my family can call me free and I save on every toll free call I receive. My toll free number is only $2 a month and as I said above, 6 cents a minute around the mainland.

Of course, since this system REQUIRES an "always on" connection for my phone, that also means that I HAVE to have an internet connection for my house AND that connection is a business expense...

Well, enough technical talk. My friends are in Tunica, Mississippi this weekend without me, gambling. I opted not to take this side trip so I could continue with my house and packing. Having been to bed early last night, I woke up at 4am and decided to start going throught the kitchen. I am pulling everything that is not nailed down, into another spot for the next yard sale. It may be the "Mother" of all yard sales because I am running out of time. I will be selling most of the pots, pans, place, glasses, the can opener, mixed, and so on. I can make a trip to COSTCO and pick up plastic stuff to use in the meantime.

I also need to get rid of most on the incidental furniture and things. The house needs to look uncluttered when it is for sale. many people make the mistake of leaving every personal item and stitch of clothing and book in the house and try to sell it. A prospective buyer looks at the sellers photos and furnishing and has a difficult time seeing what it would look like if it was their house. Instead, I think that if you remove most things, they look at the blank spot on the wall and start thinking "I have a painting that would fill this spot nicely".

You do not sell everything in the place and show a home completely empty. That seems to tell the seller that you have moved, all maintenence has stopped on the house and that you probably HAVE to sell this house quickly to avoid paing for two places. You may also be desparate to sell and they may offer you a lot less for the house. I think you want the house to look as though you COULD move if you got the right price, don't need too long to move things out, the house is uncluttered and you are keeping it up.

Of course, it also helps NOT to be actually living in the house at the time :-) Nothing worse than having to run out of the shower, clean it, get dressed and disappear when you get a last minute call that a realator has a "hot prospect" that would like to see the house...

I believe that I will end up getting the house ready to show in a couple weeks, put it on the market and move to Hawaii. All the personal items will be shipped and what is left in the house can be sold in an "Estate Sale" and they can just send me a check. It is easier for me to find a place to stay in Hawaii until closing out there, than try to keep this place clean while waiting on an offer.

A grueling few weeks

08.09.03 (8:51 pm) [edit]

:shock: well, the gutters are up and the house is in pretty good shape outside. Inside is another story. No matter how much I try, I always seem to be a month away from being able to list the house.

My 1st weekend of yard sales brought in about $6.50 which didn't even cover the signs. Later, when I decided to put a "Yard Sale" ad in the Atlanta Paper, I found out their price and changed my mind. 7 lines for 4 days costs $70! Yikes!

My third sale was just completed today and I made $100 or so. Certainly not as much as I hoped, but there were few expensive items and no furniture I was selling, just "stuff".

Now I have to just set aside a couple piles of things, those I take to Hawaii (and that will be a small pile), stuff to give away and everything else. I am even creating a box of things I have to address before I move. This includes services to cancel, addresses to change, etc. I can sell all my dishes and glasses and make do with paper and plastic.

I have contacted an antique dealer about a few of the things I wanted appraised, but have not heard back. Time to look for another dealer! I can't wait for people to get around to things as I have been doing all the foot dragging that is needed.

I lost last weekend's possibility for a yard sale, as I was in Daytona Beach Florida. Most of my family came for Disney World and I had a chance to see them all in one place!

The online chat room for people who love Kona Hawaii is great. There are people there who already live on the island and offer answers to such questions as "which internet provider and/or cellphone company should I use"?

Also, I have been watching the Discovery Channel and like it, but I am so tired of the "Shark Week" commercials. I'm not all that thrilled with sharks and certainly don't need to be reminded of them. About 2 miles down the road from my new place is where the spinner dolphin, well, spin. I'd love to get in the water with them, but I need to get over these silly fears of their "neighbors" :-)

Aloha for now!