End of an Era
I wrote earlier about selling the last of my comic collection. Today I am mailing out the last set. I tried multiple ways of selling including going to a local comic swap, posting the entire collection on Craigslist and finally putting the books in 6-10 book lots and selling them on eBay. The swap netted me about $80, though I practically gave some great books away. I got one nibble from Craigslist to buy the collection (700 books) for $400. That is a steal at about $0.57 per books that sell for $3-4 not to mention older collectables worth many times more. In the end, selling on eBay after all the fees, I netted slightly more with a whole lot more hassle.
I was asked if I was at least a little sad to be selling the collection I had worked so hard to put together. At first it was a littler hard, but it got a lot easier as I stared at the stack of boxes I had no intention of opening. Whatever I might have lost in the buying and selling process I made up for by enjoying the books I had, getting a little money back and gain a lot more space.
My Little Space on the Web
Update: Did you notice the name on the Blog? www.jamesthegeneralist.com is mine.
Closet Project
- I removed all the contents and placed them on the bed.
- Next, I took out all the rails, shelves and left over nails, making sure not to poke holes in the sheet rock and keep the rails as intact as possible to reuse.
- I patched the holes with plaster compound I already had and did a quick sanding once it dried to get a relatively smooth surface.
- Once that was all done, I put in the pole supports and railing for the shelves. I placed them at 39″ from the floor and the other pole so there was plenty of space for my longest items.
- When all was in and I was sure it was the right size, I put down some plastic and painted. The stuff was enamel and in a small space, so the fumes were pretty strong. Thankfully, I was not in there long.
- I took a nap, went to the park with the family and when I got back made sure t was all dry and started filling. At once I realized I had not completely accounted for the hanger sliding under the shelf. Rather than remove everything, I just cut out a notch with a hole cutter.
- Everything was put back and I put the light in.
- When I was happy with that, I added the tie rack in the back and snapped pics of the final project.
Saying Good-bye to Old Friends
Best. Decision. Ever.
My Minimalist Christmas
Mountains of Music!
I am using three programs for the whole process. Media Player is adequate for ripping only. I try to steer clear of Microsoft if I can on principal, but no one has made a player quite as simple. The trouble is the tagging. WMP wants to tag your songs automatically, save the album art somewhere else and generally rename your collection without asking you. I originally though it was doing a good job, but I have had to go back and repair much of the damage done
My preferred method has been to use MP3TAG to tag all the songs. It uses MusicBrainz and Amazon databases for the album info and the tags include the album art which seems to stick. So far, the process is going well and I am getting reconnected with my tunes. It is great to hear some songs that flood me with old memories. Of course, it has also given me the opportunity to weed out junk I don’t want or even remember ever liking. I guess some of my wife’s stuff got in there. ;^)
Update: After many hours updating music tags, I thought I would just go back through the collection and make sure the cds were all ripped. Turns out, I was really picky when I did it the first time. I have found at least half of the cds were not in my library. Maybe I started when memory was tight or I was just being really choosy. I don’t know, but I have been adding them in over the weekend. It will be a little while, but I’ll have the entire collection searchable before too long.