grimplesnarf's blog: "Moving to Texas"

Amidst all the gloom and doom that is normal fodder for news media worldwide, I wonder if perhaps your readers might be interested in some GOOD news of a local nature. I arrived in San Marcos on July 3rd, Independence day from my long-time home of Jackson Mississippi. I have perused the San Marcos paper for the last 2 Sundays, and for any who think things are bad here I have an announcement to make. It’s a LOT worse elsewhere! The police blotter for this last week included a couple of car burglaries, a cat up a tree, and some disorderly conduct in an elevator. The Jackson newspaper doesn’t fool with such minor problems, their blotter usually has several murders (we were approaching 60 for the year thus far when I left) attempted murders, stabbings, shootings, assorted mayhem, and various armed robberies. My home had been broken into 3 times, my family had 2 cars stolen, and one car having much damage done in a botched attempt at stealing it. The wise did not leave so much as a garden hose behind stout locks, monster-gorilla chains, barbed wire, watch-towers with machine guns, and several unfriendly pit bulls. Twice I was awoken in the dead of night by the sound of gun-shots, but no police responded to my 911 calls… I guess the policy is that if you did not actually see a murder, then they have more important things to attend to, like the waitress at the Waffle House. The housing crisis much bally-hoo’d in the press has a much different meaning in the two cities. In San Marcos, the crisis is finding somewhere to live regardless of reasonable expense (unless you have several hundred thousands of dollars for a house). In Jackson, the crisis is trying to sell a house in a war zone. I had two houses on either side of me sit vacant for YEARS trying to rent or sell, and one across the street. One has been vacant since a year before Katrina hit us with a Cat-3 whallop never to be forgotten. This house has a broken sewer connection which makes for a stinky health-hazard that no amount of calls to the city has managed thus far to remedy. The weeds in the yard stand taller than the average tree here in San Marcos, and I erected a sign in the yard that read “Jackson City Weed Preserve, No Mowing Allowed!”. The other two houses had the air-conditioning units stolen from them twice before they could be moved into. There is a thriving industry in MS of stealing air conditioners and selling them at the scrap yard. There is another industry of building steel cages around the units, but even this can be thwarted by dis-assembling thru the bars of the cage and slipping the pieces thru the bars. I suggested to the city that this problem could be greatly reduced by having only licensed people be allowed to sell frequently stolen items to scrap yards (they also steal all the wiring from any construction project). One house next door even had all the asbestos siding stripped from it, AFTER it had just been re-painted! Jackson and this area of Texas has one similarity, but with a profound difference, if that makes any sense. I came here because my career is in plastics, in the supervisory/management level… and just like what is in the news here, we have a Nissan plant that has put most of the molders in the area out of business, and the general manufacturing market is swamped with folks all chasing the same jobs that are simply not there. Everyone has gone to near-shut-down, one skeleton shift instead of three or four, and a WHOLE lot of folks all looking for the same work in a place that doesn’t believe in paying people for the work they do. Here, the Toyota plant is in distress, but there is a variety of places to land on ones’ feet. Because this area has had the foresight to diversify and plan ahead. I heard on the radio that half of all jobs created in the US came about in Texas, and I can believe it. I am living testimony to it, and I feel very fortunate that such a place exists. I feel VERY lucky to have quickly found an apartment here in San Marcos via the “Apartment Experts” on University Drive and a most diligent agent named Brandin Huber who was actually IN the office on July 4th! Some sort of civic award should go to such people, and I was greatly impressed by the whole experience with them. I absolutely LOVE San Marcos thus far in my limited experience, and feel like much of my life has been wasted by not discovering Texas while still young. I could do without the train traffic which ever seems to find me when I’m in a hurry… one Saturday a simple trip to get a charger for my cell phone ended up an ordeal as I got stuck in the same funeral procession TWICE, and then a train road-block. Mississippi calls itself the hospitality State, but to me it can’t hold a candle to the folks I have run into here. My new neighbors have made an effort to come introduce themselves, and I didn’t know my own neighbors in MS, in a house I have lived in for 20 years! I lost the antennae on my cell phone and went on a blind adventure to find one… it would have been a lot easier if I had a phone book, but I was having a hard time coming up with one. Went to SEVERAL places in search of the elusive antennae… Thad at the “Wireless” store on I-35 frontage road not only gave me a phone book, but began calling everyone he knew that might have what I need. He sent me to the “Cricket” store on Aquarena Springs Rd… they had an antennae, which they took from a used phone and gave it to me NO CHARGE! This is truly a remarkable place to live, and all should give thanks for such a blessing in times of turmoil and despair elsewhere. If anyone thinks it’s hot here, they should try MS, with equal temps but 80% humidity that requires a shower before and after checking the mail… and checking every bump in the night to make sure someone is not stealing your air conditioner. Regards, Grimplesnarf, Happy transplant to San Marcos! SALUTE

