This is no way to sell things to me

I'm moving. That means getting my "stuff" from one place to another. It's a non-trivial move. I can't just borrow a truck, and make a few trips cross town. Nope, I need to schlepp it some 3,000 miles.

So I've been looking into the various shipping container moving companies. So far the best price for a "1 Bdr' apartment sized container is about $3,000. Since it was about $1,000 when I was looking to move stuff from LA to here (I used a Budget truck, it was about $500, call it $650 with two tanks of gas), this isn't all that surprising, though I doubt there is any lack of need for the actual container in the NYC area, and the cost of putting it on a semi/train can't be all that much more.

1 800 Pack-rat is doing it wrong They gave me a quote in the $5,500 range. By itself that's no big deal. P.O.D.S. didn't thrill me with the, "fill out this form for your free quote," which I could only get by calling someone on the phone. 1 800 Packrat at least gave me a quote. I had to give them my e-mail address, and a phone number (I gave them Manhattan directory assistance).

Having looked at that quote, I wasn't interested. Day before yester I got a piece of e-mail, telling me I might be eligible for a 6 percent discount, I could save as much as $315. They also touted all the ways they were better than the competition. The bit I noticed was the property insurance, $10,000. I have, in terms of replacing it, more than 10,000 dollars worth of stuff. More to the point, the $3,000-ish quote came with 25 grand of insurance.

No biggie, I trashed it and moved on. I woke to find an exact repeat of that message in my mail this morning. I went to bed this morning at about 0200. I trashed it as spam. Twenty minutes after that, at about 0900, I had another one. I looked at it a bit more closely. Adding persiflage that if I don't make a decision right away the date I want might be unavailable (really... I'm asking about a date 3 and-a-half months from now. I have some wiggle room. If they are that booked, why the hard-sell spamming?

I followed the, "don't send me any more email" link, and told them to remove my email and my phone number. I suppose, were I really annoyed, I could have let them call Manhattan information, as ask for me, but I didn't.

I do wonder however, if I'd given them my actual number, if I'd have been fielding calls from their reps, calls that were legitimate, because I'd "given" them my number. I put quote-marks around given because the only way I could get the quote was to cough up a number.

Not happy. Not using them.

The Ghost in the Machine

I'm amused, now. I wasn't an hour ago.

I live in a part of town where gunfire is part of the occasional background noise. Mostly it doesn't bother me. I tense up, ponder the way the grammar of the shooting is going and decide what to do.

Tonight I was caught off guard by a string of firecrackers. I am not the sort to go to ground the instant I hear a shot/report. This was different. I heard the first one. I recall going... "gunfire", while I was finishing that thought the second one went of, somewhere about the third I was flat on the floor, low-crawling into the kitchen, because that was the direction away from the bullet path through the door (which was closed).

Poor Squidget (still in need of a good home; all his shots and he's fixed. Ignore the demon eyes. We had a priest come look at him, he's fine.) was terrorised, as I went squirming toward him, too damned fast and *way* to spastic for him to think it was safe. He took off in the way only a cat trying to get claws into linoleum for traction (and failing) can manage.

About the time number 12 went off I was 15 feet from my chair, and had parsed out it was firecrackers, not someone emptying a small caliber semi-automatic.

I didn't know I still had it in me. My neck has a slight crick, so does my back. The back of my left thigh is a bit strawberried, from the seat of the chair, and my broken ankle is a bit unhappy (I pretty much used my feet/knees to move my body, a good low-crawl keeps your entire front in contact with the ground). My heart is back to normal, as is my breathing which takes longer).

The ankle

It's broken. My orthopedist made a point of that.

The present condition, in detail is that it's knitting well. The bone is once again a single entity. better, the space between the parts of my ankle are evenly spaced.

But it's not healed. They are still knitting up, and I have to be gentle with them. No Aikido yet. No Bay to Breakers, at least not any training for it. No jumping out of airplanes, etc.

This wasn't really a surprise. I didn't really expect him to tell me heading back to the mat was a good idea.

I have been told to, "let pain be my guide", which is pretty much what I've been doing.

I am not uncomfortable on the Seca, but I don't think I'm going to be doing any thing more than local for another couple of weeks, no matter how nice the weather, because 1: after a day at work my ankle speaks to me, and 2: if I get tired, then I am more likely to be not completely in control at a stop, and run the risk of that strain/twist/impact, which will rebreak the bone.

That, as we say, would be bad.