Sailing!

By jen

After all our struggles, the van is finally sailing! It set sail on the 27^th of December. We can track its progress aboard the vessel, CAP CORRIENTES. Watch it in real time below (courtesy of vesselfinder.com)!

The sailing takes about 22 days, so Jonathan and I are working to be ready when it arrives. We have already been contacted by our receiving agent, which, so far, has been a lot easier to work with than our shipping agent. But, I will reserve judgment until I have van in my hands, free of customs.

Here are some interesting facts about the ship:

Ship type: Container Ship

Flag: Liberia

Built: 2013

Size: 228 x 37 m (748 x 121 ft)

Gross Tonnage: 42690 t

Deadweight: 51759 t

A Remembrance

By jen

This year, a couple of days before Christmas, my paternal grandfather, Rayburn Britt, passed on to be with the Lord. While so few of my days were spent with him, he did make a big impact on my life. He was such a kind man. Even though I was not a direct descendent (of blood), he made me feel like I was his favorite. Of course, I am pretty sure he made everyone feel like that. Just ask my siblings or my cousins, any of his children or grandchildren or great grandchildren. It was a joy to hang out with him.

Another one of his many legacies that has stood out to me was how much he loved my grandmother and cared for her. One of the events that really stuck in my mind over the years was that he would bend down on the ground and help my grandmother put on her shoes, even when he wasn’t feeling in the best of health himself. All I can say is that if Jonathan will continue to love me even half as much as my grandfather loved my grandmother, I will probably be in great shape.

Here is to a great man!

A Rough Week

While our van is not in our possession, we have been splitting our time with family. So the first stop after collecting our things in Tulsa was my sister’s place in Hays, KS. On the way there, we were called by our shipping agent and told that our van would not be shipping for yet another month. I was severely disappointed. We had been told originally that shipments were made every 2 weeks to Australia, so I couldn’t understand why it would take that long before our vehicle shipped.

Then, that night, I had a bout of food poisoning, first case of my life. It wasn’t fun. It lasted a good 19 hours, and then I spent the next 1.5 days recovering. My poor husband chose to get up in the middle of the night and help me out. Even had to shampoo the carpet in the middle of the night, since I didn’t make it to the bathroom for the first incident. And, my poor sister, after coming back from a 12-hour nursing shift, helped nurse me as well.

 

Then, right after I recover, Jonathan’s phone, an LG Nexus 5X, got stuck in a boot loop. This is apparently a pretty common issue with LG. Apparently the QC on their solder points is a bit poor; and after updating to Android 7.0, many of the Nexus 5X phones had this issue. Mine has so far escaped unscathed, but it is also susceptible. There were some reports on the internet of being able to flash a different version of Android to fix the problem. Jonathan tried multiple times, both higher and lower versions, but had no success. They would get up to 95% complete, and then fail. Quite disheartening. So, we contacted Google (from whom we bought the phones) and requested support. They shipped him a refurbished phone right away, but he was still without a phone for about 5 days. Fortunately, our Project Fi service works well with Hangouts. While he was without a phone, he was still able to receive calls and text through the internet. Pretty handy feature.

But, it doesn’t end there. To top it off while Jonathan was still trying to fix his phone, Jonathan’s laptop suddenly stopped making sound. He couldn’t get any sounds out of the speakers. I was starting to feel like the world was out to get us. He discovered it was caused by the Windows “stability” update (anyone else see the irony there?), and I think he found some drivers to fix it. Either way, it is working now and things have finally calmed down.

On the plus side, I did get to spend time with my cute niece and nephew.