the final countdown

Well, we decided against the last stoop sale today and instead focused on making lists, fine-tuning our inventory, and doing laundry. We are now all packed and ready to go. I laid out everything on a card table and checked every item of the list. My bag's not crazy heavy, but I am surprised by how much socks and underwear weigh.

We won't be carrying these packs around too, too much (except in Chicago). As New Yorkers, we figure we can suss out the Chicago transit system on foot and survive there autoless for 23-hours. We even decided to rent a car in New Orleans after we discovered that the car cost only $1 more than a one-way cab ride from the airport. It's going to be nice to drive again. But our first two cars in New Orleans and Los Angeles are just warm-ups for our big Las Vegas to Grand Canyon road trip.

Now we eat, then we sleep, tomorrow we ride...

the last 24 hours

It's a big night in Prospect Heights, perhaps the biggest of the year. Tomorrow is the West Indian-American Day Parade which means that tonight is J'Ouvert (joo-VAY). J'Ouvert is the non-stop party that begins around 3am on Labor Day and goes until the parade's end around 6pm. The noise from the street below our apartment has died down considerably as most of the revelers have made their way over to the parade route on Eastern Parkway. A close friend and former neighbor of ours (who now lives in Toronto) arrived at our place about an hour after Deb's sisters had headed out of town. The three of us had dinner, then we stayed up talking and laughing until he went off into the wilds of Brooklyn for the borough's annual night of unmatched revelry.

Deb and I leave in just over 24 hours so we're staying in. She's exhausted from a weekend of stoop sales, bridal showers, and out-of-town visitors (to be fair, there was only one bridal shower, but since she also helped organize it, I'm counting it as two). I'm up typing because I haven't written an entry today and because I am still too excited to sleep. We have a lot to do tomorrow, but nothing that's make or break: little things, nuances of other, already completed things, plus laundry, and one final stoop sale. Perhaps people will stop at our stoop sale tomorrow because they saw us on the TV:

http://www.ny1.com/content/ny1_living/travel/?r=9609797426

labored day

Another stoop sale, another day closer to lift-off; less successful than last week, but it is Labor Day weekend and maybe people bought all the good stuff last week. I have no idea what people want to buy and I'm still stunned that no one wants to buy a Pink Floyd album for $5. I tried to buy an album on itunes once and they wanted twice that. Some people look at me like I'm trying to sell them 8-tracks or 78s. Am I the last person in America who isn't illegally downloading music off the internet?

I thought about lowering the price to $4, but I'm not sure that's the problem. Plus, I already sell them for $4 to anyone who asks. So if I price them at $4, I'll only get $3. Maybe I should have taken economics in college. Or maybe I should have done what my good friend Justin did and sold my cd collection in 2005. One thing is certain, however, this travel blog has had far too many entries about the psychological subtleties of stoop sales.

second city of angels

Two of Deb's sisters have arrived from down south; the bride-to-be & the maid-of-honor-to-be. My stacks of uploaded/to be uploaded/and don't want to upload cds have been squirreled away until tomorrow's stoop sale and in its place—a three-woman, clockwork, assembly-line producing tiny gift boxes for this weekend's bridal shower. Pink flowers, pink-pattered wrapping paper, and pink ribbons all working together toward a common goal.

I've been asking my facebook friends for recommendations of stuff to do in a couple of the cities we'll be visiting next week: Chicago and Los Angeles. I received a lots of great responses about the Second City: Navy Pier, architecture tours, Nick's Bar and Italian Restaurant, a jazz club called the Green Mill, a pizza place called Dijiordanos, and the Art Institute of Chicago. The responses for the City of Angels were less than enthusiastic, only a couple suggestions including: botox, the Getty Museum, and driving around. I like the driving around tip the best. Maybe we could head to Van Nuys and visit the place of my birth. Or maybe not.

we must, we must increase our blog

I have been trying to write at least one blog entry per day. And although I didn't write a post yesterday, that is quite alright because nothing really interesting happened. Today we have more exciting plans: laundry, dishes, mail sorting, cleaning, and organizing more items for tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow's stoop sales.

I expect that once we leave our apartment for JFK and actually start traveling, that this travel blog is going to start really getting good. So get ready for that. Until then, please enjoy more tidbits of homestead goings-on and my meandering philosophical musings.

abbreviated sale

Our brief stoop sale only lasted three hours but it netted us exactly $100. At this point every drip helps fill the bucket and even if we'd made $50, it would've been well worth our time. I'd been worried that our weekend stoop sale would be ill-attended since the city really clears our on Memorial and Labor Day weekends. What I failed to take into account, however, is that the city's biggest Labor Day parade, the West Indian-American Day Parade, ends only a few blocks away. So hopefully we'll get some happy, slightly tipsy post-parade foot traffic and plenty of nice folks just itching to buy my old cds.

$5 stamp

Deb and I have been going over our finances trying to figure out exactly how much money we're working with for this trip. We are definitely going to have to remain staunchly frugal, but I think the entire journey is within reach. Hopefully, our next few stoop sales can bring in a couple hundred bucks and give us a little breathing room. This weekend is Labor Day weekend and NYC is notoriously empty that weekend. So while we're certainly going to hold a couple more stoop sales, we can't rely on them being as profitable as our previous days.

To whit... I would like to remind any and all readers of this blog about our Donate button. It is a magical device by which your money can become our money with the touch of a button. Truly a marvel of modern technology. If you are so inclined, please give whatever you'd like. And lest I be accused of socialism, I renew my pledge to send a personalized postcard to anyone who donates $5 or more.

My hope is that recipients of the postcards will scan or photograph them so they can be linked to this blog somehow. I'm certain that's not too hard to do. I like sending postcards almost as much as I enjoy receiving them. They are an old school communication device, a throwback to simpler times when a postcard was a window into its point of origin. I remember getting one as a kid from my friend when his family took an epic road trip to the Grand Canyon and marveling at the photo on the front. Today we have Google image search and don't require postcards to provide such a window.

But I still find postcards a joy to receive; especially these days when the electronic nature of all personal communication has reduced most of the post to bills or ads. Emails, voicemails, texts, and IMs are invaluable for getting information to their destinations instantaneously, but a postcard is pretty and you can put it on the fridge.