Friday, November 28, 2025

Card Room Migration: Phase 2 - Prep Work

Settlement on the house was Oct 29.  Like I said, we started moving boxes (mostly cards) immediately.  And of course, not only was there my collection, but the two dozen-ish monster boxes of my extras, plus what was left of the set collection I was selling, as well as that bulk hoard that I had upstairs.  Needless to say, everyone says I'm never moving again.  Initially, I thought about staging the bulk of my cards in the garage and then moving them upstairs when the room was done.  But I figured it would be better to keep them at room temperature and humidity and only have to move them from the other upstairs room a few steps away.  


This is only a small part of what we moved over the next couple weeks.  Not shown is the closet in this room that has a couple more stacks.  A lot of what you see here is the two other non-collection batches.  The white boxes on the right are my extras.

The old space was two rooms about the same size - roughly square and measuring around 12' x 15' or so, I can't remember for sure.  The new space is 19' x 14', though the one end is a bit shorter, but includes a closet that I no longer have to use for storing other old junk, it's just for cards and accessories.

Here's the short end of the new space.  You can see I stuffed the closet, and then brought in the paint materials.  The old house had all white walls.  This room is probably the only one I will paint a different color, even though every room in the new house has one and often two colors on the walls.  Most of the colors are nice natural shades (seafoam green, tan, grey, etc.).  The card room was the former residents' daughter's domain.  I don't imagine she was a Florida Marlins fan, and neither am I.  (I'm guessing the turquoise and black may be the local high school colors?).  Either way, I've got to change this scheme before I can set up the room.  Can you guess the colors I'm converting to?  Leave your guesses in the comments below.


Step 1 - Taping.  Had to tape both top and bottom of the two mouldings that separate the colors.  The lighting wasn't great, so it was challenging to get it all lined up right at the edge.  That took an entire evening. 

Step 2 - Priming.  Since the top section was black, and the bottom section was such a dark color, it was pretty much a necessity to prime the areas first, so the colors stayed true (hint: they're the official franchise colors - you guess the team).  The priming was pretty easy.  Again it was another whole evening.  


Here's a sneak peek at Hivemind Headquarters from the outside.


And, of course, the packing continued at the old house.

Next time - Color!

Monday, November 24, 2025

Card Room Migration: Phase 1 - Breakdown

Operations in Maryland have been closed since late October.  I started moving boxes of cards the day of settlement 😄. Except for most of my bulk Redskins and some larger sets, the majority of my collection has been moved out.

If you follow the link to my Featured post that's tagged on the Home page (just there to the right -->) of the Hivemind Headquarters as it was, you can see it looked something like this:

 
Well, before the furniture move, it looked like this:
 

 

This one is an "in progress" shot of the binder shelves on the right.  Those shelves were cleared and the boxes taken to the new house.  The rack is still there for the moment.  Everything is off the walls and tops of the cabinets and shelves too. 


Even the desk and shelves in the computer room have been cleared. (I'll get the posters soon.)

Stay tuned for the prep work on the new (larger) space!
 

Monday, November 03, 2025

Operations Suspended: Headquarters Moving

Collecting and Trading operations are temporarily suspended due to Headquarters relocation.  HiveMind Headquarters is moving from Thurmont, MD to Fairfield, PA.


I know, it's supposed to be a Borg ship, but this was cooler...

New location will consolidate Collecting Operations into one space of about 19' x 14', which is close to the total of the two previous spaces.  Stay tuned for images of the new setup in a couple weeks.  Automotive operations will also be located completely onsite as well.

Inventory transfer is currently in progress.  Infrastructure and communication setup will commence around Nov. 14.  Further transmissions will be very limited until then.

 
And please fill out the survey if you haven't already ~ thanks to the 36 respondents so far.

Friday, October 17, 2025

Borg At The Door

Census Drones are still cruising through your cyber domain.  Please take the survey if you haven't already.  Only 22 responses so far.

 Take the survey here 

Thanks! 

Wednesday, October 15, 2025

Victory Is Ours!

I think the bots have finally been turned back!

Reader levels for all posts have returned to normal levels.  Even the Bot Decoy post has only one read this week.  When I check the Stats page, the top ten most-read posts only have teens and single digits next to them now.  The surge has come back down in the charts too:

Just today it looks like only three of my list pages were opened, instead of all of them by dozens of readers.  I'd put up the other charts, but you guys know what I'm talking about....

I hope the casualties were light in the Bot War.  I do not have final reports on Borg ship deployments or battle damage, but it appears that we have defeated the dreaded enemy.  Thanks to our brave warriors for preserving the blog domain.