Moving

[JERRY2KONE]

Originally Posted by aqwut

Hey, don't forget to update your location... :) Glad you are enjoying yourself in Prague..

DONE. Thanks for the reminder. I just went in and updated it.

Yea I love traveling. After touring around with the US Navy for 20+ years and then settling down in Orlando for 15 years I was missing this. It is good to be out and about again. My mom always told us to take advanatage of travel when it comes about, because once you get too old and cannot aford it then it is too late. She had never left Pennsylvania her whole life, and during one of my Navy postings I had her flown over to Scotland for two weeks after my oldest daughter was born in 1987. She had never flown in a plane before let alone travel outside of the USA so she was thrilled to visit with us there. She passed away a few years after that trip, but it was a real eye opener for her. She was so proud of my accomplishments and happy that I had escaped the life of my childhood.

Living in the projects near Philidephia was a pretty sorry way to grow up, and I could not wait to get out of there and live new experiences. Of course I grew up quickly and learned a lot living the street life. I had no idea that my path would take me to places around the globe, but I am loving it. We want as much international experiences as life will allow, and meeting new friends from all over is also a blessing. Settling down stateside is always on our mind, but that is still a few years off yet. So we want to enjoy this and share it with our friends as we go.

[JERRY2KONE]

Well another week has gone by here in Praha, and we are really enjoying the great weather here. The nights are still getting quite cool, but the days are beautiful. On Saturday we went downtown to do some shopping. We found our selves right smack in the middle of a demonstration about the power of electric driven vehicles. There was a motorized skategoard that looked more like a hopped up surfboard with off road air tires. They also had a regular skateboard , several different sizes of quads, dirtbikes, and four versions of two seater cars all running on Lithium Ion power. They had four versions of E-Bikes, but they all looked just a bit too weird to me.

Eventually we found our way into the Paladium Mall which is loaded with shops from around the world. The best part was the selection of foods in the food court. McDonalds, KFC, BurgerKing, UNO, and a bunch of outher favorites from India, and Japan. All-in-all we had a great time and ended up spending about 5 hours just trying to take it all in. It has been another great week here in Praha and the weather is really nice. Lots of sunshine and the city seems to be a very romantic place. There is a local Monster Truck Exabition somewhere on Monday and Tusday so we are trying to make out the Czech signs so we can get tickets and check it out. I have found two hobby shops so far, but both were very small.

[JERRY2KONE]

Finally a sign of relief. We received word today that our household goods have arrived in Europe. Apparently they arrived Tue or Wed in the port of Antwerp, Holland. If things work out we should have our stuff being moved into our new house some time in the next two weeks. So now we are wondering where in the hell our new van is, because it left Korea two weeks before our household goods were shipped. We were told that it was going to be here no later than 15/April. Time for a trace. On our last move they lost our old van for three months. Come to find out it was parked in an abandoned warehouse and they forgot to put it on the ship. The only good thing that came out of it was that the shipping company compensated us with a $2K check for the inconvenience. Then I was not so pissed for being without a vehicle for a while.

[JERRY2KONE]

This is a good week here in the Hill house. The local shipping company just delivered our van. Its a little bit dirty, but no scratches or any other damage that I can see. Plus after traveling several thousands of miles half way around the globe the electronic odometer still reads exactly 800 miles, which is what it was when they picked it up from our home in Korea. We still have to wait on all of the legal paperwork for Czech registration, insurance, Czech vehicle inspection, road tax, and highway tax, before we can drive it, but it is great to finally have it parked in front of the house. Oh and then we get to fill it up for the first time. That will be a real shock. We have been told that it will be somewhere in the neighborhood of $165 for a tank full of regular gas. No discounts here, but we do get the opportunity to file a claim for the local VAT and receive the taxes back on every gallon of gas. That should be about 33%, which means we get approx $55 back on every tank fill up. So the real cost will level out at around $100-$110 per tank full.

The second piece of good news is that our household goods are being delivered tomorrow. So it looks like our weekend will be filled with trying to find places to put everything, and finally getting settled into our new home with our own stuff. I have to mount all of the flat panel TV's on the walls, and get all of the surround sound audio equipment set up. Busy weekend for us. Plus I will finally get to unpack all of my R/C stuff and try to get organized in our garage for an R/C shop. Looks like a trip to IKEA is in order for Saturday. I have to purchase and install some kind of kitchen cabinetry with a countertop so I can have a nice place to work. I am excited.

[JERRY2KONE]

OK well it has been about a month since our household goods arrived, and we are finally just about settled in. Plus I got a part time job working in the US Embassy Post Office as the supervisor. We managed to get one of our bedrooms setup as a home office space, and that is where the Command Center is located (my desktop & 26" monitor). This room was crucial because it is also where the wireless router and central printer are located, along with the "Vonage" telephone system is setup. Just sorting everything out and selling off what we either did not need, or could no longer fit into our household was quite a task. Luckily for us the neighborhood had a huge community garage sale right after our things arrived, so we got rid of a few items and made nearly $1000 selling off stuff.

The biggest project for me was clearing out the garage and setting up a makeshift R/C shop. I have been taking some pics of the space along the way and will post them up once I get it all completed. I talked the wife into letting me pick up some kitchen cabinets and a 15' countertop so I could build a work station on one wall (about $350). The rest of the area is shelving and a full size desk, but it works for what I need. The final chapter is that we have a housekeeper in today to get the whole house deep cleaned and ready for visitors. Now that we are settled we are expecting family and friends to come over from the states for their vacations to spend some time touring about the Czech Republic while staying with us. The home office also doubles as our guest room with a queen size bed. Moving is always kind of a hassle, but it is nice to see new places and learn new things about the world around us. Packing out and moving is the easy part. Unpacking and arranging a new home is always the hard part. Hanging all of our paintings, photos, an flat pannel TV's, and building new storage cabinets always takes work trying where to place it all and installing proper anchors so nothing falls off the walls. Anyway the house will finally be done before we depart on our summer vacation on Monday. Then we get to come home to a nice clean house in late July. Very nice. I will get some pics up once the new R/C shop is all cleaned up and ready for use. Have a great summer guys.

[OldGuyBL]

How's your wife recovering from her injury? Are you still planning an MGM trip?

[JERRY2KONE]

Thank you for asking Sir. Her arm is doing so much better now after five months and many many hours of therapy. She still can not straighten her arm 100%, but she has made a lot of progress since the surgery, and seeing that her work is very much hands on as an office manager for the US Ambassador she is doing well movement wise. It was a pretty nasty fall so we are grateful for the amount of recovery in such a short time compared to similar injuries.

As for our trip to visit with the MGM owners in Zlin, Czeck Republic that had to be pushed back because we have been on a manditory 6 week vacation in the USA. In fact we are on our last leg of the trip and flying out of DC this afternoon for Frankfurt, and then to Prague Saturday morning. We have flown nearly 15,000 miles and driven more than 3,000 miles in rental cars. We have visited our friends and family in Orlando, San Francisco, San Diego, El Centro, Las Vegas, Salinas, Charlotte, NC, Virginia, Maryland, and DC. It will be good to be back in our own house again. The kids still have another week with their grandparents in Colorado Springs, so we have a week alone at home in Praha.

I am starting my new job when we get back to Prague, but we still have plans to take a long weekend trip to meet with the owners of MGM, but it may not happen until Spring depending on our cash flow and the weather. That trip will be another long drive (about 5-7 hours) and gas sells in the range of $7. per gallon, so we have to save up for that one. Plus I hope to make a few purchases while we are there. I really like their new line of high powered ESC's. I will update here as plans move forward.