What I say

I have helped my older brother move a number of times in my life. It was always an in town move, accomplished with a number of trips in his car which we were experts at packing. We'd curse at the heavy objects as we maneuvered them up stairs and through door ways, but it was all good natured and we bore no ill will toward any of his furniture. When we were done, it usually took no more than 4 or 5 hours, he'd treat me to dinner and we'd eat hamburgers and reflect, happily, that the task was done and done well. I didn't mind moving in the least.

But then, then he asked, no, wait, I offered to help him move to Hillsboro, OR (a suburb of Portland) where he was starting a job with Intel. He originally asked my other brother to help him but I insisted that I would "love to do it" and the job was mine. I was looking forward to it despite the 9 hour bus ride from Williams Lake to Vancouver, despite the loading and unloading of the moving truck and despite the drive from Vancouver to Portland which goes through downtown Seattle, where basic principals of traffic, space and time meet in a scary and illogical maelstrom.

The plan was very straightforward. I would bus down to Vancouver on Monday. On Tuesday morning we would pick up the UHaul truck (which had been reserved weeks in advance), pack it up and head for Hillsboro with me driving my brother's car and him piloting the moving van. There weren't too many details to take care of. Jess had to get a visa at the US border crossing and he had to deposit money into his Washington Mutual account so he could give cheques to the leasing office. After that it was minor details, returning the moving van, showing picture ID at a Verizon storefront to activate his phone and internet account (the initial steps had been done online well in advance). Then we would relax by his pool for a day or so and figure out how to get me back to Vancouver on Friday. Easy stuff, more of a vacation than a moving job. Well, in theory.

Monday

Monday went better than any other day of the move, probably because there were so few things that could have gone wrong. I caught the bus down to Vancouver and Jess picked me up at the bus depot. The only glitch on the radar was that UHaul hadn't called, as they said they would, to confirm the reservation and explain where and when to pick up the truck. No big deal, I figured this was the busiest time of year for UHaul and they probably didn't get a chance to contact people regarding their reservations.

Tuesday

My brother phones UHaul and the reservation is indeed in order. We pick up the truck and drive it back to his place. We start loading the truck. Because he was crossing into the US, Jess had to take inventory of everything that was going into the truck. This was what the US Customs web site had said to do if you were moving to the states. It was a pain because we had to be sure whatever we loaded was on the inventory list. Slowly but surely we filled up the truck with all of the contents of the house. Thankfully there weren't too many heavy things, but the fold-out couch and one large cabinet were painful behemoths. Now, Jess' girlfriend and son were going to be moving to Delta to live with Uncle Jed. They had a carload of stuff to take with them as well as a dishwasher. Jess had told me that Jed was going to come and pick them and this stuff up and we didn't have to worry about it. Halfway through loading the truck we realized we had an excess of space and could easily take their stuff, including the dishwasher. So we loaded all that too, planning to stop off briefly at Jed's on the way to the border, unload it and carry on. We got the truck fully packed and ready to go by about 6 pm. We were a bit behind schedule but it didn't really matter. As long as we got into the states and past Seattle we'd be happy. We could get to Hillsboro in the morning and we'd be avoiding crazy traffic time while passing through Seattle. Everything was ok. So we drove to Jed's in Delta. Apparently everyone else in Vancouver was going to Delta too. The traffic was crazy and a drive that usually takes 40 minutes took closer to 90. Still no problem, our schedule was flexible. We unload all that was destined for Jed's, said our good byes and hit the road. We got to the Pacific Border crossing around 8:30. The line up was small and within 10 minutes or so we'd been shown where to park so Jess could go inside and sort out the visa. Prior to this move, I knew very little about the immigration process and nothing about visas. I learned that Jess was applying for a TN visa. This is the visa needed by professionals moving to the US from Canada or Mexico for a job. It is only good for a year and if you are going to be working for more than a year in the US, as Jess was, you simply apply for the next level of visa during the year the TN allowed. Jess was as prepared as one could be for application process. He had been contacted by Intel's legal department and they let him know what he'd need to get the TN Visa. He had a letter from Intel describing the job offer, his degrees proving that he indeed had the education and skills to do the job he was being hired for. Furthermore, he isn't a terrorist or undesirable and was telling nothing but the truth which you'd think would go a long way. But we ran into Le.