The Roller-Coaster Lumpy Ride To Tx It all started on a Wednesday, July 2, 2008, this roller-coaster ride…. Lots of fun for a quarter. Like any roller-coaster ride, it has been a few moments of calm and contentment, marked by periods of sheer panic that seem to last an eternity … but putting a stop-watch to the whole thing will not give an accurate picture of reality… because panic always seems to last longer than reality. Peaks and valleys make for any ride on a roller coaster, and debate ever rages on which is the scary part. I will here call peaks the good parts, where you slowly take the climb, observe the scenery and perhaps drool on the unsuspecting victims below… and valleys the part where your life flashes before your eyes and you most confident that your eternal destination awaits with gaping maw. Wednesday started off a peak, which actually began on previous days as I composed a mental list of “This is the last time I have to endure this misery”… At home, no more lawns to mow, no more cat waking me up at the crack of dawn for no good reason, no more wasted time trying to please a wife deeply mired in perpetual gloom… at work, no more blast-furnace Mississippi heated factory, no more concrete-like material to endlessly dig in with shovels, no more endlessly pointless meetings to discuss why things aren’t going well on the plant floor (because the brain surgeons are in stupid meetings while the plant floor runs amok), last time I have to climb this ladder to make sure the machine is not about to starve to death. The peak just kept going up, things just kept getting better. The boss, knowing that I was behind on my packing duties, let me have the day off with pay! Whoo hoo! Wednesday blurred into Thursday, ever more packing. Here is the plan for the packing experiment… I am going to Texas with only a care-package in the car, and all the stuff I’m gonna come back for piled in the living room, boxed up and ready to roll when I return with the U-haul monster. Being a plan-ahead sort of guy, I went thru every drawer and closet with 2 boxes on the floor, one marked “To Go”… knowing that I only had room enough in the car for 5 boxes of equal size, previously determined by a secret test. This experiment had only one adjustment… 3 boxes… one box for the stay-here stuff, one box for the “to go” stuff, and one box for the cat who can’t stand an open box without him in it. (pic of cat in box on my site) Evil-looking beasty, ain’t he? I expected to arrive in Tx with a lot of stuff I need in the wrong box, but my careful planning averted this for the most part. Thursday was leave MS day, and I did so according to plan, at 6:30PM (after a nice long nap)… most of the 9-hour drive would be done in the cool of night (no AC in the Volvo still) and less traffic, especially around Dallas which I had to go thru. I made good time, hitting Waco Tx at 2AM, about 130 miles to go. In these days of high gas prices, I suggest anyone looking at new cars to consider the Volvo 4 cylinder… mine has a turbo on it, so it scoots when ya want it to, and mine is a 4-door roomy thing…. but I topped off the tank (7 gals) in Jackson, put 12.5 gals in at Tyler TX, and another 12.7 gals when I hit San Marcos. Today is July 12, and I just had to put more gas in the tank, and have driven 889 miles on $126 worth of gas. This is a good deal in my feeble mind. SO, you might be asking, this is all peaks, where are the valleys? The valley started Thursday night, when great holes in my carefully devised plan became evident. The plan had worked like clock-work thus far, but I had ignored early-warning flares… before leaving Jackson, I had investigated apartment prices in San Marcos, and they were outrageous. $529 for an efficiency? I had also called a hotel in San Marcos, which told me that a room there would be $120 a night. This should have told me I was under-funded, but I convinced myself (based on info given me by the folks I would soon be working with) that if you get outside of the city, things get reasonable. So the plan was to flop in a by-the-week flea-bag sort of hotel until I found a reasonable place to live. But NO! By the time I got close to San Marcos, I was of a tired nature, and my search for a reasonable hotel room ended up costing me $90 for that night. I spent the 4th of July in fruitless search for the dreamed-of flea bag hotel to flop in for a few weeks. I found such a place on the outskirts of Austin (40 miles from work on a road under construction and much difficulty getting back & forth) but it was the cheapest I could find… $300 per week! But the card they gave me wouldn’t open the door… Sahib the trusty Indian hotel guy let me in, and told me he would be right back to fix the problem… but he had to go get a haircut first. I went into the room, which looked like a rodeo had just ended in it, and discovered 99% of the TV channels were unwatchable fuzz, the window had a hole in it, the AC worked about as well as the American energy policy (or lack there-of)… after about 2 hours of this and no success with the door over-haul (as I began to have a sneaky suspicion that there were no barbers open on a holiday) , I told them I wanted my money back and I would go elsewhere. Sahib still charged me for the nights’ stay even tho I had only sweated on the bed waiting for him to fix the freaking door. I ended up back at the Rodeway Inn that I had started my quest… quoting me 350 per week but much closer to work and at least a decent place to sleep… but in the interval of my