John's life changes

[JohnSwenson]

We are in Centralia right now, be here for the next two days. Wednesday we are going up to Bottlehead HQ on Bainbridge Island.

 

We have been community and house hunting, we fell in love with Centralia. It's going to be many months before we can buy a house, but we have been looking around, seeing what is available in different communities.

 

The trip up here was very harrowing. North of Salem Oregon we got caught in a massive storm, it was below freezing and raining so it was quite bad. It was almost a white out situation, I could barely see the tail lights of the car in front. At one point a large chunk of ice flew off a truck and hit my windshield right in front of me, THAT was not fun!

 

We finally made it through Portland, but then the car died in Vancouver. We spent many hours in the snow at a rest stop waiting for AAA, finally got towed into Vancouver where there was an auto repair place next door to a rental car place. We got the last car in the lot and went to a motel, we got the last room they had. (there was a dog show in town, we got to see some really beautiful dogs).

 

The next day we found out the problem was a cooling pump that was under recall, the car died because it overheated -- in the snow! So we had to take the car to the dealer to get it replaced. By the time it was done it was too late to go north.

 

So we spent two days in Vancouver before getting to Centralia.

 

We found a wonderful husband and wife realtor team that has been showing us houses and communities all around the area. It has been great fun the last few days, we have ALMOST forgotten what it took to get here. We just had dinner at a little Mexican restaurant that was absolutely fantastic, WOW!

 

We feel really good about this, I'm sure I am going to love it up here, once we can get through the actual move.

 

John S.

[rickca]

Sounds like quite an adventure. It reminds me why I moved to Florida. But I long to see giant evergreens and rugged country again.

Glad you are feeling the freedom.

[Ralf11]

if yur gonna live in the Percific Nortwest yew need yew a chain saw

 

 

a good 'un

[mourip]

Thanks for keeping us up to date.

 

I am enjoying hearing about your new life adventures ...much more than listening to folks trade insults in the other threads.

 

As always you bring a fresh and stable tone to CA...

[Account Closed]

Thanks for keeping us up to date.

 

I am enjoying hearing about your new life adventures ...much more than listening to folks trade insults in the other threads.

 

As always you bring a fresh and stable tone to CA...

 

+1

[wisnon]

Much success John!

 

You are a gentleman and a scholar.

[JohnSwenson]

Hi All,

it's time for another update, we are moving out of the home of 23 years in 4 days, it's that time already. It has been one incredibly exhausting time getting the house all packed up. We now have over 120 boxes in the garage all ready to go.

 

Next week two big PODS are being delivered and I have hired some local movers to pack them up with everything (surprisingly affordable, I'm never doing the actual filling up by myself again, this is the way to go, tell the experts what I want and let THEM sweat!).

 

We are moving into a hotel suite for two weeks, then the long drive up to Washington. We have two cars which will be loaded with the stuff we will be using for many months. Some friends are coming along to help with the driving etc. Once in Washington we will be living in an apartment for several months.

 

After we move out a contractor is going to start working on the house, painting, remodeling kitchen, baths etc. It is estimated to take a month to get it ready to be on the market. Our agent says the market is really hot right now, that our house is going to have a bidding war going on so she is going to let it be on the market for 15 days (in our neighborhood that is actually a fairly long time). Then select who we want and start the closing process. She says that closings usually go very fast these days, the buyers on these houses have all their ducks in row before starting out. So we should have money in the bank much sooner than I originally thought.

 

THEN we can try and buy what we want up there. There are some amazing houses on the market right now, but they will probably be sold by the time we are ready so we will be constantly staying abreast of what is going on so when we have money we can pounce!

 

It has been an interesting time packing up my listening room, as things started leaving the room it started not sounding as good. It is now pretty awful. This has really highlighted how much room acoustics has to do with this. But also that the quality of equipment also has to be good. The best acoustics with lousy equipment sounds bad, and lousy acoustics with great equipment also sounds bad, you have to have both. If you want to keep the monetary outlay reasonable they both have to be matched to each other, if you spend too much on one or the other you are wasting money.

 

As I'm getting ready for the trek I have been working on a "to go" system, that has to be small and work in a hotel room. I finally have it all put together and working great (listening to it right now, it's all I have up and running). My server is a little fitlet PC with a 500G mSATA SSD with Vortexbox installed, running LMS. To keep it under 500G I don't have any hi-res on this, just mostly 16/44.1 flak. I have a little TP-link "travel router" which makes a local wifi and wired network, but also connects to whatever wifi the hotel has for internet. This lets us keep all our devices (laptops, tablets, phones etc, amazing how much we have these days) always pointing at the TP net rather than having to connect to each hotel differently every night. The server plugs in with Ethernet to the router and router takes care of connecting to the individual devices.