Le was the border guard/customs officer/whatever that looked over Jess' documents and questioned Jess about his job. Le (Officer Le? Mr. Le? I don't know) wasn't a very nice person. I understand that border guards probably shouldn't be overly trusting and they might as well try to be intimidating because only people who have a reason to be worried when crossing the border would be really scared. Le was a full on asshole. It's hard to explain all of his assholeness, it's really a "you had to be there" kind of thing, but I will try.

Le: What kind of work are you doing for Intel?

Jesse: Computer Science.

Le: (in a very condescending tone) That could mean anything, what are you going to be doing for them.

Jesse: Oh, ok, well formal verification.

Le: (obviously has no idea what this means, not that I do really, but doesn’t want to let on and still in a condescending tone) But what will you be doing for them?

Jesse (understandably confused) Well... doing formal verification, which is basically debugging their processors.

Le: (Totally lost now, but still with an asshole attitude) Ok, look, tell me about an average workday for you, what would you do.

Jesse: I don't know yet, I haven't started working for them. I just graduated from UBC.

Le: (shakes his head in obvious disappointment and looks through Jess's papers)

Le pointed out that Jess' degrees say "Bachelor of Science" and "Masters of Science" and don't specifically state "Computer Science". He asked for transcripts which was the one thing Jess didn't have. Another headshake of disappointment. English was obviously not Le's first language and he spoke very quickly. Quite a few times Jess had to ask him to repeat himself because he couldn't make any sense of what he was saying. Le didn't like that one bit so he'd usually repeat it faster and louder. Not helpful. Not only did Le have these problems with Jess' information, it was a big deal that I didn't have any proof of citizenship with me. I had, not 2 years before, crossed the border with only my driver's license. That didn't seem to be enough and I got a very slow and intense headshake from him when he learned I didn't have a birth certificate or passport.

In the end, Le didn't let us through. His official reason was that the letter from Intel said that Jess' position was permanent and TN visas can only be granted to people who have jobs that are no more that one year in length. Great. So even though thousands of people accept full time positions in the states and immigrate there, they have to do the dance of 1 year job offer, 1 year visa, job extension, new visa. By now it was almost 10 o'clock. We were pissed. We needed to get, somehow, my birth certificate, a new letter from Intel stating the job was for 1 year and copies of Jess' transcripts. We stopped for gas on the way back to Jed's and I tried, unsuccessfully, to put diesel in Jess' car. Luckily they foresee idiots like me and make the pipe on diesel pumps too big to go into the little hole on most gas tanks. We returned to Jed's and tried to solve the problems that faced us. My birth certificate was at my parent's house in Victoria. Jess would have to call Intel to request a new letter and he'd need to print off his transcripts. The transcripts should have been easy, but at Jed's we didn't have Internet access or a printer.

Jess came up with a brilliant idea for getting my birth certificate. We would have our younger brother, Brad, put a backpack on the ferry in the morning, and we could pick it up. For those of you that aren't familiar with the BC ferries, they allow you to 'check' your luggage if you are walking on the ferry, they then collect up all this luggage, drive it on to the ferry, and make it available for you on the other side, this saves you carting your bags all over the ship. It's very convenient but I hadn't made use of it for years as I once had a pair of sunglasses and a mad magazine stolen from a bag I'd entrusted them with. After a lot of explaining and assurance that the document wouldn't get lost, Jess convinced my mom and brother that this was a good idea and they agreed to help us. Brad would place a backpack containing my birth certificate on the luggage thingy at Schwartz Bay and we would pick it up in Tsawassen. Awesome, 1 down, 2 to go.

Shortly after getting off the phone, Jess noticed that the letter from Intel very explicitly stated that the job Jess was being offered was temporary. No more than a year. We cursed Le for the 40th time. Le had studied this letter so long and so intently and with such focused rage we were sure he must have noticed it and was just taking his assholeness to a new level. Anyway, 2 down, 1 to go.

Wednesday

We raced out to the ferry in Jess’ car in the morning and, because we got there late, had to retrieve the backpack from the people at the lost and found. Luckily Brad had described the bag to us and the people believed my story about forgetting to pick up the bag as I walked off ("Stupid me! what a morning.") and we left the ferry, precious document in hand.

