tardis_tara

Sorry I haven't updated my LiveJournal entries lately.  Things been a little bit nuts here.

Our current rental house in Taos requires that we be out by the 25th of this month.

Our new rental house is in Denver, six to eight hours by car depending on what you're driving (a Subaru Outback pulling the TARDIS in it's trailer is an eight hour drive)

Why Denver?  Well, Taos is a little too technologically backward for us to really be comfortable.

Denver's pretty tech savvy, it's about the same temp as Taos and has limited allergies.

Add to that an airport that's less than three hours away, and we have a winner!

We took a load of stuff from the current house up about three weeks ago and put it in storage.  We spent a frantic week looking at houses.

Nothing.

We came back and dropped everything for a totally insane last minute trip to the UK.  

Yes, yes, yes, but when am I going to get another chance to see Tom Baker?  I have the autographs of Doctors Two through Eight, only missing Four; it was a moral imperative.

We got back from the UK, where we got Tom Baker's autograph, had a great time, ate a lot of pasties and got addicted to hand pulled noodles, got off the plane, drove back up to Taos and had to drop everything to head back to Denver.

Two days of absolute depression followed.  No house for you.  :(

That catches you up to yesterday, where, at the absolutely last minute, we signed on a house rental in Broomfield, which is a suburb between Denver and Boulder.

The house looks kinda/sorta like the Brady Bunch house, only without the second level.  It does have a basement.  And twenty foot high ceilings in the living room, so the TARDIS will once more be in our living room, freaking out our cats and neighbors.

The DH leaves tomorrow for a trade show in Memphis.  He will return on the 22nd when we will rent the second U-Haul and be out of here by the 25th as promised.

Now if we can only get the current renters out of our new house before April 1st. . .. 

After receiving fantastic driving directions from my Sister, we set off on deserted streets at 7am.

We got to the Airport Mariott in quick order (OK, so it took 45 minutes-- that's not bad for L.A.).

While my DH circled the front entrance I ran in and received instructions to park in the back loading dock.

We found the back entrance, backed down the loading ramp and started hauling pieces of TARDIS to the designated set-up spot.

I also received permission to draft as many warm bodies to help lug as I could.

I went out to the lobby and made a general announcement.  Within seconds I had five helpers.

Oh, and Michelf from Ravelry found me and brought her moving dolly.  Bless that woman.

Within an hour, we had all the major pieces in the set up spot.  Let me tell you how disturbing it is to see a TARDIS spread around the room like a carcass being divided into cuts.  Very disturbing.

After another thirty minutes of scrambling, we had the basic box assembled.  I climbed a ladder and started assembling the wiring, the Mac Mini, lights and signage.

People walked by and gaped.

Finally, after two hours of frantic work, we had the TARDIS up, lit and making noise.  But the promised Wi-Fi was very absent.

I went after the Con Staff who said someone would be along presently to tell me what the access was.

After another hour, a uniformed Hotel staff member came by asked if I was the person who wanted the Wi-Fi access key.

Of course, I said 'yes'. (You’re sitting at a table with a computer. A man comes up and asks if you were the one who wanted wi-fi. What do you answer? Why, yes of course. Thank you!) I entered the code and my PowerBook had web access.   But I couldn't log in the TARDIS.  And my DH couldn't use the key either.

Apparently, the Hotel thought I was con staff and gave me an access key they shouldn’t have and when I used it, I screwed up the arrangement with the hotel and the con staff. 

Sigh.

So, while the Con and Hotel staff wrangled, people started showing up and wigging out over the TARDIS.

Hundreds had their pictures taken with it.  Cosplayers started showing up in droves.  At one point we had ten guys, each dressed up as a different incarnation of the Doctor, arranged in front of it.  Then we had a whole gaggle of Companions.

It was crazed.  My TARDIS has a real Yale lock in the front and back doors.  This means that anytime the doors are closed, they're locked.  I had one key, my DH had another.  We'd wait until the person posing in front of the TARDIS was just about to say 'I wish they'd let you inside it' and then step up and dangle the key in front of them.

The look on each person's face as they realized they could get into the TARDIS was amazing.  Easily worth the eighteen hour drive.

At one point while I was out getting autographs for my collection, the DH was watching the TARDIS and this gal walked by in the hall outside.  She did the classic double take, screamed, ran at the TARDIS and lept onto it ala Captain Jack in Utopia.   He was too shocked to get pictures.  He did say that that had been worth eight hours of driving right there.

Uncle Lew (a fellow TARDIS Re-builder) showed up and asked if he could interview the DH and myself.  I said sure.  Here it is--

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFWby6fjJKg

Not a bad way to spend your 41st birthday.  :)

The next morning we drove from Phoenix to Los Angeles.

A very nice, straight shot.  Some crappy roads as we got to California, but nothing we couldn't deal with.

We were in pretty good spirits as we got closer to my Sister's house in the L.A. hills.

I had forgotten how people build in L.A. . . .

We very quickly became tired and frustrated.  The GPS on my darling iPhone stopped working the moment we got off a main road.  The roads twisted and twined and dead ended with very little warning.

We just could not find my Sister's address.

After the third turn around, in which my DH ground the trailer hitch over the hook-up for the lights on the trailer, I took over driving.  My DH is a great driver on the long straight and narrow.  I was used to driving a 30ft gooseneck trailer full of horses and tack.   I can put a 12 foot trailer just about anywhere.

Which turned out to be a great thing, as we found my Sister's house and had to parallel park it on the street out in front.

Whew.

Set up was for 8am the next morning.

We had a great dinner with my Sister and called it a night.

 Hi!  I'm TARDIS-Tara and this is my new LiveJournal spot.

I hope to chronicle the travels of my traveling Police Box.

Right now, it's in it's trailer parked out next to my garage awaiting the eminent move to Colorado.

I will post details of it's most recent outing at Gallifrey One very shortly.