 

For the "main system" I'm using a SqueezeBox Touch with a pair of Senheiser PX-100 headphones plugged in directly to the SBT. The secret sauce is powering the SBT from an LPS-1 powered by the MeanWell. This sounds amazingly good. Since the SBT has wifi I can put it wherever I want. I tried a microRendu and a Soekriss DAC, but it takes a lot more boxes and cables and has to be wired, which takes a switch and wire or another box as wireless bridge. The SBT and LPS-1 is much simpler and actually not that far off sonically. I tried running a player on my android phone and it doesn't come close to the SBT powered by LPS-1.

 

Once we get out of here I will have more time to be around HERE, but I'm afraid I can't do much testing of stuff, my entire test equipment suite will be a handheld Fluke meter, so no detailed analysis of USB or Ethernet SI until I get a new lab setup.

 

Well I guess that is it for now.

 

John S.

[Jud]

Fun to read about your "Road Warrior" rig, John. I always take my MacBook Pro running A+, my Geek Out, and Etymotic IEMs, with a handful of SD cards that slot into the laptop and hold my entire collection. Works for hotels and airplanes!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

[tboooe]

awesome @JohnSwenson

 

My parents are actually seriously considering moving up to the Seattle area to retire. They will be up there in late April for an extended 1 month stay to check out areas where they may want to settle.

 

Anyway, I hope your move proceeds smoothly!

[Jay Tee]

Hi All,

it's time for another update, we are moving out of the home of 23 years in 4 days, it's that time already. It has been one incredibly exhausting time getting the house all packed up. We now have over 120 boxes in the garage all ready to go.

Next week two big PODS are being delivered and I have hired some local movers to pack them up with everything (surprisingly affordable, I'm never doing the actual filling up by myself again, this is the way to go, tell the experts what I want and let THEM sweat!).

We are moving into a hotel suite for two weeks, then the long drive up to Washington. We have two cars which will be loaded with the stuff we will be using for many months. Some friends are coming along to help with the driving etc. Once in Washington we will be living in an apartment for several months.

After we move out a contractor is going to start working on the house, painting, remodeling kitchen, baths etc. It is estimated to take a month to get it ready to be on the market. Our agent says the market is really hot right now, that our house is going to have a bidding war going on so she is going to let it be on the market for 15 days (in our neighborhood that is actually a fairly long time). Then select who we want and start the closing process. She says that closings usually go very fast these days, the buyers on these houses have all their ducks in row before starting out. So we should have money in the bank much sooner than I originally thought.

THEN we can try and buy what we want up there. There are some amazing houses on the market right now, but they will probably be sold by the time we are ready so we will be constantly staying abreast of what is going on so when we have money we can pounce!

It has been an interesting time packing up my listening room, as things started leaving the room it started not sounding as good. It is now pretty awful. This has really highlighted how much room acoustics has to do with this. But also that the quality of equipment also has to be good. The best acoustics with lousy equipment sounds bad, and lousy acoustics with great equipment also sounds bad, you have to have both. If you want to keep the monetary outlay reasonable they both have to be matched to each other, if you spend too much on one or the other you are wasting money.

As I'm getting ready for the trek I have been working on a "to go" system, that has to be small and work in a hotel room. I finally have it all put together and working great (listening to it right now, it's all I have up and running). My server is a little fitlet PC with a 500G mSATA SSD with Vortexbox installed, running LMS. To keep it under 500G I don't have any hi-res on this, just mostly 16/44.1 flak. I have a little TP-link "travel router" which makes a local wifi and wired network, but also connects to whatever wifi the hotel has for internet. This lets us keep all our devices (laptops, tablets, phones etc, amazing how much we have these days) always pointing at the TP net rather than having to connect to each hotel differently every night. The server plugs in with Ethernet to the router and router takes care of connecting to the individual devices.

For the "main system" I'm using a SqueezeBox Touch with a pair of Senheiser PX-100 headphones plugged in directly to the SBT. The secret sauce is powering the SBT from an LPS-1 powered by the MeanWell. This sounds amazingly good. Since the SBT has wifi I can put it wherever I want. I tried a microRendu and a Soekriss DAC, but it takes a lot more boxes and cables and has to be wired, which takes a switch and wire or another box as wireless bridge. The SBT and LPS-1 is much simpler and actually not that far off sonically. I tried running a player on my android phone and it doesn't come close to the SBT powered by LPS-1.

Once we get out of here I will have more time to be around HERE, but I'm afraid I can't do much testing of stuff, my entire test equipment suite will be a handheld Fluke meter, so no detailed analysis of USB or Ethernet SI until I get a new lab setup.

Well I guess that is it for now.

John S.

I just ran into this thread and am happy I caught it at a point where John is truly happy to be starting a new and exciting chapter.

 

John, you and Alex have contributed a lot to improving my music enjoyment (JS-2, Regen and soon LPS-1) and with the technical savvy you continue to demonstrate I'm sure you will look back at this episode as one of the best things to happen to you.

 

I say go, John, go.

[JohnSwenson]

More update:

 

This week we have been packing and packing and packing. Wednesday we moved into a hotel for two weeks, Thursday the PODS arrived. I spent 15 hours doing the final packing, getting everything that was going in the PODS boxed up and in the garage.

