Adventurenet.net

May 21, 2024.

The streets of Queens! We made it!

People have carts & dollies to carry things like groceries around!

And we have a scummy landlord who installed the wrong type of air conditioner unit into the wall and so we have to buy our own!

Make sure to pay close attention to the plug type if you’re purchasing a wall unit like this.

There’s also a whole sizing chart thing and how much room you’re going to be cooling to take into consideration.

This is all new knowledge for me as I haven’t used air conditioning that wasn’t centralized in probably twenty years.

Moving to or visiting a new place is always an adjustment and it’s very easy to only notice the bad things, but New York City is a cool place with good people and I am learning the ways of life without a car.

On that note, our car is currently parked in a nearby garage for $180 a week.

I don’t suggest driving in Manhattan, but I had to do it once to delver the cats and a car load of our stuff to our new apartment.

Next week I’ll drive it through the city again so that I can get it to New Jersey to a friend’s house where it will sit until we can figure out how to get it sold.

For now, I’ll be spending my spare time exploring the areas in and around Astoria.

Like the awesome city parks!

Who doesn’t love columns?

And basements!

Texas doesn’t have basements, but here in NYC even the grocery stores have secret basements for murders storage!

The architecture here is fascinating as well.

There is so much to see.

It’s very easy to find foods from all over the world as well and so here is a new item that I have tried recently. It’s nice. Highly suggest.

I’ve been noticing that there are a lot of fruit trees planted around the city. Is it okay for me to pick them and eat them?

I absolutely love being near the water and taking ferrys!

And sometimes the city leaves mysterious messages at the bus stop for you.

But now for my biggest gripe. The worst thing that has happened, so far.

My first week here in Queens has been a bit difficult as most of our stuff is still on a moving truck somewhere.

The folks that picked it up were fantastic, the folks in the email thread were very easy to work with and then the local movers showed up.

They brought someone else’s stuff.

Which I did not notice right away, because they insisted that I pay a $200 stair fee as well as a $100 top for both movers before they could unload.

Luckily I got my $400 cash back when we realized they brought the wrong stuff.

One more problem to mention is that there was exactly one small box of our stuff in this mix of someone else’s boxes.

I am absolutely disgusted with the service provided on this move.

They did show up late in the day with our boxes and continued to try to pressure me into giving them $400, but I called the moving company. Twice.

I had to call twice, because the mover took my phone from me, started talking to the company in Spanish and then hung up and said “They confirmed the $200 fee.” to which I called the moving company back and the driver tried to say “I can do $100.”

They got nothing.

I lied and said I’d tip them through the app and I blocked the driver’s phone number.

Absolutely disgusting and also illegal.

I’m still dealing with the mattress they damage and the box of dishes they crushed.

I tried to clean it off, but it’s a nasty, oily powder something.

I would advise against using Flatrate Moving.

Here’s the crushed box. It was a pillow and a handful of dishes.

Luckily this box and the mattress were the only items damaged beyond repair. I used to work for a warehouse and so I am confident in my packing and stacking ability, but if your use a forklift to crush a box, there’s nothing I can do to save that.

The cats absolutely love the new windows.

One New York item that I have been adjusting to is the buzzer.

I live in an apartment and our buzzer has three buttons and a toggle switch.

The switch turns the buzzer off & on, and the three buttons are talk, listen, and buzz-in.

It was intimidating at first to use the talk button and say “Yes?” and then the listen button to hear them say “USPS!” and on the first time I just kind of froze up and stared at the buzzer.

The second time I talked and listened, but now I mostly just buzz folks in when I hear it.

I work from home and so I often let in USPS, amazon, FedEx & UPS for the neighbors.

The buzzer still scares me. It’s very loud.

5/22/24

On this day we had our most New York moment, so far.

We ferried over to Manhattan to grab some White Castle & at one point a man was peeing on the side of a building and another man across the street used a laser pointer to point this out.

The peeing man turned towards the laser pointer origin and yelled “Do you want to get killed today?”

And I kid you not, a giant rat then ran across the street in front of us.

5/23/24

On this day we had dinner with the neighbors at a nearby vegan restaurant.

This restaurant was pricey, but they have some of the most creative menu items that I’ve ever seen.

Their ability to texture their protein items is truly fascinating.

Oh, hey, another fruit tree.

Here’s Keanu living in Box City & feeling the breeze in her fur.

Majestic.

5/25/24

Today we go out to eat.

We went to a nice place in Chinatown and the server laughed at me when I ordered Lemonade & Lemon Chicken.

I am now a lemon boy.

Keanu says “Hi.”