Now we needed to get Jess’ transcripts. We decided to head to UBC, about as far out of our way as possible, because we knew we could definitely print them off in Jess’ old lab. We didn’t want to roll the dice with an internet café or library with the way our luck was going. We got the transcripts and headed back to Delta to once again head for the border. By the time we got to Jed’s said our goodbyes again and were in out respective vehicles it was close to 1pm.

The UHaul wouldn’t start. Super. We called the 1-800 number we had been told to call in case of trouble and they told us to try jumpstarting it. I know nothing at all about cars but it didn’t sound to me like that was the problem. In my experience, if the battery is dead and you turn the key you get nothing. Well the UHaul was doing something and it didn’t sound like what it was doing was good. In the end we jumpstarted it successfully and were ready to head out. We again said our goodbyes and headed for the border.

About 20km before we got to the border crossing, Jess pulled the UHaul over to the shoulder of the highway. I pulled in behind him, confused. He came and got in the car with me and said ‘We have to go back to Jed’s; I forgot all my documents and my laptop.’ When the UHaul had been giving us problems, Jess had taken these things out of the truck for safety’s sake and, in the urgency to get rolling, had forgot to get them again. So we went back, got Jess’ stuff, said our goodbyes (with little to no confidence that this would be the last time we saw Jed, Claire and Josh that day, but going through the motions regardless) and, again, headed for the US. I dropped Jess off at the UHaul, it started fine and we got to the border crossing just before 3pm.

There was a seriously long line at the border and it took us about 45 minutes to get up to the booth. During this time, Jess’ car started acting strangely. Earlier in the adventure he told me that if you idle for a long time the ‘service engine soon’ light would come on. He figured it was due to overheating. On his advice, I started turning the car off during the long, stationary times in the line up. This was fine until I started getting unusual sounds and vibrations when I would start up the car to move it along in the line. I was faced with 2 choices: leave it running and risk overheating or keep turning it off and starting it up and risk it not starting back up. I compromised. I only turned it off every other time I moved ahead in line. This worked well in that the car successfully made it to the booth.

Again we were waved over to the parking area and went back inside the house of pain. It was just after 3:30pm. We stood in line for a while and slowly came to realize that the line wasn’t moving nor did any of the 20 or 30 people working there seem to notice. There were about 5 people ahead of us, all wanting TN visas but no one at the counter, where we’d been rejected the night before, was calling anyone up. I guessed, correctly, that their was a shift change at 4:00 and no one wanted to start processing a TN visa this close to quitting time. Great. So we stood there for half an hour doing nothing, getting nowhere. Every few minutes a different border guard would go through the line asking what we were there for, when we told them ‘TN’ they shook their heads and walked away. The border guards, on the whole, didn’t seem to be as mean as Le had been, I saw one woman smile, though it may have been because she had just denied someone entry into the US, I couldn’t tell. They all had their names stitched on their uniforms and these names were my only entertainment for a while. Cervantes was, by far, the coolest name I saw and a very unfriendly looking guy, Helle, had the most appropriate name. At 3:55 Le walked in to start his shift. Oh great, we’re doomed, the hanging judge is back. Right at 4:00 the new shift started processing TNs. The people in front of us got Le and we felt pity for them. Our guy this time was Layman. He was great. Well, after Le, he was great in a Stockholm Syndrome kind of way. He wasn’t nice to us, he just wasn’t a complete jerk. The best moment of the day, and possibly the whole move, was when Jess told Layman about being denied entry the previous evening.

Layman: Where did you try to cross?

Jess: Here

Layman: What time?

Jess: About 9pm

Layman: Who did you speak to here?

Jess slowly raises his hand and points at Le who is immediately beside Layman and must have been able to overhear all of this.

Layman: Ok, why did he deny you entry?

Jess, suppressing a grin: Well he claimed that my job offer was for more than a year, but he obviously misread or didn’t see this line here where it very obviously states that it is a temporary position lasting no more than a year.

In your face Le.

After looking through all of Jess’ papers and asking a few more questions, Layman gave us the go ahead. Then, after dealing with a few details concerning Jess’ car, we were free to go. No one asked us what we had in the big moving truck, no one asked to look in it. Jess almost wanted to ask them to ask so he could show off his thorough inventory list. We drove away from the border and into the US of A feeling as though we’d slain some mythical beast.

