Tales of a Trainee American

In the past two and a bit weeks, I have assembled:
1 bed (US king size, UK superking);
2 bedside tables;
3 chests of drawers;
5 bookcases;
1 computer desk/workstation*;
3 CD/DVD towers**;
1 TV stand;

That's 16 items in 15 days!

I have a long weekend now to recover.

* At the first attempt, I discovered that my boxes clearly labelled "1/2" (plus a big [1] sticker) and "2/2" (plus a big [2] sticker) actually had identical contents. This necessitated a trip to Baltimore last Sunday to exchange it. The new boxes were different sizes. No chance of a cock-up there.

** With assistance from Alexis, and attempted assistance from Aliza. There is a fourth CD/DVD tower that Alexis assembled on her own.

A&A have safely checked in, and were last seen disappearing into security at T3. So that'll be them gone, and I won't see them for another three weeks... three weeks in which I still have to:
Sell my car.
Sell all sorts of other stuff.
Take stuff down to my parents, and bring more stuff back.
Organise the movers.
Organise moving out/handing over with the estate agents & landlord.
Book cleaners.
Cancel everything.
Have 2 leaving dos.
Say goodbye to as many people in person as I possibly can.

Regarding that last point, I'm open to offers of drinks, lunches, etc. Just to help the planning, and also perhaps for a bit of my own reference, here's my schedule for the next three weeks:
Wed 20: Take A&A to airport. Afternoon: working from home, evening: free, though I do have some tidying and cleaning to do, and am Knackered Right Now (tm).
Thu 21: Work all day, will certainly want to get cracking with tidying in the evening, also Freecyclers will be along.
Fri 22: Work all day, Leaving Do #1 in the evening.
Sat 23: Waiting for Freecyclers to turn up in the morning, loading up and heading down to Devon in the afternoon.
Sun 24: Devon.
Mon 25: Driving back from Devon, will probably be available in the evening.
Tue 26: Work all day, free evening.
Wed 27: Work all day, free evening.
Thu 28: Work all day, free evening.
Fri 29: Final day at work, Leaving Do #2 in the evening.
Sat 30: Recovery morning/afternoon, going to Arsenal v. Newcastle in the evening (5.30pm k/o, finishing 7.30ish), free thereafter.
Sun 31: Dropping magimix down to rainbowuk at some point, probably after lunch. So I'll just be at home in the morning. Free in the evening, probably.
Mon 1: Free all day.
Tue 2: Free morning/afternoon, playing bridge in Wimbledon in the evening.
Wed 3: Free all day.
Thu 4: Movers.
Fri 5: Free all day - cleaners?
Sat 6: Free all day.
Sun 7: Free all day.
Mon 8: Handover to estate agents/landlord, pack everything else up, head to where I'm staying overnight (either with my sister, or at an airport hotel - not decided on that yet)
Tue 9: Fly out 09:30 BST.

It's suddenly dawning on me, this moving to America thing. The timetable is a little on the tight side - but should just about be manageable.

The absolute hard date to be gone in 14 September. This is when the lease runs out on our flat, and it isn't being renewed. I'm not convinced I could negotiate an extra month - the agents don't seem to be those sort of people.

Anyway, my interview at the US Embassy is on 1 August, at 8am. It may be early, but it's better than a late time - I won't be held up, I should go through quite quickly. As far as I'm aware, they say there and then if you've been successful or not. So I can start planning the move from then on. 6 weeks... not much, but movers are used to shorter lead-times and we've not got much we're moving (our bed being the only really big thing to be going).

One other thing that I will be leaving behind is my current email address. It's tied to my broadband service, and it'll go away when I cancel. So I have to change my email address in a few places. (Actually most places I couldn't care less - minimises spam - but important places like eBay, PayPal, LJ, and regularly-used forums need to get updated.)

I guess the point of the above is to nofity people of my new email address: nrtreeby AT <email service provided by a well-known search engine whose name begins with "g">