Moving
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I'm getting ready to move this weekend to a new house. That in and of itself probably doesn't interest the vast majority of the SQLServerCentral.com community except that I'll be writing out the next 5 or 6 editorials, getting things scheduled in advance and probably not being terribly responsive for the next week. We're moving pictures, plants, and a bunch of hay this weekend to the new barn. The hay, not the pictures; they'll go inside the new house. Then movers on Monday and a whole lot of organizing and unpacking things on Tue-Wed.
Now to the data related part of this ramble. One of the interesting things in moving is that we have to get a number of core services setup at the new house. We're on well, septic, and propane, so electricity is the only real utility to move and that's already on. We'll just switch the name on the account. The telco thing, however is a challenge.
Phone is most everywhere, even in rural Elbert County, CO, where we are going. We're at the back of a neighborhood, but we're 2 miles off the main road and on 35 acres. My driveway alone is 1000 ft, so distance limitations come into play. We called Comcast, who we use now, and they laughed. They don't even consider running wires to ots over 5 acres because it's not economical. We knew the first few houses in the neighborhood had DSL, but being 2 miles in, that's 10,000 more feet on what used to be a 18,000ft or so limitation, so we figured today we'd be calling the wireless guys. We had wireless in the current house before cable came through and it worked well.
So when my wife came down to the kitchen and said she was ordering DSL, I was amazed. I annoyed her by asking her to find out what kind of DSL it was, and after a couple hand slaps I stopped. Somehow they must have the length extended or the CO is in my neighborhood somewhere. I guess it could be slightly South and behind the neighborhood as the local "town" is there. All 4 buildings of it.
One other interesting thing was that Qwest had our zip code as different than the mailing one we'd gotten from the realtor. Apparently they use the 911 database, which can have different zip codes for responses. That alone is interesting. How does the data get reconciled between the post office and the emergency response teams?
And why are they different?
Steve Jones
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Woah: 35 acres! You could build a soccer pitch and live my dream for me
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Good luck to you. I moved recently here in the UK and from experience would say:
Don't be so optomistic about 2-3 days as 3 weeks sorting out the basics is far more realistic!
Get everything packed sooner rather than later - you run out of time and boxes!
Get a box of the vital items and know where it is (keep it in a car) - kettle, tea, coffee, mugs (lots), plenty of chocolate biscuits and cutlery (took us 4 weeks to find the knives and forks!)
Get the removers to re-check the estimate just before the move - ours vastly underestimated and we ended up hiring a trailer to shift the rest ourselves!
Buy in extra supplies of packing tape - it always runs out or gets lost.
AND especially don't believe the phone company when they say they can supply the service. BT told us we could have 2meg broadband in three days after the move. Eventually over a month and various engineers later we got a 1meg service which still drops out frequently. And we're only about 3-4 miles from the exchange!
Good Luck!!
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wow indeed - 35 acres - & they say that "no man is an island"..
In the D.C metro area, land is at such a premium that even the strictest zoning regulations allow you to spit in your neighbour's yard without too much of an effort...35 acres here would be equivalent to kids' college funds, retirement nest egg that may allow you to live even more lavishly in retirement than currently, and probably more than a few fancy yachts and vacation homes scattered across the globe...
It's interesting how some people cannot survive without the hustle and bustle of city life and some people thrive on the countryside and the peace and solitude that comes with it...for my part, I would be scared of being snowbound and isolated...say all phone lines are down and communication with the "outside world" was nonexistent...guess it comes from reading too many murder mysteries set in snowed-in places and having an overactive imagination...
Good luck with the move!!!
**ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI !!!** -
Good luck with the move and especially your DSL connection.
As for addresses, we run NCOA(National Change of Address) once a year. We use a service(there are many) that coordinates with USPS.
I'm not sure if the 911 coordination in all rural areas is complete.
Greg H -
One of the biggest problems that I face in a rural area is the telephone company. When they first installed our line, they piggybacked on the line that ran to the original farmhouse on the property. Who knows how old that line was, 30, 40 , 50 years old?
When we first moved in, they had the line on top of the ground until the subcontractor could bury, tentatively to occur within 4 weeks. Fourteen weeks later when the county maintenance department mowed the ditch, they shredded the line. Needless to say it was buried the next day.
Anytime it rained, or mice needed a place to build a home, we were affected. Most often it appeared in our dial-up internet access first, with poor connection speeds.