We gassed up and hit the I5. Jess was leading as we decided the UHaul was slightly more likely to break down than the car. We stopped at a rest area about 40 miles north of Seattle. We were feeling good. We could easily make it to Hillsboro that night and move in the next day. I started the car to pull out of the rest area and the engine started making a loud, awful, rhythmic noise. I quickly pulled over again and had to sprint to flag down Jess before he pulled on to the I5. We popped the hood and Jess quickly noticed that our fan belt wasn’t looking too good. Apparently fan belts are designed to come apart in strips and the inside strip of ours had come apart. Two big pieces of it were entwined in the workings of the fan and another long strip was loose and threatened to do the same. We managed to remove the two detached pieces and set about trying to remove the long strip. We were ill prepared for cutting through a piece of fan belt and had to improvise. My usual standby tool in these situations, the key acting as a saw, did nothing. Then Jess remembered he had toenail clippers in his shaving kit. Bingo. So remember, if you ever need to cut off a single strip of fan belt, there are few tools better than toenail clippers, as far as I know.

Once again we braved the I5, this time with me in the lead. Due to the latest incident, my car had moved past the UHaul in the ‘likeliness of breaking down’ category. This meant I was leading through Seattle. Wow. For a weekday evening it was really crazy, and I’m very thankful we didn’t get there any earlier. I’m sure I would have been fine had I ever driven that road before or if I didn’t have to allow for a 24” UHaul to make every lane change and pass that I did. I guess, all told, I was fine, but it was stressful. At one point I counted seven lanes of traffic, the two left ones were both merge and exit lanes, the two right ones were carpool lanes and the third from the right was an exit lane. It’s a lot for a Canadian boy who is used to no more excitement than the Pat Bay highway at 5pm.

We stopped at one last rest area, about an hour north of Portland. We examined the fan belt and it looked ok to us. By that I mean a mechanic might have looked at it and recoiled in horror, we really had no reference point. We found a motel just after midnight that, wonderfully, had parking for the UHaul and a room for us. Exhausted, we dragged our bags down the hall to our room, ready for sleep after a trying couple of days. Naturally, our key-cards didn’t work. Eventually, we got that sorted out, got in to our room, and crashed.

Thursday

We slept in and had a leisurely breakfast at the motel’s restaurant because we knew there wasn’t much to do aside from the grunt work. Other than that, all that was left to be done was deposit money into Jess’ account at Washington Mutual and activate his phone and internet at a Verizon store. Just after 11:00 am we headed out in the car to find a Washington Mutual. We drove for about 20 minutes along Hillsboro’s main road, Cornell, before we spotted one. Jess went up to the counter to quickly deposit the money and I flipped through The Oregonian and enjoyed some complimentary coffee. But things were taking too long. I finished my coffee and Jess was still at the counter. Surely depositing money didn’t take more than a minute or two. It turned out Jess couldn’t deposit the money because, unbeknownst to him, his account had been closed. What had happened would have been funny if we didn’t need to deposit money right then. Jess had opened this account when he lived in California, many months prior. Due to some miscalculations, he had overdrawn on the account when he was back in Canada. Washington Mutual sent him a letter informing him that he was overdrawn and detailing how much money he had to give them. Knowing that he would need this account when he moved back to the states, Jess figured out the amount, in Canadian dollars, required to cover his overdraw. He then tacked on $10 more to allow for any fluctuations in the exchange rate that might occur while his money was in transit and mailed off a cheques. In his mind, it was dealt with and was no longer a problem. Well it was. Somehow the amount he sent them came up 22 cents short of what he owed. After a certain period of time, the bank’s computers automatically closed his account, not taking into account the insignificance of the amount. To add insult to injury, they made him pay the 22 cents right there. Jess would have to open a new account in order to deposit the money so he could have cheques to give to the leasing office. By now it was close to 12 noon, which was checkout time back at the motel. We had to drive back, check out, and then drive back to the bank. After all that, they wouldn’t let Jess open an account. He lacked ‘proof of residency’ like an Oregon driver’s license. We didn’t think much of Washington Mutual at this point. We had to meet the leasing people at the leasing office at Jess’ new condo place at 1 o’clock. Jess figured he could explain the problem and hopefully they would let him pay by money order. Jess explained the situation, and they said it was fine if he paid by money order. So off we went to the Plaid Pantry, a 7-11 type place, to get one. One problem, they could not give out money orders worth more than $300. Jess needed more than $300. This was solved by getting a number of money orders. So back to the rental office we went, stack of money orders in hand. Jess then had to sign no less than 14 documents to complete the lease. Then we were allowed to move in.

