A smaller rant... (by Kyle)

I have no faith in either candidate to do anything about the economy. Both McCain and Obama have been using the same worn out talking points for months and propose ideas that don't make sense to realistic people. Our economic situation is a HUGE and a uniquely unprecedented problem and both of our potential presidents sidestep every direct question so as to continually appeal to the American public with political bobble-head nonsense and unfounded promises. These two candidates, their advisors, and spokesmen either have no ‘real’ idea about what to do or are they completely inept to communicate a pragmatic and rational plan to the public. Both situations scare me.

The supremely primary reason that I will even vote this year concerns the possible filling of two Supreme Court justice seats. And the so called “Maverick” is our best shot at preventing some kooky, dyed-in-wool liberal of legislating from the bench, for decades to come, destroying what very little decency remains in the social issues facing our country.

A small rant...

My friend Rachel says it all. I totally agree.

In addition to her comments, I really can't believe that so many people actually believe that the tax hikes proposed by the Anointed One (as Rachel put it) are going to only affect the "wealthy" of this country. He wants to raise ALL of the following taxes: income tax (for everyone), small business tax, death (inheritance) tax, capital gains tax, and dividend tax. Not only that, but he desires to create more taxes on gas, homes over a certain square footage, and a tax on consumption of resources. Does anyone honestly think this is going to benefit them?! We will ALL be paying more taxes.

That's all. I'm finished now too.

Ike

Well, I am glad to report that our families weathered the storm very well. They were fortunate to be on the west side of the storm, so they experienced winds and some rain and were without power for a while, but all is well. They got their power back on Saturday afternoon; much sooner than expected. Praise God that the storm wasn't quite as bad as they thought it could be! I know there is damage, but all of that can be rebuilt; thank goodness the loss of life was not greater. (A little side note: I was glued to the news coverage of Ike since my family was right in the path. On some coverage of the aftermath on Saturday around noon-ish, they were showing the Houston ship channel and the Shell refining plant. It was coming back online as the smokestacks were burning again. So if people are still flipping out about gas prices...slap them. Not really, but I heard stuff about $7 a gallon! Come on people, that's absolutely ridiculous...that's what our strategic reserves are for.)

On a completely different note, I really am going to post pictures of our house. Believe it or not, there has been a lot to do around here. I promise pictures are coming soon.

It was wishful thinking...

They cleaned the mattress and said it was mildew. They did no tests to verify this, it just looked like mildew to some guy. There is nothing we can do about it. Its done; no new mattress.

So every military family has to have "that story" about a move that went horrifically wrong. I hope beyond hope that this last move was our "story".

We received all our boxes; no problem (though I was worried about some high value items that look very appealing in their boxes...). But no worries, we got it all. Then they move on to the furniture. [Side note: If you aren't military, if they disassemble any furniture when they pack you, the have to reassemble it when they deliver your items]. Ok, first they lost some screws to my console table, but I wasn't worried about that. One trip to Lowes and that's fixed. When they start to assemble my bedroom furniture, they broke one of the screws that holds the side board to the head board because they were trying to force it. Again, no big deal about replacing the screw, we were already planning our trip to Lowes to get the screws for the console table anyway. But the forcing of things, not ok. That's how you end up splitting wood or something. So Kyle stepped in and kindly helped the guy with the assembly of the bed. While Kyle and guy #1 were putting the bed together, guy #2 decides to attempt to reattach a mirror that goes on my dresser. He used the wrong screws (because our completely incompetent packers didn't distinguish what screws went to what furniture, they just dumped them in a box) and Kyle offered him his power drill to make things easier. [He did this because guy #2 didn't have a screw driver that fit some of the screws that ended up being the right ones]. Baaad idea. The concept of "gentle" probably never occurred to this guy. He made some pretty awful noises with the drill and even though he didn't install the mirror right, we weren't about to tell him for fear that he would do more harm than good trying to fix it. So Kyle and I fixed it after they left. Again, nothing we couldn't handle.

Then, after the idea of having my bedroom back after 6 long months was so tangible, they bring in our mattress and I can immediately tell that something is wrong by the look on guy #2's face. He then proceeds to show me an area on our mattress that had some spots that were a lovely shade of green. Yes folks, our mattress was moldy. It was completely gross (and obviously was not like that before). They took it out of the house and took it back to their warehouse because they aren't allowed to leave any kind of mold in the house. I know what y'all are thinking...you're stuff was in storage for 6 months...shouldn't you expect something like that? Well, let me offer up these little factoids for you: 1) The head guy for the crew moving in our stuff has never seen anything like that in 24 years and 2) I specifically asked our packers to wrap it in plastic and they told me no. So, no, I didn't expect anything like that. The good news is, our claim is already in process and it sounds like they are going to just going to replace it. At first, they were talking about treating it and getting it back to us which, of course, was completely unacceptable to me. So, hopefully we will have word that we can get a new one soon (which may be wishful thinking), but I am tired of sleeping in the guest room (thank goodness we have one though!).

Lets see...what else? They dented the lid of our washing machine so badly that the switch that tells the machine the lid is closed doesn't work. So, in order to get the washing machine to work I have to duct tape a screwdriver to the lid. They are going to fix that too, but its pretty funny, when I post pics of the house, I will post one of that. I think its amusing. They ripped our box springs up, but they are still usable. I can't think of anything else at the moment, just some minor bruises on things that go along with moving. But nothing in the boxes was broken or anything, so that's good.

Is that good enough to be our moving horror story?

Wow

We close tomorrow!! At 12 pm (or however long it takes us to sign the papers and get the heck out of there) we will be home owners!

That's pretty much it. I will post pictures as soon as I figure out just which box my camera cord is in :)

We made it!!

The Tobins are in Charleston! We left early Monday morning and arrived here in Charleston Tuesday afternoon. It was tiring, but it feels good to be here. In a week we will be home owners.

Speaking of our house...(you didn't really think I wasn't going to talk about it did you?) ;). Anyway, our house looks lovely. It really is great; I am so pleased with the way everything turned out. We had our walk though with our builder today (I would say this morning because it started at 10am, but we didn't leave the house until 1:30pm...he was chatty!), and it went as expected. There are mostly minor cosmetic things to fix, and the one thing that wasn't cosmetic apparently is an easy fix as well. [Our home inspector found a cracked truss webbing; he earned his paycheck right there!] I meant to take pictures at our walk through today, but we were in a hurry this morning and I forgot my camera. So, you will just have to wait I guess.

That's about all. We are going to Myrtle Beach this weekend to meet up with some college friends stationed in NC. That should be fun, and after that, we close on the house!