Adventures in Audiophile Moving

[Bill Hart]

We're on the road. After packing up all the hi-fi equipment and thousands and thousands of records, we moved out of our large old house along the Hudson River. We decided to take a break and hit the road. Music and food drove us. Here's the first installment:

http://thevinylpress.com/the-war-of-fog

[Gusf]

Very nice Bill. Look forward to reading about your journey.

[Rob]

its sounds like a feast of friends rather than a somber moving party I'm looking forward to your road trip installments.

[Bill Hart]

I've gained a few pounds in the process. Partly because doing physical labor 12 hours a day made me eat like a horse. Then, we targeted destinations based partly on food. So, I'm now back to salads and soon, a return to the gym.
Everybody in NY was just amazing. Liz had an endless series of good-by parties - and her friends and the small handful of people I know--just stepped up in every way possible to make things easier. Running stuff to Goodwill. Helping ship stuff ahead that wasn't going into storage. My buddy who owns the gym took all my old subwoofers- so there's an 18 inch Velodyne pumping out hip-hop and heavy metal at the crossfit place in Nyack. Another thing- don't mess with the yoga and rowing ladies from Piermont and Nyack. They will totally kick your ass.

[Johnny Vinyl]

It's always a treat reading your entries. How much time are you taking before you reach your final destination?

[Bill Hart]

Johnny- we just hit Austin. We may stay a while. The trip through the Mississippi Delta was pretty amazing. Was not the sepia-toned, haunted place that is usually conjured up in all those books about the blues trail. On the other hand, Eudora, Arkansas was probably one of the most depressing places we passed through.

[Johnny Vinyl]

With regard to Eudora, Arkansas....that's all part of the experience and gives one a truer look at life in America, or any other country for that matter.
Glad to hear you arrived. It's been a long time since you first announced your move.

[Bill Hart]

Oh, yeah. I grew up near the West Va. border in Pennsylvania and remember the grim reality of that, as well as the economic stagnation of the steel towns around Pittsburgh in the early '70s. The South fascinates me. But, I gotta say, once we crossed into Texas, with 75 mph new highways and big-assed trucks doing 90, I felt pretty at home. We stopped in "West" Texas (the town where that fertilizer plant blew up not so long ago). It is famous for its Kolaches, a pastry stuffed with all kinds of stuff, mainly sausage based. It's a Czech delicacy, and there are a bunch of Czech markets in the town of West. People will drive out there just to slam a few thousand calories. Like I said, I put on a few pounds.
But, it was worth it.

[1morerecord2clean]

Enjoy your travels to your new place Bill. Having moved from the east coast to the west almost 11 years ago, wow where does the time go, the move was a killer. I had the advantage of moving from one condo to another similarly sized but as such I didn't have any audio boxes. Loudspeakers were crated and taken by the movers and records packed by them as well. I took my electronics and turntable for a glorious cross country journey. And I have just done it again except this time across the street. One hundred feet or 2500 miles, it's all the same, moving.

[Bill Hart]

Agreed - the distance almost doesn't matter- it's a killer either way. But worth it.

[1morerecord2clean]

It certainly has been for me. Our place across the street was nice but typical in that my ceiling was my neighbors floor above me and my floor the ceiling of my downstairs neighbor. I never got complaints about the stereo but impossible to believe someone didn't hear it. The new place has 3' of airspace between floors and walls have two airspace gaps plus multiple drywalls so I can play the stereo in the wee hours..........provided the Mrs isn't home.😎

[Goheelz]

Nice road trip, beautifully narrated. Too bad you didn't head further South for while. Nashville's a nice town, but it's just the beginning, North of us. We're both south-central Pennsylvania-near-WV guys, I see. So likely you'll appreciate the Sun Belt weather as much as I have. Next time you roll through AL, bring some of those "keeper" records, and let me curate those for a while. Looking forward to the album reviews, as it appears you've got some good ones.

Jim

[Bill Hart]

Jim, we got down to Greenwood, Mississippi in the Delta before we swung West. Loved the Delta. Now that we are in Texas, it is likely that we will be spending more time in the South as well. I have a close friend in NOLA-- since I seem to follow my nose where food is concerned, and like all sorts of Southern cooking, you may see me coming through town preceded by one of those WIDE LOAD trucks.

[wspohn]

Man - I don't envy your move.

I moved out of a house I'd been in on and off for most of six decades last year and aside from sorting out what I didn't need, I had to move around 4,000 LPs (small by your standards) and about the same number of bottles of wine.

I hand carried the turntables myself and a couple of other pieces of gear but left the rest to the movers (I used friends to do the wine separately) who did a good job, but seemed to have some misunderstanding of my specific instructions about box labelling, so I am still having to sort out my classical library.

Hope your sorting, packing and labelling works out better than mine did - guess you'll find out when you relocate and start unpacking!

[MylesBAstor]

Yes moving is no fun. Moving is even less fun for audiophiles. When I moved from the Bronx to Manhattan back in 2003, I had 50 boxes or records all numbered in a specific order to be unpacked. I personally moved all the equipment except for the speakers. But I supervised the movers packing the speakers. All arrived thankfully safely. But that was only a 20 or so mile move compared to Bill.

