PREVIOUSLY ON WRONGWAYFELDMAN.BLOGSPOT.COM
Rusty reduces hoarding to the micro scale. Julie soldiers on...
SO it's now the beginning of May, and still no word on when the RV is going to be delivered. I call and email the salesman, he tells me he'll have something definitive by mid-May. Julie says let's leave it up to the universe and all will be well. I take her advice and continue to prepare the house and stock the RV supplies cache. However I still lose sleep trying to figure out what to do if the RV fails to show up in time...
Julie continues to get up and cheerfully go for long walks in Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area with Whisky, go to work, and come home happy, damned if I can figure out how with everything in such disarray but I am grateful for it.
SO a little more on the process of decluttering and downsizing. As the days roll by I continue to sort through 50-odd years of accumulated stuff. All these years our life has continuously expanded, now it's contracting and at a much much MUCH faster rate...Some days I throw stuff out like crazy, other days I change my mind and put some of it back. I put off the garage day after day after day, I've been a DIY guy my entire life and the amount of tools and supplies seems overwhelming. Plus I have no idea what tools to keep on the RV and what to give away (we decided not to bother with selling anything, after all who wants a buncha cheapskates traipsing through your stuff "Willya take 50 cents (I know it's marked $15 and it cost $175 new but who are we kidding here...)?"
We decide to open a small storage space (5x5) in San Marcos near David and Michelle's place. Julie has a few boxes of books and other things she wants to keep for a future life, and I want to keep the Fillmore Poster Collection (there's like about a hundred, with maybe 20 or so framed) for god knows why but I do. I manage to find a place in San Bernardino that sells sweet special boxes to pack up and store the posters and I order them and get busy with that job.
As we go through the process we discover that "Goodwill" doesn't want any brown furniture, they already have warehouses full of it they can't even give away. We end up giving everything no one else wants (and there's A LOT OF IT) to the VVA as they come through the neighborhood once a month or if you want any Thursday you request, plus, they provide a nice large bag and pretty much take anything you put out even brown furniture. Maybe. I don't know for sure because we never actually tried it with them. At any rate our good friends Eddie and Christine take the wine cellar (which is appropriate because Eddie has helped me move that thing every single time we've moved it) and all the record albums (Vinyl, Baby!). David and Michelle take the antique marble top table that I was told my Great Grandmother Annie Jackson Whittemore brought Out West from North Carolina on a Conestoga in 19 and aught 8, but it turns out she bought it at a junk store in 1969 on South Santa Fe, anyway I've been carting that dumb thing around for 35 years. Rosa (our housekeeper for the last 12 years) agrees to take the bedroom set (all brown) (less the kingsize bed), the spare bed, the kitchen chairs, and the antique marble top chest (same origin story, same 35 years). Mac, a friend of Julie's at work, takes the tools and the appliances, of course when he comes to get the refrigerator the valve busts and leaves a pool of water on the kitchen floor (leaving Mac exasperated!). Peeling the onion right to the last. Julie's friend, Leisa, agrees to take the sofa (it's a custom made L shaped job 21 feet long with an obtuse angle designed to fit perfectly only in our living room so no one was interested for the longest time so I was getting a little worried about how we were getting it out of there) and finally the sofa's gone. Boy am I going to miss that sofa...
We contract with a mover to take the Player Piano to Bonnie and Bill's (Julie's brother and sister-in-law) in Chicago for $800, but when he shows up he's only got his 16-year-old son with him and that thing weighs a good 350-400 lbs easy. His loading ramps are two 2x12s and I'm late to the dentist. Fortunately my friend Dave has come to stay at the house one last time and he is able to help him get it loaded and safely on the way. By the way that thing is A W E S O M E !
IN THE MEANTIME back to another problem, looming ever larger as the days roll along, still nothing about the RV. Julie decides to take matters into her own hands since I am pretty much worthless at this point:
"I believe my husband got in touch with the general manager at the Fountain Valley location this morning. We've been working with Jeff in Internet Sales on a purchase made over 11 weeks ago when they told us the delivery date would be 5-10 weeks and we still don't have a date, let alone our RV.
The transaction has been very frustrating for us from the beginning (originally we ordered a custom Tiffin 2017, paid the deposit and the check cleared) then we were told we can't get the 2017 anymore we needed a 2018. We visited the Fountain Valley location again to clarify new options, asked about any price change and were told there wouldn't be any. Then once the order for the 2018 was placed we were told there was a $5K increase. We agreed to split the difference and we understand the General Manager agreed to it.
However, that's really the last we've heard other than statements that it's being built and that we'll get back to you soon. We are the ones that continually have to ask what the status is. We've been to countless RV shows in Pamona over the past 6 years and came to Mike Thompson because we've heard great things about them and we always enjoyed talking to the sales staff. We felt that you knew what you were doing.
This is supposed to be a very special time in our lives, I'm retiring in June, my husband and I have sold our home and we're planning on living in the RV for the next 5-10 years. Something we've dreamed about for 6 years and the entire experience is now leaving us feeling very defeated. We've been honest with everyone from the start and don't feel that we've asked for any special treatment.
I am not saying that Jeff hasn't been nice to us, it's just that we've lost faith in Mike Thompson and don't believe that the company is going to deliver anything that they promised.
Julie"
Is she the greatest or what? And lo and behold 10 minutes later we get a phone call from Mike Thompson himself, who puts us in touch with Brian at the Tiffin factory and the news is while not good at least not bad - week of June 6-13 it'll roll off the line, clear QC, and get delivered. We were hoping for early to mid May but clearly that's out the window, we wanted to put it in an indoor storage facility in Chatsworth that provides both electricity and room to open the slides, we figured to spend weekends slowly learning about it and getting it loaded up with all our worldly possessions...but this lifestyle is about nothing if not flexibility so we roll with the punches...
