perldiver

In my previous post, I mentioned the excessive terms of the contract for the apartment I'm looking at and my attempts to get it modified. Well, this morning they told me to pound sand; fortunately, after talking with them a bit on the phone I believe I found a compromise that works for everyone, so I can still take possession tomorrow.

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I'm considering starting up some sort of online community for discussion of stupid contracts like this--maybe something like a DailyWTF where people would contribute stupid contract clauses that they have seen.  In my wilder fantasies, this would grow into an actual movement to reform the legal profession's approach to contracts and to convince people to think about what they write / sign...but that's probably a bit bigger than I really want to tackle right now.

What do y'all think?  Would you find such a site interesting for the occasional browse?  If so, maybe I'll do something easy and cheap, like fire up a PBWiki for it.

It never ceases to amaze me what people put in their contracts. Today I got a fresh example of this.  I went to the main office of Trinity Management Services at 333 Bay St, San Francisco, CA, 94133 in order to sign a contract for one of their properties.  The package they gave me was more than twenty pages, including the various appendages (e.g. lead paint, mold, bed bugs, rules and regulations, etc).  There were a number of problems, most of which were just issues with the wording, not with the intent, and I was able to sort those out with the leasing agent.  Unfortunately, there was one dealbreaker that we could not resolve, so I wasn't able to sign.  They've kicked it upstairs to management, who will look at it tomorrow and get back to me.


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The part that frustrates me is that I know I could just sign this and then ignore the stupid wording, follow the intent (which I would do anyway), and I'd be fine.  That feels like breaking my word, though--I'm signing a legally binding contract that says I will (not) do something, and then I'm breaking that commitment.  It should not be up to me to interpret what they **meant**, it should be up to them to write their meaning into the contract in the first place.

So, we'll see what happens tomorrow.

Went to see an apartment today. Bleh. Pass.

Went to see another--studio, not too spendy, Dolores St near Market. Nice, but too small and didn't have a full fridge. Pass, regretfully--the neighborhood was *amazing*. As I was leaving, the property manager mentioned a 1-br in the adjacent building. It was slightly outside my intended price but still something I could afford so I went for a look. Much more space, full fridge, big kitchen, *wood burning fireplace*! Downsides: not ideal on natural light but decent, the closet doors are a bit chintzy so I worry about them breaking and it was built in '63 so uses fuses, not circuit breakers so I may hit issues if I run too many appliances together. These are all manageable so I took it. They ran my application in a few hours and just informed me that I'm in--huzzah!

I can move in Tuesday. Whee!

Wow.  I'm in San Francisco and I'm not going home back.

Went into NYC last night, stayed with  avivasedai who had previously offered to drive me to the airport this morning--a most kind and appreciated offer.  I picked up food at GCT on the way through, including Indian food for avivasedai and luun (I had leftover Thai from lunch), some tasty yummy puddings, and tarts of various kind (pecan, 2 apple, coconut custard--I only ordered three, but the pie guy was kind enough to give me the fourth free).

This morning we got up at o-dark-hundred and piled out the door, leaving around 0615 to find snow all over the ground (as predicted).  As we were getting in the car, it was discovered that avivasedai hadn't realized I was going to JFK, not LGA--I sent her my itinerary, but we hadn't actually discussed it.  It was pretty clear from her reaction that this was going to be a problem for her, and she'd been under plainly visible stress the night before, so I said I'd take a cab if she dropped me in Manhattan.  She left me out at 125th, I got a cab driver, and it took about 30 mins to get to the airport.  Crowding was light, so security was a breeze.  I ate at the very tasty breakfast bar that JFK is now offering, bought a sandwich and banana for later, and am now enjoying the free Wi-Fi.  Man, this is a civilized airport...makes traveling so much better.

Went to Boston for the weekend to say goodbye to people.  Played games, ate tasty food, saw Mosaic Commons, had dinner in Milford.  More below the cut.

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All in all, this was a fantastic weekend.  I'm really going to miss all my Boston friends, but I'm glad I saw you all.  To all those I was not able to hook up with this weekend--it wasn't for lack of desire, it was simply that I wanted to keep the group small so that I would actually get a chance to talk to everyone at least a little.

I did finally get it done on Friday.  The movers (one grown-up named Brian and two kids named Jay and Andy) showed up and packed everything that I hadn't already packed.  They piled it on the truck and headed off for CT, where my stuff will live in storage until I send for it.  I got on the train (no room in the truck) and went up myself, meeting them in Southport (my parents' place, where I will be staying for the next few days until I fly out).  Brian had stayed at another job in NYC, so it was just Jay and Andy now; they offloaded the few things I would need here and we went over to the storage pod.  Everything else was unloaded there and off they went.

These guys were respectful, hard-working, and honest, but I wouldn't use them again or recommend them.  They failed to label about half the boxes despite the topic being discussed, set down one box that I had said was fragile hard enough that I'm afraid to see what's in it now, failed to keep the "to Southport" stuff clearly separate from the "to storage" stuff in the truck despite very very clear directions on what would be going where--as a result, a few things got misdelivered to storage and I had to bring them back in my car--and they smashed the leg off my sturdily-built end table because they didn't pad it / restrain it appropriately.  Oh yes, and they didn't fill out any of the paperwork at origin, so when we got there they were suddenly making up numbers for how many boxes of what had been packed and then asking me to sign that all of this was correct and that everything had been delivered correctly. 

I will give them this much--they owned up to the end table issue right off, said "This is our fault", and had me fill out some paperwork to that effect.  Apparently someone from the company will come out to replace it / repair it.

In any case, I'm now ensconced in Southport until I fly out on Wednesday.  Eventually, I'll send for my stuff and it can all be shipped out here; most likely via UPS, since I don't have enough stuff to make it worthwhile to ship it with a moving company (they have a weight minimum).

I am moving today, and the Moving Gods love me very much....they even gave me a present to show their love:  boiled  bunny.

See, if I ever finish the move, I will no longer exist within their domain.  And that would make them sad.  Gods do not like to be sad.  When they are afraid of being sad, they create blizzards and traffic jams and poorly timed communications in order to hold onto whatever they want to keep.

But, really and for true, the movers should be here soon.