The Geckoplex is going to be moving at the end of the month. My wife and I had been planning to move north of Salt Lake City between my two favorite brothers, but then we got thinking that perhaps we should spend a few years living near her family in Nebraksa first. I'll miss the mountains, the cheap gas and milk at Costco (my family goes through about 6 gallons a week--the savings on milk alone more than pay for our membership), living near my family, our current neighbors, the snow that helps make the cold of winter worthwhile, and a lot of other things. But we're hoping to be a good influence on some of the members of her family who could use a little more good influence, so it's for a good cause.

Our current residence is the first place I've rented that wasn't month-to-month (I may have rented a place that went to month-to-month after the first six months or something...but I may be thinking of my old cell phone), so the cost of getting out of an annual lease is new to me. It's also the first place I've rented that didn't prorate rent for partial first and last months. I've come to the conclusion that landlords have too much power. I have no qualms with starting off with a six month, or even a year lease, but after someone has rented for that long, it shouldn't matter whether they decide (or need) to move in July or October. Is it really so horrible for landlords to have to deal with rental agreements on more than one day each year? Our landlord is generally very nice, but when I called to tell her we were moving, it was clear that she felt entitled to being paid whether we were living in the apartment or not (we were going to move on November 3, and were going to have to pay for the whole month! We changed our moving day to October 31.)

We'll be buying soon, so hopefully this will be the first and the last time I have to deal with this issue.