Moving

[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.