Hooray.

We were so happy. It seemed we had succeeded and there were no obstacles left in our way. We were wrong, of course, but it was a nice feeling while it lasted.

Initially, we had backed the UHaul into a handicap parking space that was very near to Jess’ staircase (only 1 floor up, thank goodness). However, the woman in the leasing office had told us not to because the people who check such things in this area were very strict and we could easily get a $200 fine. So instead of having the truck 40 feet from the stairs, we had to park it across the parking lot, roughly 200 feet from the stairs. There was a car parked in the spot next to the handicap spot that, if moved, would have got us back to 40’ so we hoped the owner would show up and move the car or leave at some point.

Jess had to do a ‘walkthrough’ of his place, noting any and all existing damage for security deposit purposes. While he did this, I started bringing things in from the truck. By the time he was done, it was close to 4 o’clock. I had the idea that he should go to Verizon and get the phone and internet activated while I stay and keep hauling in boxes. Having phone and internet access would make our lives much easier, especially mine, as I had to figure out how I was getting back to Vancouver. So just after 4, Jess headed off.

It was very hot that day, and it wasn’t long before I was covered in sweat from all the toiling I was doing. I’m not a big fan of toiling, especially in the hot sun. I didn’t expect Jess to be long, but then, the way things had been going, they probably wanted a blood sample from him to prove he was who he said he was. An hour went by. I kept hauling boxes. Then, just after 5, the owner of the car in the coveted parking spot appeared. She was very nice and felt very bad for taking up such an important spot. She moved her car and wished me well. Super, now I could back the truck up, so to speak, and my toiling would be lessened. Except I couldn’t find the keys for the UHaul, apparently Jess had taken them. Not wanting to lose the spot, I placed two chairs in it to dissuade anyone from parking there. I kept hauling boxes. Another hour went by. Then, just after six, Jess showed up in a tow truck, his car nowhere to be seen.

The adventure with the car breaking down can best be described by its protagonist. He has agreed to write up the adventure and when he does, I will post it here.

So Jess’ car was in the shop and he still hadn’t made it to Verizon. It was 6:20. Verizon closed at 7:00. We decided to take the Uhaul to Verizon. Parking it anywhere near the strip mall we needed to go to would be an adventure but we had no choice; we needed phone and internet. So off we went. Luckily we found a bank that was closed very near to Verizon and left the UHaul in its vacant parking lot. We had about 10 minutes to spare, but we jogged up to Verizon, just to be safe. Well it was the wrong one. Apparently there are two kinds of Verizons and, wouldn’t you know it? We had the wrong one. The friendly staff told us that the right one was only a few blocks away and they pointed in a vague direction. The vague direction was toward an even busier strip mall and we knew there was no way we could park the UHaul there. So we ran. Jess in flip flops, me in big clunky boots, we ran two blocks, across busy streets and through parking lots. We were two crazy Canadians, out of their element, running for the right to make phone calls. We got to the correct Verizon with 2 minutes to spare.

Now you probably know what happened next and, in retrospect, we should have expected it. For some reason all of the events of the move so far hadn’t quenched the torch of optimism we carried that assumed, after Jess showed his ID, Verizon would turn on the phone and internet instantly. No sir. They would be activated “sometime tomorrow evening”.

We drove back to Jess’ place and backed the truck into our still saved by strategically placed chairs parking spot. The way things had been going, we were surprised no one had stolen or vandalized our chairs while we were gone. Then we began the last of the unpacking which included all of the things too heavy for me to take up the stairs alone. This included, of course, the large cabinet and fold-out couch which I now hate as much as a man can hate furniture.