[mep]

Man - I don't envy your move.

I moved out of a house I'd been in on and off for most of six decades last year and aside from sorting out what I didn't need, I had to move around 4,000 LPs (small by your standards) and about the same number of bottles of wine.

I hand carried the turntables myself and a couple of other pieces of gear but left the rest to the movers (I used friends to do the wine separately) who did a good job, but seemed to have some misunderstanding of my specific instructions about box labelling, so I am still having to sort out my classical library.

Hope your sorting, packing and labelling works out better than mine did - guess you'll find out when you relocate and start unpacking!

I wouldn't expect movers to pack my LPs by genre or alphabetical order. Your probably lucky if they place them in the boxes without damaging them. I maybe in for my own moving adventure soon and I'm not looking forward to the moving part.

[Bill Hart]

Most of the albums I was keeping were already organized in a few basic ways. So, I numbered each box and created a rough inventory of what was in each box-- not every record in each box, but the high value stuff was itemized in the inventory. For other lower value records, many of which were alphabetized already on my shelves, they went into the numbered boxes, and the inventory recited the starting album to the ending album, or the category by label or type (e.g. direct to disc). Sometimes, just for protection, i shuffled some lesser value albums to the ends of each box, so the pure alphabetical order thing isn't entirely retained, but in gross categories it is. The inventory sheet is about 18 pages or so of single space text on an 8 x 11 word document. Each record was packed in a double walled box from Bags Unlimited. Thankfully, I didn't have to carry them from the third floor to the moving truck-- I let the movers do that. They went into a temp/humidity controlled vault at the mover's storage facility on the East Coast. We shall see how it works once the stuff is eventually moved west.

[wspohn]

I wouldn't expect movers to pack my LPs by genre or alphabetical order. Your probably lucky if they place them in the boxes without damaging them. I maybe in for my own moving adventure soon and I'm not looking forward to the moving part.

I just asked them to start on the top shelf on the left, put the in a box they should label "1" and continue that way numbering sequentially until they were all packed. Not sure what was unclear about that - possibly one of them moved over to the classical shelves and started in interspersing numbers with the other packer......

[wspohn]

Bill, I wish I had your organization - I have thought about creating a data base so I knew exactly what records I have and where they are located, but have never got to it.

I had 3 friends help me do that with my wine cellar, which goes more quickly as there are usually multiple 'copies' of a given item, and it took 2 days. The reward was obvious - pen a bottle or two when work stopped for the day. For some reason offering to play a few records for them after work stopped didn't seem to hold the same attraction for them.....

[Bill Hart]

I wouldn't elevate it to the level of database, but I did it as I packed them. Some was easy- Vertigo Swirls- i knew pretty quickly which ones I didn't have, so simply copied the whole catalog listed on the Internet, and deleted the ones I didn't own (and did X2 or X3 for the multiples). It's rough, but it gave me a good gauge, and also helped for insurance purposes. Frankly, it added maybe double to the time of packing, but I wasn't in a giant hurry--it was near the front of the move, so I still had energy and time. By the end, we were throwing plastic trash bags into the car.

[mep]

I just asked them to start on the top shelf on the left, put the in a box they should label "1" and continue that way numbering sequentially until they were all packed. Not sure what was unclear about that - possibly one of them moved over to the classical shelves and started in interspersing numbers with the other packer......

Sounds simple, but you have to think the give a shit factor on what you wanted in what boxes didn't really register on their meters.

[MylesBAstor]

One time Heidi decided the place needed a deep scrubbing and hired a cleaning tea to do the apt. They couldn't even put the records back the same way. Some were upside down, others sideways, a few just mixed up. I'm still sorting some albums - of the lesser played variety - out years later.

[Rob]

wow, im surprised you let perfect strangers let alone a 'cleaning team' not only touch your vinyl but remove them from the shelving and then restock them. apparently they didn't take any care in doing so, call me anal or obsessive compulsive but that thought alone makes me cringe.

[MylesBAstor]

I guess I didn't think about that aspect and wasn't home. Sometimes it is her apartment too.

[Ritmo]

Congratulations on your move Bill. I've enjoyed reading the comments on this thread.

I'm getting ready to move to Florida later this summer - my wife is already there working in the St Pete/Tampa area. Packing the system, music and wine are top of mind. At the end of this journey will be our new custom built home with dedicated music room and wine storage.

Mike

[Bill Hart]

Thanks Mike. Good luck on your move. The system and record packing and moving was all pretty predictable and well planned. Wine- probably a whole other issue given temperature, handling and other conditions. All I can tell you is that no matter how well you plan, the work seems endless- you think you've tackled almost everything, and realize the next task, which you relegated to minor stuff, is yet another whole thing. Eventually, though, you get through it all. By then, at least for us, we were pretty toasted, but feeling good about the experience. Wish you the same. The new room sounds exciting. You should post about that as you do it.