This Old Bull

A couple of weeks ago, on a Tuesday, I did my morning normal routine with a slight modification: I couldn’t take a shower because there was no water. The city had decided it’d be cool to shut it off, presumably for some construction that was taking place along Blackwell St, and not tell anybody. The apartments had no warning and thus couldn’t give us any warning either.

Then today, as I exited my apartment on the way to [work](http://www.oit.duke.edu/) I noticed a line of parked cars, including my car, all with neon orange “PARKING TICKET” envelopes on their windshields. Apparently the city had put up “No Parking” signs on the telephone poles at some point and again utterly failed to inform anyone. I’ve been parking outside my building for as long as I’ve lived here with no trouble whatsoever. I came home last night after doing the grocery shopping and didn’t notice the new signs, assuming they were there already. If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten, unless some small, barely noticeable change takes place, in which case you get a $10 parking ticket.

To their credit, Ally and Kia in the leasing office had no idea they were going to be ticketing, and agreed to take $10 of next month’s rent if I’m unable to successfully contest the ticket. Still, it’s the *principle* of the thing.

First, my apologies for the lack of posts over the course of the past couple months. Life was both busy — mostly with work, but also with my sometimes overwhelming social life — and uneventful, so I didn’t really have a chance to post much of anything, but even if I had there was nothing to post. But now we’re back with exciting happenings!

This past Saturday night, there was a music event at a new bar downtown called [The Pinhook](http://www.thepinhook.com/). It was billed as a [steampunk](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk) gathering, which I’ve severely missed since [The Clockwork Ball](http://www.myspace.com/theclockworkball) moved to Chapel Hill with the closure of Ringside, so Betsy, myself, and our mutual friend Karaya who was in town from Atlanta suited up and headed out.

Continue reading “A New Venue.”

I got a call from Ally up at the leasing office earlier this week with some bad news. Apparently a handful of units are holding the entire Old Bull building back with regard to getting a Certificate of Occupancy, and the building’s opening date pushed back from mid-June to July 1st. I had originally planned on moving in on June 27th, so needless to say this changed things a bit. Further complicating the matter was the fact that my current lease ends June 30th.

We all knew this was a possible obstacle from the very beginning. The apartment management was very up front with me about what could happen, and I was notified as soon as they knew of the pushback. They’re also being extremely accommodating, as they said they would, and are reimbursing me for the inconvenience by cutting some additional concessions on my rent. At the end of the day, we can all hope that nothing will go wrong with any situation we find ourselves in, so guarantees to make good where possible are worth a great deal.

I called TROSA to re-schedule the movers, and to utilize their short-term storage. They’re going to pick the stuff up from the old apartment on June 30th — which I’ll then have to go through and clean, but it shouldn’t be a big deal — and will be dropping it off at the new place on the First of June. My cat and I are going to get a hotel room for the night because I don’t want to think about how traumatic it would be to board him.

Many thanks again go out to Ally and the HallKeen team for their quick response to the rapidly changing situation and going out of their way to both stay true to their word and ensure that the residents have to suffer the minimum number of inconveniences.

I spoke with TROSA today and set up the movers. They’ll be showing up at my current apartment at 8:30 AM on the 27th of June. They’ve moved my stuff before and it was an absolutely flawless experience. They’re exceedingly professional, very courteous, fast and efficient, and affordable. I honestly can’t understand why someone would go with anyone else to move.