Ten years later and more than a dozen repair calls, they have finally replaced the original line with a brand new one. I guess that they finally decided that the cost of the new one was cheaper than sending out service people all of the time.
I would gladly rid myself of the telco, but I am dependent on them for phone service. I seem to live in dead spot within the cell coverage. If I need to place a call on my cell phone, usually I can stand out on my deck to make the call.
Regards,
Scott
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How does the data get reconciled between the post office and the emergency response teams?
And why are they different?
One place I used to live shared a zip code from a nearby large town that was actually in a separate county. As far as emergency services, however we had no connection at all to that town.
Interestingly the county offices hadn't figured it out either. I once got a jury summons from the other county.
...
-- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers --
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Good luck with the move and setting up your new home. Like software projects, double the time you think it should take. It is a good idea to get in shape first, workout, eat right, plenty of sleep. There are a lot of emotions, changes, adaptations to deal with, so prepare yourself and your family. There are mainly three things to do, plan, plan plan.
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Welcome to the country life, Steve. Our phone system struggles to maintain 28.8k dial-up. DSL? Ha!
The local cable company is Adelphia. I called them a while back to see if they had any plans for upgrading to digital and offering cable modem service. One word: bankruptcy. They're not doing any upgrades. The only glimmer of hope is that (assuming regulatory approval) Comcast is buying out Adelphia. I'm hoping to be Comcastic in a couple of years. Maybe. We have neighbors and only have 2 acres, so I'm hoping we'll be worth the investment.
Until a better landline option surfaces, I'm on a Direcway satellite system. The well-known satellite latency issues are a pain in Windows terminal sessions and can really bog down SQL Server communications, but it's "good enough." It allows me to work at home, so I don't complain -- except to the local phone and cable companies.
Enjoy the space. It's good.
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Thanks and I think I'm almost ready. Been packing for 4 weeks, heck, only decided to move 5 ago
, and two bedrooms, the office, dining, and living rooms are packed up, just boxes and furniture sitting there. Basement almost emptied, down to a few boxes, my rack , and pictures, and got 4 friends coming to help move the garage/barn on Sat.I'm still wary of the telco service, but the house was built in '94, so it isn't too old and my suspicion is they ran the lines then since there wasn't much else there before that. There's always wireless, a neighbor uses that.
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Steve,
Check into DWAY which is from driectv...
I looked at it and it's not too bad, after the initial equipment investment...
Walt
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Good Morning Steve,
First i am replienig from Canada so the answers may not apply to your area.
A couple of things
1- The distance limitation is technicially from the last point where the signal is converted from digital to analog to you. In the past this was always the local substation, however up here Bell Canada has been running Fiber along all the main roads and installing Fiber to Copper (and in the process digital to Analog) converters at the foot of each line road up on the pole. So despite being almost 23 miles from the CO I am now 1/2 mile from the conversion point and Volia DSL... Hmmm now to find a few thousand feet of fiber and hook up so I can get a OC-1 (Just dreaming 🙂 )
2- Referance Satillite Internet, got to be careful, even the ones that are true 2 way via the satillite, many are asymetric data speeds with uplink in the 56K range only. Download is fine.
Ah the pleasures of Rural Life 1/2 mile up a dirt road on many acres
Kay
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Good luck Steve. When I moved into my house last June, I discovered that my street address was wrong. The Street Address, not just the zip code. The house is on a private drive, and within city limits, but when it was built by the owner in 1988, he wanted a county address (it's used to be used to distinguish between city and county residents, and that distinction affected services like library), and basically ignored the city's instructions, and made up his own address. Lo and behold, when he builds a newer, bigger house next door, down the same private drive, the city discovers the problem, and I get a letter a week after moving in telling me that my address is not really my address. Six months later, you still can't google my address!
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Steve,
That sucks. I think I'm ok as the old owners tried to subdivide off 4 7acre lots last year with the county and got rejected. So I'd guess the county verified everything then.
Satellite would work for me, but not my wife. She does lots of dial-up, realtime work on systems, so needs high speed. The wireless guys are good and anyone that can't get cable/DSL, should check in their area for a wireless ISP. As long as you're line of sight, they have good coverage and were very reliable for me a couple years ago.
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Steve,
How are you preparing your animals for the move? I suppose your Great Danes can join the horse in the horse trailer
. The previous tip to pack a box of vital items also applies to pet food. Otherwise you won't find it until the day after you buy another bag. At least that's my experience.
Best of luck with the move.
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