My amazing wife had some shocking news earlier this year. She was being considered for a high profile job in Seattle with a major tech company. Several things would be happening if she got the job. First our quality of life would be improving due to a sweet bump in her salary. Second, it would afford me an opportunity to go back to college and get a degree in social work which has been a dream of mine for a long time. And lastly, and most important we (along with all our stuff) would be moving 2000 miles. Once she officially was offered the job I gave her a big hug, while staring at my beloved arcade games over her shoulder. Uh... those won't fit in the overhead bin I guess. (Cue the Celine Dion song from Titanic)
Lucky for us, my wife's new company was paying for the move. The full white glove treatment. They would pack and ship everything from our home in Houston, and within a week or two all our worldly goods would arrive in our new home in Seattle. During the initial conversation with the moving rep we told them the good news. All of the appliances have been sold , so they wouldn't have to be moved. Whew! Easy move! But we do have 8 full sized arcade games... so it's like moving 8 refrigerators since they are all between 225-350 pounds each. Oh and we are super protective of them.
I prepped them for the big journey the best I could. This mostly involved making sure everything inside was well secured. Monitor bolts tightened, no loose things floating around inside to damage components, and back doors tightly closed and locked. The movers would wrap them in heavy blankets but I decided to shrink wrap our Out Run. We had just spend an eon and mega dollars restoring it and I really didn't want to risk a ding in the now cherry side art.
All the games were tagged by the packers and placed on a special high dollar report just in case the worst happen. I wasn't worried about anything major happening since these were professional movers. But I was prepping myself for a wack or two on some, or a possible broken marquee.
One by one they left our little ranch house in Houston. On the truck they were wrapped up in huge blankets. The only game that seemed to be a struggle was the Neo Geo, mostly due to the unique shape of the back of the game. It can be a difficult one to get on a hand truck.
I bet these guys are amazing at Tetris. That is my Neo Geo upright all cozy on the right side of the photo.
I arrive in Seattle and stay at a temporary condo while our house is getting prepped. The pleasant weather is a huge shock after living in Houston for the last eight years. The lack of good Mexican food is a bit of a bummer however.
Lucky for me there is a lot of amazing coffee to keep me entertained. Did you know Seattle has coffee? True story.
The house is ready, and our time is up at the temporary condo. But unfortunately our stuff won't arrive still for another week at this point. So we live off an air mattress which wasn't terrible. But by the end of the week we are dying for our couch and real bed. There is nothing quite like living in a totally empty 3600 square foot house.
Hey our stuff arrives! Yeah! The tiny streets to our strange subdivision aren't really semi truck friendly.
Due to the tiny streets, the movers get creative with a make shift barge to grab our stuff.
They arrive! All cozy in big shipping blankets along with our other stuff like clothes and furniture. But who needs that other stuff when you can jam out on Robotron. A neighbor hood kid spots the games almost instantly and starts giving me the third degree about them. My favorite question was "Who let you buy these?"... what are you my Mom kid?
Oh... Hi there buddy. Doing ok?
The games get cozy in their new home, a small office in a rather large home. Everything turns on and functions like it should. Only the Smash TV took a small wack that was easily covered up by some expert Sharpie work.
The Simpsons didn't join the rest of the games in the office. It will stay down in the garage awaiting a full restoration that will start soon.
Slowly our house starts looking like a home, with all our stuff.
Can I interest you in some free cardboard? Happy hunting!