Stuff (by the ton)

[unixronin]

As in, "Our stuff."  The rest of it, which we retrieved from North Carolina over Thanksgiving with a U-Haul trailer.  We didn't think we'd actually be managing the trailer, because the Class 2 trailer hitch I ordered for the Intrepid was scheduled to arrive Friday, but in the event it showed up on Wednesday (the day we were planning to leave).  I found the manufacturer's claim of 45 minutes to 1 hour installation time to be optimistic, not least because the tailpipe gets in the way, and if you move the tailpipe you'll probably never get it back in place again after installing the hitch.  Installation actually took about two hours, including hammering out the back side of the spare tire well (damaged in a rear-end collision; the body shop didn't bother to repair it) and drilling two access holes.  (Clever weasel words: "Bolts entirely to pre-existing mounting holes".  They neglect to mention the need to cut two 1.5" holes in the trunk well to gain access to two of those holes, and do not supply rubber or metal hole plugs for said 1.5" holes.)  The hitch worked fine, although I'm convinced the retaining pin hole in the drawbar was drilled in the wrong place, and intend to have a machine shop re-drill it in the correct spot so the drawbar can actually go all the way into the receiver.  I'm not happy with how much the end of the drawbar sags under load because it's only inserted about 3" into the receiver instead of the 8" there's room for.)

Loot brought back includes the two inert 106mm recoilless-rifle rounds that have traditionally flanked our fireplace, a forgotten painting, several boxes of toys, several boxes of tools, several boxes of reloading supplies, the Gorilla racks, the missing bookcase, the black desk, the Shop-Vac, the steam vac, my sadlery tools in their Viking longbox, two large boxes of antique Japanese kimono, my furry winter hat, my trolley jack and axle stands, several large dry-food barrels (two of them still full of Basmati rice and elbow macaroni), and the center leaf for the dining-room table.

Still missing:  One of cymrullewes' sewing machines, the cover from the other (which was on it when first retrieved from where the out-laws had stored it), and our decorative cast-metal knnnnnnnnnnnnnniggits.  (I found their lances, but don't think the lances actually made it into the truck.  The knights themselves were nowhere to be found.)  Things that will never be seen again include our nice, stable christmas-tree stand that got run over with a tractor mower.  (Update:  cymrullewes reminds me that also on the missing list were our cast-iron griddle, our deep-frying oil jar, and my Singer sewing machine, making 2 out of 3 sewing machines "missing without explanation".  If memory serves, the one that could be found is the one that's broken.)

We didn't make it home until almost 2130E last night, much of the delay being bumper-to-bumper traffic on the northern end of the Garden State Parkway and on I-84 through much of Connecticut.  Surprisingly, we actually got the entire trailer unloaded by about 2315E.  (Most of the stuff from the trailer is staged in the garage for now, but that's OK.  Most of it needs cleaning anyway.)

We also retrieved our small safe, which was given to us sans combination.  We have no idea what's in it.  I foresee a safecracking invitational challenge in our future.

Comments

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

Your sewing machine was also missing in action. :-/

And the oil jug and my other iced tea jug (the one that actually had all of its decals.) The medium whiteboard that we were going to hang in the kitchen. The cast iron flat griddle that I used for cooking homemade tortilla on, the one we found under the porch in Tracy.

Having no luck whatsoever finding replacement knights right now. Ask Pam and Jason?

However, I did find Jambalaya (http://www.luzianne.com/template_buy_product.cfm?ID=53&). But they don't sell in NH and the stores in MA don't carry the dinners.

Ah ha! The Perugina is to be had at the Market Basket in Hudson! I knew I had seen it somewhere near by.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

At the time, I forgot the oil jar and tea jugs, though I was sure there was more missing stuff. And I totally forgot the cast-iron griddle. We could always call and ask what happened to the knights and the griddle.

Cajun Supermarket (http://www.cajunsupermarket.com/) carries all the Luzianne line. Oddly, though, it's almost a dollar cheaper to buy it from them via underbid.com (http://underbid.com/cgi-bin/underbid/underbid.cgi?action=searchme&KEYWORD=Luzianne) than it is to buy from them directly.

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

Well, those were the things I really wanted so I went looking. It wasn't until we got home and I took the lantern to the front steps that I realized we didn't have the knights anymore.

And the Singer did not have its cover on when we got to NC. It was on however when we left NC in 2004.

[ehintz.livejournal.com]

Heh. 'Tis always fun to get all the ol' stuff... Rediscovering ancient things...

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

Ah, but you see, that's part of the problem, it isn't all of the old stuff. Some irreplaceable things are missing.

[sierra-nevada.livejournal.com]

Matt Blaze (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Blaze) has been writing papers on locks and safes lately, and giving tutorials in safecracking to interested parties. Government safes are rated more or less in "time to crack" (i.e. there is no such thing as an uncrackable safe), and tamper-evident (how hard can you make it to hide cracking/tampering). Therefore, you augment with guards, monitoring, etc.

Commercial safe ratings, alas, tend to be more about marketing than truth.