day-long quest, the only room left was one with 2 beds in it that cost me $130 for one night. I could get the $350 per week room tomorrow, whoo-freaking-hoo. The only intelligent thing I did on the 4th of July was to decide to test the door of a place called “Apartment Experts”, a couple of blocks down from my hotel room as I went in search of coffee. I was leery of the whole concept, which advertised itself to be a free service… but there was actually someone in the office even though it wasn‘t really open… a new guy full of piss & vinegar. He had me fill out the initial paperwork to become a client, and gave me the dismal news that there were very few apartments unoccupied in the area, and no leasing agents to talk to on a holiday, but come back tomorrow. I started to shake the whole thing off, but decided to give it a shot anyways. So in I went on that Saturday, and I slowly began to think I had made a BIG error in my feeble plan. The Apartment Expert, assisted by a more senior member of the team, went thru the computer list of properties, none with any vacancies regardless of price. I kept adjusting my requirements… “OK, look at this price range…” Turns out there was not an unoccupied one-bedroom apartment in a 50-mile radius, when efficiencies are going for $530/month… “Stop the roller coaster, I wanna get off now!” Finally he came across a listing known as “Fenway Loop Apartments”… but both agents frowned at the suggestion… I was looking for a one-bedroom for around $450/month… this place only had 2 bedroom units for rent, and the leasing agent was some sort of whacko allergic to everything except oxygen, they thought the only unit available was right next-door to her and she could not abide an evil smoker near her… but they called anyways. She had another unit available. So off we go to talk to her. She had a unit, in a small complex comprised of separate buildings that only house 4 units per building, and I would be upstairs (another thing I was trying to avoid) from a sheriff who also worked the midnight shift, so we wouldn’t be making noise while the other was trying to sleep… she showed me the unit, and it was awesome! 900 Square Feet, almost as big as my house in MS, brand new carpet, a washer/dryer, HUGE closets you could play hand-ball in, and big 11.5 x 11.5 bedrooms… I jumped on it, even tho it was a big departure from the plan ($650/month). I found myself back on the peak side of the ride, and began to feel all was well. She told me it would probably take a week to process the rental application, so I went back to the hotel and rented a week, where the $350 quote turned into $421 in actual cost. OK… it’s just a minor lump, I’m still better off in the long run methinks. The application is approved by Tuesday lunch, not a week as advertised, but I think this is good things. Until I discover that the hotel will not refund any of my pre-paid weeks’ rent, and on Tuesday I find that I must come up with the first months rent, a $300 security deposit, and $340 for a utility deposit… I had also to pre-pay the 1st months payment to have phone/TV/internet turned on (but they can’t get here to turn it on till the 17th)… So, I move in to the new apartment that Tuesday, and discover many things I had not planned for. I had neglected to bring any toothpaste, soap, shampoo, etc… things you don’t really think about like shower curtains or trash cans. I go off to the Wal-mart, where I spend $225 on basic needs stuff. I buy a shower curtain, a skillet, groceries, trash can, an inflatable queen size bed (advertised to fill with any inflation device) and an inflation device (advertised to inflate anything, both items made by the same company, sold in the same store, and right next to each other on the shelf.) I get home and spend 1.5 hours trying to figure out how to inflate the bed with inscrutable directions and two items that don’t go together… the pump will NOT fill the bed. Well, another minor dip in the roller coastrer says I, I’ll just make dinner, take a shower, and sleep on the floor. No prob. I eventually discover that the +Teflog-coated skillet must first be “seasoned” with cooking oil like an iron one (and I had not bought oil), … the TV dinners required a cookie sheet (which I had not bought), and the shower curtain did not include hooks (which were not left in the apartment)… and I could not find the sheets that I thought I had packed… so I slept nekkid, dirty, and hungry on the floor… and had forgotten to buy toothpaste or toilet paper, leading to things you had best not want to know about. Also leading me back to the Wal-mart to spend $80 for things to make the OTHER $225 actually give some benefit. The “slight dip” in the roller coaster ride got quite hairy when I sat down Friday night to balance my bank account. Due to lack of brain cells or some other factor, I was going to bounce either my rent or utility deposit check, or both, depending on which hit first. The difference between my advertised balance and the rent check was $7, and I have 2 things automatically deducted from my account that happen at the least opportune and random moments in time. I needed help in a hurry, but had left my cell-phone charger in the hotel room and was down to one power bar, less than a quarter-tank of gas in the car, and $25 in cash. I uttered many regrettable nasty words at my lack of ability in managing affairs in a normal human fashion. It is still not clear if Monday will be a peak or a knuckle-white valley. This is getting long and painful for all readers, I surmise, so I will here close. I’ll send some pics of my new place later. I owe many thanks (and a good pile of dollars) to Dad for bailing me out of my turmoils. Love, Grimp