Last Drinks

We had our leaving drinks on Friday the 12th of March, 2 days prior to leaving Perth. To our delight heaps of people rocked up and we managed to pack out the back section of the Grapeskin Wine Bar. Jen and I would like to extend our thanks to everyone that managed to make it; we really appreciate your support. You can check out a whole stack of photos from the night on the flickr page.

The List

For the couple of weeks prior to leaving Perth, Jen and I had HEAPS of stuff to do. To manage everything we generated 'the list'. We started working through it about 3 weeks before we left and slowly worked our way through it.

Some of the list's, err, 'highlights' included taking Miss Sassy Pants to the vet, organising and holding the garage sale, Jenni having to get her wisdom teeth pulled, acquiring a storage shed, taking a couple of scooter lessons and attending various leaving drinks and lunches.

By progressively working through the list, we managed to do all of the things that we needed to do to enable us to set off on our trip without forgetting anything.

Exodus

The day after the garage sale saw Jenni and I moving out of our place in Maylands and into my parents place. This would serve as our temporary home while we would tie up all of our loose ends and make sure that Miss Sassy Pants would be settled into what would be her new home for the duration of our time spent overseas.

Like the previous morning of the garage sale, the day started early as Stewart and Jenni's Mum rocked up around 8:30am to help us move. Stewart and I picked up the removal truck around 9am. Stewart was handed the keys so he could utilize his vehicular prowess to be the driver for the day. Shortly after Stewart and I got back, my parents and my brother rocked up to lend us a hand. The rest of the morning involved getting the truck loaded up with all of our worldly possessions. The stuff we managed to sell at the garage sell on the previous day considerably cut down the amount of things that we needed to move.

By noon, pretty much all of our gear was in the truck and Stewart and my dad set off to drop it off at my parents house. In the meantime, Jenni and I gathered up the last few bits and bobs, grabbed Miss Sassy Pants by the scruff of the neck and put her in the car to take her to her new home.

The drive from Maylands to my parents place with Miss Sassy Pants in the car was... eventful. She cried the whole time and was absolutely petrified going through the Graham Farmer Tunnel. The poor thing started making horrible howling and screeching noises because she was so scared. Once out of the tunnel, she calmed down a little bit, but still cried the rest of the journey.

We had Chicken Treat for lunch, but was informed at the drive through that they had run out of chickens..... seriously.... what the hell Chicken Treat!?! Run out of chickens!?! Chicken is in your bloody name! How can you run out of something that is in your name! Anyway, we had to all settle for chicken rolls (we are rather suspicious of these because if they claim they have run out of chicken, then what the hell is in their chicken rolls.....)

Anyway, the rest of the day was spent unpacking, delivering a BBQ to Chiddo who bought it off us at the garage sale, getting denied entry to Niche bar because I was wearing sneakers, attending Chiddo's surprise birthday party and trying to get Miss Sassy Pants to come out from under the couch in the family room to be a bit more sociable.

Jenni and Michael's CrAzZzzzZy Sale!!! - Part 2

The morning of the garage sale found us frantically trying to move most of our wordly possessions into the backyard before the first of the scavengers arrived. Michael had not even put out the signs before the first guy rocked up - 45mins before opening time... He was about to walk away with a colour printer, an old iPod and a portable radio for $23, and still tried to swindle us out of $2! Either that or his mental maths was even worse than mine - but even I know that $15 + $8 is not $21!

There were some other interesting sales, like the other Jen who bought all the pots and pans, the Kiwi lady who was very chuffed with her 'new' red bike for $10 (the tyres were flat so I threw in the bike pump for free) and the group of young guys who bought pretty much everything else from the kithen as well as my green wastepaper basket that included chewing gum stuck to the bottom. We (by we I mean Michael and his Dad), also conducted a home delivery service, with a bookshelf and chest of drawers being carried down the road to 2 different houses in the 40 degree heat.

Anyway- a combination of Michael's ingenious signs, flyer drops and gumtree resulted in a steady stream of customers right up until closing time. If it wasn't for Michael's parents giving us a hand we would have been seriously under-staffed.

We managed to sell nearly everything ($500 Kaching!), and what was left over fitted nicely into a trailer which we then took to Good Sammys on Monday.

That was after the big move on Sunday of course, but that is for the next instalment...

Jenni and Michael's CrAzZzzzZy Sale!!! - Part 1

Part of our grand plan has been to cut down on the amount of stuff that we want to put in long term storage while we are away. Rather than just chucking out all of our unwanted possessions, we figured we might as well try and make a dollar or two by holding a good old garage sale.

Over the past week I have utilized what little artistic merit has been bestowed upon me to knock up a dodgy flyer and have spent a couple of evenings, walking around the suburb of Maylands and stuffing them into people's letter boxes. I had a bit of success selling my TV on Gumtree, so I also posted an ad there too.

The last couple of nights of the week were spent gathering all of the items that we were looking to sell in the main room, right next to the back door, ready to be shifted out early Saturday morning, before people would arrive. (You can see some photos of the 'stock room' on the Flickr page)

Stay tuned for Part 2 to find out how much (or little) we managed to sell!

So Long And Thanks For All The Fish

Jenni and I are now officially unemployed! The final week at work was a busy one for the both of us, tying up loose ends and handing over work.

The leaving lunch at the Moon and Sixpence started off as a bit of a debarcle due to the establishment misplacing my booking, but they managed to pull through and accomodate about 25 of us.

Both of us were treated to very kind words from our respective managers and directors at goodbye speeches and were wished well by many people. Once again, Jenni and I woud like to extend our thanks to all of the people we worked with over the past few years at Rio and Proteus . You will be sorely missed!

We took a couple of snapshots of our goodbye cards. Cheers to everyone that contributed, the kind words mean a lot to the both of us.

Times a Tickin'

Jen and I will be officially unemployed in a couple of days!

Everything is full steam ahead at this stage organizing things like last minute visas, selling stuff we cannot keep, moving out of the house, booking the first few nights of accommodation in Japan and all sorts of other things.

We are definitely looking forward to having a bit of a breather after we move out on the weekend.

For anyone who has missed out on the Facebook invite or hasn't heard through the grapevine, we are having leaving drinks at the Grapeskin Wine Bar (the wine bar in the Brass Monkey) from 7pm onwards on Friday the 12th of March, 2 days before we take off.