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mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,610
Moving is our punishment for hoarding all this stuff. My wife moved here with the households from Long Island and Greenwich Village, and we've never recovered. Culling with a backhoe is needed. It's all useable stuff, just five times what we need. So maybe we'll sort it out?

We're keeping all four ukuleles, that's settled.

Residences are like bodies. If you keep stuffing things in the mouth, you have to make sure something is coming out the bottom, or it's trouble.

Jesse, after treatment for PTSD from the move, I'm sure you'll enjoy a somewhat de-cluttered life with a little more elbow room and breathing space.

All that stuff you hadn't used in twenty years, you won't miss.

And hello to Peck who we haven't heard from in a year or two. The Semois and Frog Cellar are long gone up in smoke, but the Ferndown lives on in splendor.
 

sablebrush52

The Bard Of Barlings
Jun 15, 2013
20,704
48,977
Southern Oregon
jrs457.wixsite.com
You do realize you are now in a geographic anomaly. It is two weeks from everything. Good luck getting that tobacco mail order.
Since I’m done buying tobacco that doesn’t pose a concern. Packing up the cellar revealed to me the depths of my dysmorphia. I have a shit ton of tobacco, and unless I live to about 160, I’m unlikely to make a major dent in it. My rate of consumption has markedly decreased.
On the other hand, should I decide to sell off some of it, there being no sales tax, the process will be simpler.
 

sablebrush52

The Bard Of Barlings
Jun 15, 2013
20,704
48,977
Southern Oregon
jrs457.wixsite.com
Does this mean the center of the known universe is no longer in Burbank? And if so - what sort of knock on effects will come of this?
Burbank is toast, almost literally. As I was packing up the van, a fire broke out on the Warner lot, a few blocks away from where I live, and smoke began to filter overhead, adding an apocalyptic element to the proceedings. The wail of sirens were streaming past from different directions, with reported “holiday” traffic pile ups piling up.
I could hardly wait to get the hell out of there before the earthquake struck.
 

sablebrush52

The Bard Of Barlings
Jun 15, 2013
20,704
48,977
Southern Oregon
jrs457.wixsite.com
Moving sucks. Our last move was 35 years ago into this house. I dread the day we get too old to do the stairs and we'll have to move.

Congrats on your move.
Get one of those motorized seats that carries you up the stairs.
Set charges around the garage to set off at the proper moment. Don’t stick the kids with the clean out.
 

LotusEater

Lifer
Apr 16, 2021
4,365
58,181
Kansas City Missouri
Burbank is toast, almost literally. As I was packing up the van, a fire broke out on the Warner lot, a few blocks away from where I live, and smoke began to filter overhead, adding an apocalyptic element to the proceedings. The wail of sirens were streaming past from different directions, with reported “holiday” traffic pile ups piling up.
I could hardly wait to get the hell out of there before the earthquake struck.
IMG_7869.jpeg
 

sablebrush52

The Bard Of Barlings
Jun 15, 2013
20,704
48,977
Southern Oregon
jrs457.wixsite.com
The movers arrived on Friday, with little warning. You’re supposed to get a day’s notice. I got 3 hours.

After some bartering, I offered the requisite bribes gratuities and they helped me empty out the furniture in the living room and put it in the garage. When I bought the house it had some furniture left behind. Anyone want to buy a gothic oak church pew? It's got pillows!

They they opened the door to the truck and I beheld a massive pile of melted lumps that could have been boxes at some point. I was pretty sure the buckled form under everything was the TV box. It would appear that the words "fragile" and "glass" are challenges in "moverese" similar to "I fucked your wife, girlfriend, daughter, dog, and she preferred me". The labeled stuff was pretty much at the bottom.

I had spent months carefully packing everything, engineering it to withstand worst practices. Obviously, if a Art Nouveau slag glass lamp got tossed from a speeding truck into a 1000 foot deep ravine all bets were off. Short of that I had cushioned particularly fragile items with 6 to 8 inches of packing, paper, bubble wrap and peanuts, and in some cases, more. Books had been fitted to exactly till their boxes. The rare books had a foam wrapping around each book, etc. I had bet on thugs and gorillas.

As they began to unload the lumps I joined in, snatching something I recognized and bringing it to the garage or the kitchen, while the two movers piled up the lumps i the living room, completely filling it up to a level of about 5 feet. In the end we put some of my living room furniture into the garage until the lumps could be cleared. The furniture was well wrapped, and in an act of solidarity, becuae I had joined in and helped them get the stuff delivered, they left it with the wraps and blankets in place.

So far I've gotten through about 30% of it and so far, every really fragile antique has emerged undamaged from its respective melted lump of a box. Sill a long ways to go and I don't know how much might be missing. The original crew that did the pick up wasn't 100% and I ended up driving boxes that were left behind to their captain's house to be then sent to the warehouse and added back into the load. Those boxes did make it here.

So, my impression is that the guys to do the moves are very hard working and fast. They don't really give a shit about anything but getting the job done within a company mandated time period. They coudn't care less about the safety of your goods. It's just another load that they have to handle.

On the other hand, management and above, those are the gorillas and thugs. Every one of them lied to me on every topic. They further tried to chisel me on things that they had agreed to. They did not follow through with updating the inventory I sent them two weeks prior to the move, so their crew was completely unprepared for what they got, a bomb proofed load. They did NOTHING right. And this is an international service.

As for employing professional movers? Here's my thoughts on it. If you really care about everything getting through intact, move it yourself. If that's not a possibility and you can afford the extra charge, employ a moving concierge service. They will move your belongings like everything is truly precious and everything will be just fine. You will be broke.

My basic take on all of this is this if you're thinking of hiring commercial movers and not hiring a concierge:

Take all the stuff you want to move and form it into a pile.
Douse it with gasoline, or jet fuel.
Strike a match and set the pile ablaze.
Relax and enjoy the glow, maybe roast hot dogs and/or marshmallows.

Much, much better for your physical and mental health.

Still, I have to admit that there's a certain level of satisfaction in pulling undamaged antique glassware from mangled lumps. So far Jesse 30, Movers 0.