Welcome Back To The East Coast, Magilla

[Big Magilla]

Sorry for the hassles you had to deal with, Big, but at least you haven't had to deal with rats like in California.

Not yet, anyway!

[Damien]

Sorry for the hassles you had to deal with, Big, but at least you haven't had to deal with rats like in California.

A 95-year-old deaf mute does seem like the sort of character who would put a curse on a house in a Wes Craven or Sam Raimi movie, like Mrs. Ganush in Drag Me To Hell,

[Big Magilla]

Danke shoen, Damien.

It's a long story, but I'll try to make it short.

I'd been looking at "active adult communiies" in California for a while, but wasn't happpy with the choices. Most of them were in remote locations. The one within easy access to San Francisco was ridiculously expesneive - $7,000 to join the Home Owners Association and $700 per month maintenance fee thereafter. Except for the really expensive houses, the condos were old and small and had no garages.

I briefly entertaind the notion of moving near my sister north of Dallas, but with the tornadoes and heat nixed that idea rather quickly.

I decided on Brick because my brother is here and other relatives are only a few hours away. It's close to everything, is very affordable and I picked a nice community with only 145 houses as opposed to the over 1,000 in my brother's across the way. It's the newest community in the area - only twelve years old.

Sale of my house and move went quickly. Made offer, was accepted and mortgage pre-approved on 6/9, put my old house up for sale on 6/13, sold it 6/14, left California 6/30 P.M., arrived N.J. 7/1 A.M., stayed with my brother until closing on 7/5, moved in 7/6. Then the fun began!

Car took a month to be transported cross country. Furniture went from Northern Claifornia to L.A. to Texas to Georgia to Virginia, finally arriving two days after the car.

I've had to deal with all kinds of things I never had to deal with before from spraying poisonous spiders, knocking down three wasp's nests, replacing sewage drainout connectors and gutter drain connectors to a $1,000 repair job on the air conditioner which had to be re-located and now a $1,730 garage door replacement. In between I had to deal with water seepage from Hurricane Irene, though fortunately not much, and failing my N.J. car inspection because I replaced the battery and hadn't driven the car enough for the computer to kick in before going for the inspection. It's like the man who lived here - a 95 year-old deaf mute - had put a cruse on the house. But on the plus side the neighbors are nice, very helpful, and do more than give advice, they actually roll their sleeves up and help the new kid on the block.

Biggest change was not the move itself but having to downsize from a five bedroom house to a two bedroom house. I gave away two bedroom sets, a dining room set, two sets of dishes, donated clothes and other things and still found I didn't have enough room for everything. I will probably have to go through several seasons to fully acclimate myself to all the changes, but I'm getting there.

Kirsten Dunst is actually from Point Pleasant, which is on the other side of Point Pleasant Beach which is down the road from me. My nearest grocery store is actually in Point Plesant Beach, which is very plesant indeed.

[Damien]

Going through posts from the last few months, Big, I see that you're back east. Hope you're all settled in.

Just curious as to why you moved and how you decided upon Brick Township (home of Kirsten Dunst)?

Anyway, nice to have you back in the eastern time zone.