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Tuesday, October 9, 2007 - 11:14PM

October lightning and NC move update

By DAN ROBINSON

Editor/Photographer

I ended the two-month 'chase drought' today with some storms in southern Kanawha County, finally getting a few fall foliage/lightning shots. Some more video grabs and a short clip can be found on the chase log.

The Raleigh move: junk disposal
Today I completed the first stage of the moving process, that is, throwing away everything that I did not want to have to eventually move. After helping some friends and family move this summer, my standards are much higher regarding what items are worthy to keep. So over the past two weeks, I have been very aggressive and unforgiving about what should go and what was allowed to stay. I estimate that the total weight of all things discarded was well over a ton. 90 percent of the items stored in my basement are in, or headed for, the city landfill. In fact, last week the city's refuse truck (the one that picks up the old furniture, appliances, etc rather than the raw garbage) was not big enough to carry all of the things I had piled on the curb, and they had to call a second one. It is hard to believe that there was that much in my house, accumulated over 9 years, that I considered junk. It never seemed that way until I started really examining what was there in the light of having to move it all to North Carolina. Things like a big box of labels - labels I have not used in years. To me, chucking that thing out to the street is worth having to go to Wal-Mart and spend $2 to get some more labels if there ever comes a time that I ever need a label again. That's two bucks to not have to move and store that box ever again - that is a good deal to me. To me, simplicity, time and space are just as valuable as money - particularly when it comes to an apartment. That logic was applied to everything in my house, with the result that anything that had no historical, sentimental, immediate-use or eBay-able value is gone.

The next hurdle will be getting my house in marketable condition. There are not many things to be done, but they could end up being expensive nonetheless. I do have a prospect for the sale of the house that is being prayed about heavily at the moment.

On to the business front of the moving project. My company has decided to wait until January to commit to having me move permanently to the Raleigh area, which means I may be spending at least half of the winter in Charleston. If the house sells before then, I'll be out of here as soon as I can get a truck rented and an apartment lease signed. In the meantime, I'll be content to stay here for the winter if I have to, enjoying the snow and ice and all of the newsworthy weather coverage opportunities that it provides.