BS at last!

BS in Accountancy, that is. After three years of blood, toil, tears, and sweat -- taking a few professors' names in vain along the way -- I finally have my degree from Northern Arizona University, as of Wednesday, September 20th. (Technically, the degree shows up as having a "Confer Date" of August 8th -- I guess that's like backdating options or something.)

I finished my classes and handed in the graduation paperwork in mid-July, the week before Meg and I flew out here to Providence to look for an apartment. Why, then, did I not get my degree until late September? Well, I'm not exactly sure, but when I called the Registrar's office on Thursday, they said there had been a personnel change over at the business school (which is where my graduation application sat for two months), and I apparently got lost in the shuffle for awhile.

In any case, however, they informed me that my application was processed, and my degree approved, on Wednesday, and that I have my degree in accounting (I don't know why they call it "Accountancy," since no one uses that term in the real world, except in academic publications such as the Journal of Accountancy.)

Ending my schooling with a long-distance phone call to the Registrar seemed anticlimactic, so I dug out my CD of Elgar's Pomp & Circumstance March #1 and uncrated a CD player to play it on -- I don't know if the neighbors could hear it, but I cranked the volume high enough that they might have. When you graduate in September, the only ceremony you get is the one you do yourself, so that's going to have to suffice.

But... onward and upward. Actually having the degree means I can move forward with my career, er, job search activity. That's going to resume this week.

Urb's Blog

Yay, Stuff!

But a Bronx cheer to Movers. Yesterday, our apartment changed from rattling-around empty to so full that, as my Aunt Georgia would say, you have to step outside to change your mind. That was courtesy of United Van Lines, who came by at the ungodly hour of around 4:00pm to start unloading our stuff (they didn't get finished until after 11:00 -- I'm sure the neighbors loved that).

This is the second time that Meg and I have hired movers -- when we moved locally in Flagstaff, we did it ourselves. And I must say, having someone else move your stuff is an experience best avoided, if at all possible.

The problem is that your agenda and that of the movers are not closely correlated. In this case, first of all, they didn't show up on the date we were promised, arriving on Monday instead of last Friday.

That part is no big deal, but what's a more serious issue is that the movers don't care about how organized the move is, or where your stuff goes. As in our last move, we designated that some of the items (furniture and boxes -- mostly the latter) should come to our apartment, while others went into storage. And although most things ended up where they were supposed to go, some did not. The piano went to storage, as it was supposed to -- but the piano bench got delivered to the apartment. One of our bookcases, which has removable shelves, was supposed to come here, but it went into storage -- meanwhile, the shelves came here! And when we were dividing up things that were supposed to come up to the apartment and things that were destined to go out to the garage, naturally some items ended up in the wrong place (not trivial when the apartment is on the third floor!).

I was not amused that they broke the fairing on my BMW -- granted, it's a cheap JC Whitney $45 accessory, but nonetheless, they broke it, which they're not supposed to do. They also roughed up a few small pieces of furniture (not too seriously, except in the case of a cheesy little wheeled cart that came apart altogether) and generally didn't take as good care of our things as they should have. Movers, of course, are notorious for breaking things, and I know people who've had much more serious problems -- but nonetheless, we were not particularly happy with the job they did. I don't know if we're going to bother trying to make a damage claim -- probably not, because (a) we didn't have a very thorough inventory of our stuff, and (b) I signed off on the paperwork -- at 11:00 at night, when the movers wanted to get the heck out of here and we wanted the same thing! (What do they think you're going to do -- inspect each item as it comes off the truck? If we'd done that, they'd still be here!)

In any event, onward and upward. The stuff is here, we're going to get it sorted out, and another big item is checked off the to-do list.

Urb's Blog

Back on the East Coast

I am happy to report that Kafalas.com has arrived here in Providence, RI. We got here yesterday afternoon, after four days on the road and three nights smuggling Bix into Hampton Inns in Oklahoma City, Indianapolis, and Mechanicsburg, PA.

Thus ends our failed experiment of living in Flagstaff, AZ for seven years. I'm working on reactivating the Column™ and devoting a lengthy installment to an examination of why Flagstaff didn't work, but in the meantime, here's a shot of what Arizona looks like in the rearview mirror.

Urb's Blog