It’s a downhill boulder now. Boxes are packed up at our old house, we’ve moved several things already, and contractors are at the house almost every day working on getting things ready. 

Today we accepted delivery of a new stove, and a masonry contractor came out to give us a quote on chimney repairs. The Soley guys are just about finished installing the ultra high-tech condensing boiler system that makes our basement look even more like a mad scientist laboratory. They’ve also re-plumbed the hot water line in the house, replacing a bunch of useless old galvanized pipe, and removed the old water tank.

Internet

Comcast came out and installed internet. We had some issues  because Comcast only offers a 6mb package (way too slow for our needs, since Lincoln and I work from home, on the internet), or a 105mb package. 105mb would be nice, but it’s $200 a month, which is beyond our budget. There was no middle ground. They used to offer a 50mb tier, and some of our neighbors confirmed that they had it, but Comcast simply told us that it was no longer offered.

When I called and complained, the Comcast rep told us that we could get a 20mb plan for $44.95 a month. That was more palatable than 6mb but it’s still less than half of the speed we’re used to. I know it sounds whiny, saying that 20mb is too slow, but again, our livelihoods depend on wide, fast internet pipes.

We settled for the 20mb plan, because we didn’t really have much of a choice. It was frustrating because I know damn well that the DOCSIS 3 that Comcast runs on is capable of any speed tier up to their 105mb plan, so there was no technical reason they couldn’t offer us the 50mb plan.

I sent a tweet to @ComcastCares and a guy named Steve responded immediately. He told me to wait until the 20mb gets installed and then to send him a message and he could get the 50mb plan working for us.

That’s exactly what went down. The tech came out (and locked his keys in his truck, and had no way to test the line once he installed it, but we got lucky and it worked), and the 20mb was up and running. I sent a message to Steve and within five minutes we had 64mb coming into the new house. Bam!

Tomorrow I’m installing our own cable modem and our new Wi-fi access point. That means people who come out to help this weekend can get on their Facebewks.

Grout

The bathroom grout is finally finished. Well, that is to say that the grout is actually put in, but we still need to deglaze and scrub the tiles. Still, the hard part is done, and the bathroom is actually starting to look like a bathroom. I took the tank off the toilet and finished the grout behind it, and I finally got to the back of the tub area as well as the tiles above the shower. Somehow, the shower became a sort of garbage dump for everybody and it was filled with screws, tools, trash, tile spacers, and huge chunks of dried tile glue. I finally cleaned up the shower so it actually looks like a shower instead of a pile of trash.

Can’t stop the train

The lightswitches are all installed in the kitchen but they don’t work. The electrician isn’t sure why, but it should be a simple fix. Soon we’ll actually be able to turn lights on in the kitchen. Progress!

At this point, the house is starting to look move-in, at least at a rudimentary level. The hot water should be on soon, and that is the last “required, bare-minimum” thing we needed to think about moving. The pace is picking up rapidly.

SCIENCE. We'll call him "Snarky The Boiler"

This weekend, a lot more is going to get done. We’ll have enough manpower to finish deglazing the tiles in the bathroom, and make major painting progress (because ALL THE PRIMING IS DONE). We may even have enough manpower to dig another hole so we can patch another leak we found, if the weather cooperates.

Onward and upward!