Manual labor in the heat. Funsies!
The big activity for the day: rent a van from U-Haul, load it up with a bunch of stuff from the storage locker (juggling a bunch of other stuff out of the way, in order to do so), bring it home, unload it into the cargo pod, and return the van.
Most of this went smoothly enough, aside from the whole manual labor in the heat thing, which was exhausting. Making a goodly dent in the storage-locker contents (rather less than a full van-load, and nowhere near the capacity of the cargo pod, but I did get a significant amount of floor space cleared) went fairly quickly. Some things ended up in the garage, rather than the pod, because (1) they need repacking for one reason or another, or (2) they need sealing, and I need to buy more packing tape.
Returning the van involved a detour; right about 1500, 101 southbound started getting slow, and just before Great America Parkway I caught up with parking-lot conditions, as various twinkle-trucks went by (hmmm, "AIRBAGS DEPLOYED/ 1 VEH WENT AIRBORNE / LANDED ON TOP OF ANOTHER CAR"). Fortunately I could take the exit there (already being in the right lane, because I really didn't like making lane changes in that van) and take Scott to San Thomas, which was where I needed to be.
I must have been doing a lot of lifting with my legs, not my back, because now my hips are sore.
Still need to do that at least one more time, probably Monday. Most of the Monday stuff will be lighter. Heavy stuff goes on the bottom of the pod; light & fluffy stuff can be stacked on top. Maybe with a kayak on top of everything; I still need to determine whether the kayak will fit in diagonally. And then try to arrange the lower layers so it's not resting on anything overly crushable.
Hey, we may yet accomplish the move with two pods and a lot of work, rather than one pod, one moving van, and ¾ of a lot of work. But I'm kind of worried about weight limits, especially with all the boxes of books.
Additional: Coupla notes for next time. Total distance was 27 miles, and the 9' cargo van had a low ceiling, which was not so great for moving heavy stuff around in the further reaches. A 10' truck would cost more per mile, but maybe has a higher ceiling?
Next trip, I'll be fetching a few more heavy items, plus a whole bunch of light, fluffy stuff that can be stacked on top without pushing the weight limit. I'm thinking there'll be a third trip, after this pod ships out, to empty the storage locker (putting the contents in the garage, which after I'm done packing this pod will be nearly empty); then we can decide whether to use a second pod or a moving van for the remaining stuff.
And, somewhere in all this, my Sawzall seems to have disappeared. I assume it'll turn up late in the process, as things get moved out of the way.
On today's agenda: buy packing tape and some additional plastic sturdy-bins (some for additional stuff; one to replace one that had just a little too much stuff piled on top of it in storage); do laundry; work on the ToasterCo project. No heavy lifting for a while.
But wait, there's more: The pod (or, more to the point, its transport) has a weight limit, so if I have the proverbial forty-two boxes, all carefully packed, I need to make sure they average less than 100 pounds per.
However... does weight distribution matter? I started out piling up the heavy stuff at the end opposite the door - architecturally the back, but in transport, is that the front? I know single-axle trailers are supposed to be loaded with the weight somewhat forward, so as not to lift the back axle of the tow vehicle, and airplanes are a lot less dangerous nose-heavy than tail-heavy, but what about whatever the pod rides on, not to mention the pod-picker-upper? Anyway, I put some heavy piles at the front, too, and I'm leaving some room amidships for the last-minute heavy items.
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