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In Longview texas

Once again it's late and we haven't have much time to blog. Also driving thru parts of the south we lost broad band and only had regular painfully slow internet access. Long trip short, we drove about 750 miles and made it to longview texas. About 120 miles from dallas on RT 20. These picts are not from todays trip but from our ride to ATL and our departure tomorrow. More pictures to follow tomorrow. and maybe another link later tonight.

Above pict is of a steep @$$ runaway truck ramp somewhere in carolina's or virginia.




Big @$$ peach entering GA














Mom and Dad Hicks waving good bye this morning.

Time to up load some more photos.

Broad Band from the road

Hey all, we're just about 20 miles outside of Tuscaloosa AL and up and running on verizons broad band internet connection via a blackberry pearl. Haven't had too much time to blog yet, so we'll start with some catch up. Here's are some picts from Xmas. Started at my parents place in Lenox MA. Had a great time! Left on 12/23 for a 2 day drive to Jenn's parents in Atlanta GA. Met her parents for the first time. They are great! and we had a fantastic low key christmas. Just want we were looking for.

So far we've taken about 300 pictures. We'll get those uploaded soon and post the link. Until then here are a few from Christmas.

Meaney family photo. Notice the 2007 Scrabble champ in the middle :-)

Justin opening his first gift.

Lot's of wrapping paper

Jamie and Jeff dueling cameras
Mmmm beer....

Petey the "wonder" dog.

The Hicks family

On the road to SLO

Update for Roanoke VA. Stopped here at a holiday inn express after driving 630 miles today. 415 miles to Atlanta. Not sure what amazing thing we'll pull off by sleeping at a holiday inn express, but whatever it is I am sure it will be cool. Stay tuned...

Now a recap of the past few days.
Movers suck, had to ship most of my stuff to SLO. Here's a pict of the last 3 boxes to be shipped and a packed car ready for the trip.
Spent 2 days at Home in Lenox. Had a great time. Lot's of presents exchanged, good food, and of course watched "It's a wonderful life".

A link to more pictures will be posted someday. On our way out of town, Jenn and I stopped in to visit the Sullivan family. Always a fun and educational time. Today we learn that if you boil a sealed can of condensed milk for 3 hours, it's doesn't violently explode like one would think. Rather it turns the milk into caramel. Alchemy at it's best! Don't believe me? he's the picture proof.



Now it's 12:05am and we're off to book Jenn's flights from SLO to Seattle and then to Boston. Jenn will be heading to Seattle to interview at the University of Washington for their Nurse Practitioner program (#1 program in the country!). Mostly it's time to sleep. Keep checking in, more to come!

Moving update

Haven't had much time to post recently. Few things going on...

First the car accident. Don't want to go in to it but everyone was fine, all it takes a lot of money and about two weeks and we're back to normal...


Moving stuff back to Lenox. Wasn't the orignal plan, but turns out the movers couldn't really commit to when they would pick my stuff up or drop it off. Honestly, cable companies give you a tighter window of when they'll be there.

Wouldn't be the holidays with out a redneck christmas party with a visit by cuffy claus.

















Then of course the snow came. In most places, snow fall is usually a sign of fun times to come. Skiing, sledding, peaceful snow covered landscape. In Boston, snow fall sucks @$$. People forget how to drive. There's nowhere to put the stuff, and city plows and @$$hole neighbors pile snow on your car rather than covering up the snow that's already in their yard. Here are before and after picts of Jenn's car after 2 storms. More snow to come wednesday!

















This wasn't so much about the move. Prety much just about all the fun we're having getting ready for the move. This friday around noon Jenn and I are taking off for Lenox, then to Atlanta, then out west. With anyluck we'll have internet access from the car and will be blogging as we drive.

Merry Christmas!!!

Here it is. My apt in SLO. Wanna see more pictures? Sure you do, just follow this link. http://picasaweb.google.com/todd.meaney/SLOApartment

Last few days have been busy looking at apts and getting back to boston. Signed my lease around 3:15 on monday. Got a call from united around 3:30 saying that my flight had been cancelled and I was rebooked for an early flight tuesday. Not good. Then they called 60 seconds later tell me that there was a plane leaving in 40min and asked if I could make it. Lucky for me, SLO is small and my office is about 2 miles form the airport. 30 min had passed between the time I talked to united to when I was on the plane. 10 mile later we were off to a 5 hour layover in san fransico (at least I got to watch the Pats game).

Long story short apt hunting was not much fun. Very happy with my place though. It's 1.4 miles from work and 1.8 from all the bars. I did see one other place that was pretty nice. 100 yard fro mthe beach with a great view of the ocean and not to meantion this guy.

The apt was located on the enterence to hte sand dunes, so ATV, 4x4, and dune buggy traffic run 24/7 and get's really bad during the summer.

Now just need to pack, party, and head out west...

SLO moving, scouting trip day 2

Slo today was the first real day of apt scouting. Ended up going to 5 places. The first place was interesting at best. He said it used to be a garage, I would say by the smell it was a chicken coop. It did have a lot of interesting features, but none of them remotely usable as living space. What does that really mean? It means if for some crazy reason I was drunk I would proably die from trying to navigate all the "interesting" features. Also I find it odd that I have to pass thru a walk in closet to get to the stand up shower thing. I just don't know enough words to continue describing this so I'll just say it was like a 6 year old MC Escher had designed a chicken coop in Visio and some how it actaully got made. At least he wanted a lot of money for it. I don't have a pict, but here's a good drawing. Just imagine all the creepy faceless people aren't there.

The next place actually wasn't too bad. For those newporters out there, think east bay village, but reasonably priced and none of the crazy management. 3rd place was also nice, maybe I'll live there. 4th place was nice but really expensive. It seems prices here aren't really based on location of how nice they are. Price is mostly based on how delusional the owner is what they think the place is worth. Yes, the paint is nice, but not $200/month nice. The fumes, though nice, are not worth giving up beer for.

Dinner tonight was at the only brewey in town. Excellent beer and burger. Even got a tip on a place to live very close to work. A bit more than I was to spend, but it does have a washer, dryer, fireplace, and small airport. I know what you're thinking. Having you own small airport would be great. And it would be except it's only serviced by American Airlines and Southwest. It will be a cold day in SLO before I ever ride those airlines again.

Beer of the night is a porter from Anchor Steam (san fran) and a porter from Firestone (Paso Robles). Drinking the anchor now, very good stuff.

The plan for tomorrow is to check out some apts in the beach communities. Not down town SLO, but on the water and very quiet.

Oh yeah, the flight out. Not bad for free. Bad head winds, took over 7 hours from boston to san fran. So they played two movies. The second, "Shooter" was pretty good, hot chick, lots of action (but if you ask Jenn it was two hours of marky mark). The first movie "No resevations" was a total tear jerking chick flick. I didn't want to watch, but what could I do??? I mean who writes this stuff? Who really thinks it's fun to be emotioinally tortured for 2 hours? Honestly, I think my breast were swollen and sore when the movie was over. Though I find this odd, I am starting to get an idea of why so many male flight attendants turn gay (not that there's anything wrong with that).