Its very difficult to pack and watch Drake at the same time. That's all I'll say on that matter.
I got 2 ABF trailers. I get the whole 28' in one and 14' in the other one. These are pretty much rig trailers. I'm charged by linear foot, not by weight, which is nice. A friend used them and recommend them. Much cheaper than professional movers and I just can't move myself this time. So this seemed the best solution. They delivered the trailers today and man are they big. They are also fairly high off the ground. I'm not sure I can load the pool table. Maybe if I had 6-8 fairly strong people helping me, but I don't. Maybe I can rig some kinda pulley system. Maybe I can ask my neighbors. Maybe I can post an ad on craigslist. Not sure how this is gonna work, but I get 3 business days (and the weekend) to figure it out.

My mom and I drove Violet's car across the country from Virginia to Oregon. It was a lot cheaper than the 1k-1.2k a mover wanted. It took us about 2.5 days. It was nearly 3k miles.

I don't have a lot of time to look, but with the use of hotpads.com, craigslist, and the local paper, along with several of the property management website's, I've had a few dozen listings. Of those, I drove by about a dozen of them, and of those, I did a walk through of about 6 of them. Tomorrow I'll start filling out applications as I wait for Violet to see the choices and provide feedback. Bottom line is for the house we need (3+bedroom, 1.5+ bath, fenced backpack, pets allowed, <= 1300), we won't be saving a lot of money compared to our current $1,300 rent, which sucks because I'll be taking a 20k-ish salary cut. This is due to many factors, the main one being that Eugene, OR has a much lower "cost of living" than Fairfax, VA. Supposedly. Most house that meet our spec are 1,000 - 1,300. I saw some pretty great houses too but they were well over 1,300, unfortunately.

The last few days we've driven over 200 miles and consumed 3/4 tank of gas. Now that house looking is done, its time to fill out some apps and discuss options with Violet.

I'm very happy that Carl's Jr. is here, and for lunch Friday I had their yummy Sante Fe chicken Sandwich. Its awesome.

I'm extremely grateful to our friends T & H for housing me and for pet sitting Gwen and our two cats for a few weeks. I'm also grateful to my step-dad's brother and his wife for housing my mom and helping with the search. I cannot express how helpful their help has been.

Mom and I fly back Tuesday. Then I'll have a few days to pack before ABF arrives with a trailer. I load it and then they haul it and then I unload. Much cheaper than an actual professional mover. I'm gonna need help loading though, but I haven't had a chance to resolve that issue yet
:(

Last night I finished Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Xbox 360). I enjoyed the game overall. Some of it was over the top, even for Star Wars (I used the Force to bring down a Star Destroyer, and I defeated/killed Darth Vader). I enjoyed the premise of being Darth Vader's secret apprentice and the twisting plots throughout the game. Most of the levels were well designed and quite varied in locations. I thought that the secondary objectives were confusing to complete though. The control scheme was good and using the varied force powers was fairly natural, though I didn't really do a lot of complicated combos. The save points were a weak spot since I couldn't seem to save the game anywhere I wanted.. I always restarted at the beginning of a save checkpoint. I liked the leveling up and the variety of force powers and combat techniques available, though admittedly I didn't take advantage of many of them. There were lots of lightsaber upgrades I didn't acquire, and changing the color crystal or the power crystal didn't seem to do much.

Overall the game was fun and perhaps a bit too short. I reccommend it.