I wonder if they realized who was moving in?
I’ve never been a real big fan of moving. I’ve only moved my own house twice, and I think that I’ve helped my friends move more than I ever could. So when the daunting task of moving the official SuperheroStuff warehouse, I wasn’t exactly looking forward to it.
I had to take off my gloves to do the 'Emerald Twilight' thing
Now, don’t get me wrong. Our old warehouse, although functional and well worn, really didn’t have many perks beyond that. The warehouse was in the bowels of an ancient textile factory that has stood for close to 100 years. Spider-webbed windows, rusted pipes, and cracked flooring. Not exactly the most glamorous of locations, but it did provide a certain measure of remoteness. It also didn’t have any working heat or air conditioning last year, and for a small period of time no working water. The no water thing spawned some fairly interesting stories, which I have been prohibited from writing here though you can probably let your dirty little imaginations do the rest of the work. During the Christmas season the no heat thing was rather painful. We are in Pennsylvania and as such during the winter this State becomes a land of cold and darkness. Nothing like finding stuff in a dilapidated warehouse in 10 degree weather. Heck, I would wear my Green Lantern hobo gloves, a long sleeve t-shirt, a sweater, a Red Lantern Hoodie, a woolen hat, and a Vietnam era Marine trenchcoat….AND I WAS STILL COLD! One of benevolent leaders was merciful, and found some infra red heating lamps. They kind of reminded me of the lights they use to keep fast food warm, but when you are that mind numbingly cold you don’t mind being a medium french fry. After a while, we started calling these lights ‘Sun Gods’ and started developing a faux religion. The cold does strange things to people.
It's on like Donkey Kong!
Another such ‘amenity’ provided by our old warehouse was a fairly large rat we had nicknamed ‘Meg’. We had even go so far as to give the poor thing a time card. Around 10:20 each day, this monster of a rodent would traipse non nonchalantly down the middle of our office hallway, ignoring all of the screaming and madness that normally goes on. The creative process can be noisy and mildly belligerent, but it didn’t seem to stop ol’ Meg. I don’t hold any ill will to the rat, even though the bloody thing pilfered my snacks from my desk on multiple occasions…even going so far as to steal an ENTIRE bag of zip locked cookies off my desk. That was about the only time that I was willing to slightly bend my pacifist like tendencies. I’m all for the preservation of life, but don’t you dare mess with my cookies. I need them to go with my coffee!
So reflecting on all of these ‘quirks’ one can see why we needed to move. Of course our need to grow and expand our massive collection of superhero related items also helped. You’d be surprised on how much space all of this takes up, and considering all of the things we are getting now we need plenty of extra room. Now Pennsylvania is a cross-hatch of fields, sprawling developments, and dense urban environments. We run the gamut of terrains so finding a new location might have been problematic. We had checked several different locations before finally settling on a brand new warehouse in an industrial park nestled between some fields just a short jaunt from our then current warehouse. A beautiful location AND a brand new building? Oh yeah, sign us up!
Work work!
After doing a shuffle back and forth with our local municipality, we were cleared to move into our brand new warehouse.Unfortunately, the logistics of moving the world’s foremost collection of SuperHeroStuff is a tad bit more overwhelming than one might expect. We had to set up brand new shelving, we had to establish where everything was going, and we needed to do it in less than a week. Oh, and I forgot to mention that this entire process started after the week where it was 117 degrees. That is not an embellishment either…it was the hottest week in the history of this state…EVER! I lost 6 pounds in 3 days because of how hot it is, and I am a skinny fellow(I push 160 pounds)! One of the best work outs ever, but not something I would suggest for losing weight. There is probably far more less straining activities.
When we finally started moving into our new location, our first task was to put up the sixteen foot shelving. Think it of it like a giant erector set, and slightly more imposing. We had a two person scissors lift as well, but that didn’t help us to ‘raise’ the baseline of the structures. Murphy and his infernal law had struck us at this point, and our boards for the shelving was about an inch too long on all sides. Sighing, we got to work circular sawing our way through over 300 boards. There was enough sawdust for us to draw our favorite symbols on the floor! Well, suppose I was the only one who quickly scrawled down any symbols, but I had a lot of fun. I think my co-workers had a lot of fun ruining them and making me freak out too. Hey, I take my Green Lantern symbols seriously!
Like I said, Erector Set!
Fun with Sawdust
I don’t think I am nearly obsessive compulsive enough to appreciate the amount of time we spent organizing everything. You can’t just load up a 24 foot truck multiple times with boxes containing everything from the Atom to the X-Men and expect everything to be in the exact same order. I think it is kind of like losing socks in the laundry. Sure, you put everything in there, but some things will fall into this bizarre pocket dimension(perhaps the Phantom zone) and just get generally messy. Some boxes didn’t hold up well, and kind of collapsed in on itself. Not sure if you guys realize this, but we have enough t-shirts that they have their own center of gravity and event horizon, in which not even light can escape. Why do I suddenly hear Sam Neil stating that we won’t need eyes where we are going?
Almost Done!
After 6 grueling days of moving, building, and organizing everything was finally coming together. To see our desks set up in our new offices with that prevailing new building smell. You know what I’m talking about. It smells like electric wiring, fresh carpet, and drying paint. It was almost…too clean. Not like that was much of a problem, it was just unsettling. No giant rat threatening our munchies, working AC and heat, everything in order and organized…it was like a completely new job! You know, except with the same crazy co-workers and being surrounded by all things DC and Marvel. We now have the ability to scoop up everything our nerd-filled hearts can allow! It is so…glorious. There is just a single tear drop beading down my cheek. It is too much power! However, I still had asked my co-workers here if there was anything they missed about the old warehouse, their response was generally along the lines of ‘Well, we miss the rat piss smell’. So yeah…that old warehouse? Despite the fact that it is literally seven minutes down the road, it couldn’t possibly be any farther away!
Our Operations Manager's new Desk/ Fort
