Hello, World

I've had a lot of changes in my life recently. The biggest is I have just moved to Austin, TX. Well, north Austin and in an apartment until we find the house we want. We are considering Round Rock. My job moved us down here, and I got a relocation bonus after a recent promotion!

We decided on renting a U-Haul and towing my truck and motorcycle, it was cheaper than Pods or hiring movers and shipping our vehicles. But I don't think I want to do that again. That truck with trailer was really long and I took up most of the lane. I felt like I was almost the size of a semi truck and in most cases I had to follow the traffic signs for trucks.

Our route took us down through Connecticut and down the 15. It was raining, dark, and there was road construction when I was getting near the exit for 15. I knew there were low points, but didn't remember how low and I saw from the interior of the truck I was 11 feet. As soon as I took the exit I saw the sign that no trucks were supposed to take the exit and the clearance was 8 and a half feet. I was going to get stuck and was white knuckling the steering wheel hoping I could get off and turn around at the first exit before I got pulled over. Fortunately, the first overpass was about 14 feet and was able to make the exit and get back on 93 before an incident.

But I had another incident at a gas station. I parked too close to fill up and trying to get out didn't work out so well and got those one of those pylons in between the truck and trailer. The owner was out and he tried to help--I had to rely on his instructions because I couldn't see, but he got me more stuck. We had to unhitch the trailer and push it back before I could hook up and get out of there. That was an hour wasted.

Otherwise the trip wasn't terrible (a bit long, but we stayed at my sister's in Tennessee) and was glad to finally make it to Austin. My eldest daughter was too scared to ride with me; she did through a bit of NY which was probably the worse part of the drive so she rode with my wife. Leaving the pup and I to enjoy the quiet time, even if a bit stressful with the size of the load.

But once we made it in Austin we had to unload, up 3 flights of stairs, in upper 90s. At least it was a dry heat 🙃.

I hired a couple guys to help and I couldn't have done it without them!

What's Next

Now that I'm settling in Austin (we still have quite a few boxes... the joy of moving from a 3 bed house to a 3 bed apt is figuring out where to put everything) I am looking forward to the next chapter. I will not miss the brutal winters of New England and I will embrace the July-August brutal summer if it means I don't have to move snow from a 200 foot driveway. I have lots of plans and ideas I can't wait to share, so stay tuned and be sure to sign up to the newsletter so you don't miss the next!

I've spent too long on this simple website and now I just wanted to write a simple post to test it all out and see it working... the issues I had with this could be the subject for the next post. Spoiler: docker doesn't really make things easier and in many cases just running natively is the better option.

In any case, I've got my little music studio, 3D printing, coding, and work area just about set up:

Just about ready to get back at it!

Signing off and I'll see you soon