Thoughts from the air bed

It's very echo-y in here two nights before we move. The movers were here yesterday and today packing us up and driving off with all our stuff, so me and the shaggy gang are holed up in the upstairs bedroom with our survival gear while we wait to meet up with Leslie in Atlanta on Friday for our closing/moving day. Doggie disappointment abounds as we approach bedtime - they don't seem to agree that claws and airbeds don't mix, and they're committed to being spoiled bed dogs.

The biped in the room has a more balanced outlook. I do get to sleep on the air bed, but on the other hand I am at least a little sad to be leaving Greensboro. A brief list of things I think we'll both miss about this place:
- Our house. Actually, the house is just OK, but we really liked the yard. We put in a lot of work turning it from pretty much nothing into something that worked really great for us and the dogs. We hardly spent any money on it so it was worth it even though we didn't end up getting to use it for that long.
- The dog park. We haven't been to the one in Atlanta yet and I'm sure it's nice, but Greensboro's is a lot better than one would probably expect for a city this size and it's right near our house, so we went all the time.
- The North Carolina outdoors. Of course, Asheville is really the outdoor mecca around here, but Greensboro has more going for it than most people realize. There are multiple big lakes with an extensive trail system just five or ten minutes from here, and kayaking not far either. That was all really nice back when we had water.

But I'm more excited about moving. Here's what I'm looking forward to about Atlanta:
- The Big City. We haven't lived in one since Houston, which we left seven years ago now. Greensboro's tallest building is about 20 stories, and I'd say it's got just about everything a small city needs, but there's no doubt that a metropolis the size of Atlanta is going to have a lot more to do and see.
- Our new home. I really like our townhouse, and I think we'll be able to do something cool with the yard, even though fetching distances will be significantly shortened.
- Our neighborhood. East Atlanta Village is awesome, lots of funky little Asheville-type shops and restaurants. Since we're living so close to downtown, hopefully there will be plenty of fun gay people and fellow dog freaks around.
- Access to a Trader Joe's. Finally!
- The traffic. Hey, I'm going to be working at home and we live downtown anyway, so who cares?
- My job. I'm going to be continuing in my current job for the same money, but working from home as a freelancer. There are some trade-offs in terms of benefits and taxes, but on the other hand it should leave me time to try out some interesting other projects without quite so much financial pressure.
- Leslie's job. She's working really hard, but enjoying it a lot and doing incredibly well at it by all accounts. Good girl!

I'd be looking even more forward to it if we'd been able to sell this house. We've tried to be extremely conservative in buying this new place - figuring what we could afford even if we couldn't sell this place and for some reason rentals in Asheville dry up to zero, which thankfully hasn't happened. But man, the market here stinks! We had a lot of showings for a while and lots of positive feedback on the house, but no serious offers. So the current plan is to put it up for rent too, and see who can put somebody in it first. It might not be bad to rent it. Once this real estate mess works through there could be some good growth here - we're not far from the airport, and both FedEx and HondaJet are opening big operations there in the next couple of years - so as long as we can keep making all these different mortgage payments we'll come out ahead eventually!

OK, that's a wrap from North Carolina. See you in Georgia.