NEXT TIME ON WRONGWAYFELDMAN.BLOSPOT.COM
RV delivery day...
Rusty reduces hoarding to the micro scale. Julie soldiers on...
SO it's now the beginning of May, and still no word on when the RV is going to be delivered. I call and email the salesman, he tells me he'll have something definitive by mid-May. Julie says let's leave it up to the universe and all will be well. I take her advice and continue to prepare the house and stock the RV supplies cache. However I still lose sleep trying to figure out what to do if the RV fails to show up in time...
Julie continues to get up and cheerfully go for long walks in Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area with Whisky, go to work, and come home happy, damned if I can figure out how with everything in such disarray but I am grateful for it.
SO a little more on the process of decluttering and downsizing. As the days roll by I continue to sort through 50-odd years of accumulated stuff. All these years our life has continuously expanded, now it's contracting and at a much much MUCH faster rate...Some days I throw stuff out like crazy, other days I change my mind and put some of it back. I put off the garage day after day after day, I've been a DIY guy my entire life and the amount of tools and supplies seems overwhelming. Plus I have no idea what tools to keep on the RV and what to give away (we decided not to bother with selling anything, after all who wants a buncha cheapskates traipsing through your stuff "Willya take 50 cents (I know it's marked $15 and it cost $175 new but who are we kidding here...)?"
We decide to open a small storage space (5x5) in San Marcos near David and Michelle's place. Julie has a few boxes of books and other things she wants to keep for a future life, and I want to keep the Fillmore Poster Collection (there's like about a hundred, with maybe 20 or so framed) for god knows why but I do. I manage to find a place in San Bernardino that sells sweet special boxes to pack up and store the posters and I order them and get busy with that job.
As we go through the process we discover that "Goodwill" doesn't want any brown furniture, they already have warehouses full of it they can't even give away. We end up giving everything no one else wants (and there's A LOT OF IT) to the VVA as they come through the neighborhood once a month or if you want any Thursday you request, plus, they provide a nice large bag and pretty much take anything you put out even brown furniture. Maybe. I don't know for sure because we never actually tried it with them. At any rate our good friends Eddie and Christine take the wine cellar (which is appropriate because Eddie has helped me move that thing every single time we've moved it) and all the record albums (Vinyl, Baby!). David and Michelle take the antique marble top table that I was told my Great Grandmother Annie Jackson Whittemore brought Out West from North Carolina on a Conestoga in 19 and aught 8, but it turns out she bought it at a junk store in 1969 on South Santa Fe, anyway I've been carting that dumb thing around for 35 years. Rosa (our housekeeper for the last 12 years) agrees to take the bedroom set (all brown) (less the kingsize bed), the spare bed, the kitchen chairs, and the antique marble top chest (same origin story, same 35 years). Mac, a friend of Julie's at work, takes the tools and the appliances, of course when he comes to get the refrigerator the valve busts and leaves a pool of water on the kitchen floor (leaving Mac exasperated!). Peeling the onion right to the last. Julie's friend, Leisa, agrees to take the sofa (it's a custom made L shaped job 21 feet long with an obtuse angle designed to fit perfectly only in our living room so no one was interested for the longest time so I was getting a little worried about how we were getting it out of there) and finally the sofa's gone. Boy am I going to miss that sofa...
"I believe my husband got in touch with the general manager at the Fountain Valley location this morning. We've been working with Jeff in Internet Sales on a purchase made over 11 weeks ago when they told us the delivery date would be 5-10 weeks and we still don't have a date, let alone our RV.
The transaction has been very frustrating for us from the beginning (originally we ordered a custom Tiffin 2017, paid the deposit and the check cleared) then we were told we can't get the 2017 anymore we needed a 2018. We visited the Fountain Valley location again to clarify new options, asked about any price change and were told there wouldn't be any. Then once the order for the 2018 was placed we were told there was a $5K increase. We agreed to split the difference and we understand the General Manager agreed to it.
However, that's really the last we've heard other than statements that it's being built and that we'll get back to you soon. We are the ones that continually have to ask what the status is. We've been to countless RV shows in Pamona over the past 6 years and came to Mike Thompson because we've heard great things about them and we always enjoyed talking to the sales staff. We felt that you knew what you were doing.
This is supposed to be a very special time in our lives, I'm retiring in June, my husband and I have sold our home and we're planning on living in the RV for the next 5-10 years. Something we've dreamed about for 6 years and the entire experience is now leaving us feeling very defeated. We've been honest with everyone from the start and don't feel that we've asked for any special treatment.
I am not saying that Jeff hasn't been nice to us, it's just that we've lost faith in Mike Thompson and don't believe that the company is going to deliver anything that they promised.
Julie"
Is she the greatest or what? And lo and behold 10 minutes later we get a phone call from Mike Thompson himself, who puts us in touch with Brian at the Tiffin factory and the news is while not good at least not bad - week of June 6-13 it'll roll off the line, clear QC, and get delivered. We were hoping for early to mid May but clearly that's out the window, we wanted to put it in an indoor storage facility in Chatsworth that provides both electricity and room to open the slides, we figured to spend weekends slowly learning about it and getting it loaded up with all our worldly possessions...but this lifestyle is about nothing if not flexibility so we roll with the punches...
NEXT TIME ON WRONGWAYFELDMAN.BLOSPOT.COM
RV delivery day...
I'll call David about the marble top table. It belonged to Grandmother Whittemore's mother, handmade in probably mid 1800's and was in my house growing up, then my house, then yours and you had the top secured. It's a very common table in North Carolina although most of them are much smaller. Thee marble top chest you gave to the maid was the one GMW bought in Littleton for $50.
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