It was now close to 9:00pm. Somehow I needed to figure out how to get back to Vancouver the next day without using a phone or internet connection. We decided to head for a pay phone and have my wonderful wife assess my options on the internet. Jess was tired of driving the Uhaul and we didn’t think we’d be able to easily park it in downtown Hillsboro, so we walked. I will spare you the details of the complexities of the trip I was trying to plan, but after about half an hour on the phone with Ang, we determined that, without a ride into Portland, I couldn’t do it. And, as you know, our ride was in the shop. There was hope that it would be ready the next morning, but it looked like I was stuck in the US for another day.

Friday

Jess went to the leasing office first thing and called the garage about his car. They said it should be ready today, no problem. Well super, worst case scenario, Jess drives me into Portland on Saturday morning and I catch the train back to my homeland. Just after 11am the phone came on. This was very exciting. Logic dictated that the internet should also be active. We hooked up Jess’ modem. The internet wasn’t active. Still, it was exciting to have a phone. Jess now had to return the Uhaul, which would us with no wheels. He threw his bike in the back and drove it to the Uhaul place that, thankfully, was no more than 3km away. When he got back, around 12:30, he called the garage again. Turns out his water pump needed replacing, which was going to up the cost but it would still be ready by the end of the day. The mechanic promised to call when the car was ready. We bummed around for the rest of the afternoon, occasionally trying to get the internet going by turning the modem off and on. Believe it or not, this method failed to do anything. We wanted to call our family and let them know that we were still alive but we also had no idea how to check voicemail, so if the mechanic left a message while we were on the phone, we’d never hear it. I did decide to take the precaution of reserving a spot on one of the trains out of Portland the next morning. Of course, they were all full. Ok, how about out of Seattle? No, all booked. However, there was a bus going from Seattle to Vancouver and there were spots left. So I bought a ticket for the 1:15 bus out of Seattle. After all, the car would be ready and Jess could drive me to Seattle. The garage closed at 5:00 and as that time drew near I started to get nervous. 4:50 came and went with no call. 4:55. 5:00, still no call. I implored Jess to call them but he didn’t want to disturb them while they put the finishing touches on his shiny new water pump. After 5:15 had gone by, Jess decided to call them. Well it turned out the mechanic had been trying to phone us since 4:00 but had somehow ended up with the wrong number and so, clearly, couldn’t get a hold of us. The news was not good. They had replaced the water pump and the car still wouldn’t go. So there we were, 5:20 on the Friday before Labour Day and we had no car. I suddenly had the idea that Jess rent a car. He quickly called Avis, determined where they were (near), how late they were open (6:00) if he had adequate documentation to rent a car (he did) and if they had a car he could rent (they did). He strapped on his helmet, jumped on his bike and headed for Avis. 30 minutes later he rolled up in a 2005 Chevy Impala. Once again, it was approaching 7:00 and we needed to get to Verizon to see about voicemail and internet. We raced there and, again, got there minutes before 7:00. It turned out they had no record of Jess ordering internet. So that’s why it wasn’t working. Jess then ordered internet and asked if it might be up and running that night. The woman laughed at him and said “well, how about 2 weeks from now?” Not as good.

We left Verizon in our fresh ride and decided we deserved a dinner out. If you’re ever in Hillsboro and have a hankering for some good Thai food, I recommend Elephant Thai. Get the chicken with peanut sauce, it’s excellent.

Saturday

Our wild and wacky adventures were pretty much over by Saturday. Our ride up the I5 was totally uneventful. When we got to Seattle, in plenty of time for my bus, we learned that it was running late and wouldn’t be leaving for another two hours. That might have been a real pain on any other trip, and it clearly was for some of my fellow passengers, but for us, it was a drop in the bucket.

Throughout this ordeal, Jess and I were motivated by a mantra we developed early on. It was 'Gettin 'er done'. Whenever we faced an obstacle we would say 'gotta get 'er done' and find a way to do it. Mid-day Thursday Jess decided to get t-shirts made up to commemorate this move. On the back would be all the things that went wrong, listed like the stops on a tour would be on a Rolling Stones shirt. And on the front:

...images of Jess and I, with the expressions we wore for most of the week. Mine, confidence, optomism and blissful ignorance of the evil in the world. His, panic, fear and knowledge that not everything bad that can happen has happened yet. Together, we got 'er done.

# posted by Tom @ 11:37 AM