 

Today the two movers came and packed everything in the PODS, the furniture from various rooms and all those boxes, (somewhere around 130).

 

An interesting event happened this week, on Wednesday we were meeting with the real estate agent and she said she might have someone interested in buying it "as is". We had not really considered it because we would usually get much less for the house that way, it was almost always better to spend some money (we had budgeted 40 grand for that) to get a much higher price. BUT our agent said the market was so hot that people are willing to pay almost the same "as is" in order to get the house sooner. I said sure, that sounds all right to me.

 

So Thursday afternoon a buyer shows up with another agent, while we are still in the middle of final packing, piles of stuff everywhere, it looked like a disaster zone. Two hours later I got a call from our agent saying they made an offer. When I ran the numbers it turned out only 6 grand less then we were expecting to get (minus the renovation expenses), AND since we were getting the money a month and a half earlier than we expected we will have fewer mortgage payments, so it turns out almost exactly the same as going the traditional route!! AND we get to buy a new house much sooner than we thought possible.

 

Today the agent showed up with the paper work, we spent a couple hours filling out and signing stuff, and we have now sold the house!

 

It still has to go through the official title and escrow stuff, but that is only supposed to be a couple weeks. This is just amazing the DAY we packed up everything in the PODS the house sells.

 

Tomorrow we need to go around and throw away all the trash and dust that was uncovered under the furniture and we are done.

 

I think I am going to sleep for a week.

 

 

John S.

[Solstice380]

As they say, sometimes it's better to be lucky than good! Happy things are working out well.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Computer Audiophile

[JohnSwenson]

Another update:

The buyer backed out but our agent found another, this time a full cash buyer, it is going to close in TWO days!  I didn't know that was theoretically possible.

So we will actually have the money in the bank by the time we actually drive up to Washington.

We have spent the last two days doing final packing and cleaning out each room, 15 hours a day. Whew, I'm glad it is all done. The PODS get picked up in twenty minutes and tomorrow the huge pile of stuff in the backyard gets picked up, then Wednesday we sign the papers and we are DONE.

Now to spend a little time catching up with what has been happening here on CA, I'm having to use the tablet with the AT&T connection since I already packed up all the network stuff.

Back in the hotel room my little network music system is working great and sounds amazing, but I haven't had much time to listen to it, we have been leaving early and coming back totally wiped out, we just want to go to bed.

After Wednesday that should change since we won't have anything else to do.

The little local network I setup is working great in the suite, with the SBT, apps on phones and tablets and laptops. We can both listen to music over whatever we have near us.

I guess that is about it for now.

John S.

[JohnSwenson]

It is finished!

 

Escrow closed on the house yesterday!  The money should show up in the account on Monday.

 

The company that bought the house already has it all torn apart and started remodeling.

 

We leave for WA state a week from today, and everything is all done already, I can relax now (well time to pay bills, get all the utilities turned off, fun stuff like that). I can now spend some time reading forum posts again.

 

This is just amazing to me, we will show up in WA with the money in the bank, I was expecting to wait until mid June before being able to buy a house, this just changes everything.

 

John S.

[SuperRoo]

Congrats

[jhwalker]

14 minutes ago, JohnSwenson said:

It is finished!

 

Escrow closed on the house yesterday!  The money should show up in the account on Monday.

 

The company that bought the house already has it all torn apart and started remodeling.

 

We leave for WA state a week from today, and everything is all done already, I can relax now (well time to pay bills, get all the utilities turned off, fun stuff like that). I can now spend some time reading forum posts again.

 

This is just amazing to me, we will show up in WA with the money in the bank, I was expecting to wait until mid June before being able to buy a house, this just changes everything.

 

John S.

 

So happy for you, John.  Wishing you the best in your new situation

[miguelito]

Sorry about the job and the uncertainty of the change, it is always hard. 

 

On the flipside, change is good, and maybe this will be a blessing for you in your personal and professional life! We will miss you around here, and your work.

 

I have a regen, a JS-2, an LPS-1, and a microRendu. You're in my home every time I play music!

[Jud]

Yay John!

[The Computer Audiophile]

Just great to hear John.

[Superdad]

On 3/25/2017 at 4:53 PM, miguelito said:

We will miss you around here, and your work.

 

I have a regen, a JS-2, an LPS-1, and a microRendu. You're in my home every time I play music!

 

Don't worry, if anything, John will have more time to hang about CA.  And the most fantastic part is that he will get to spend as much time as he likes doing audio engineering stuff.  

 

Everyone here has a lot to look forward to.  We already have about a 3-year product roadmap--and we are both anxious to dig into a long-planed, highly ambitious project that could really set a new direction for digital audio.

 

It is going to be a fun few years, and of course I am delighted that my dear friend--and his kind and supportive wife--are about to move to a lovely place and settle in a nice house in a new community in rural Washington. 

 

--Alex C.

 

P.S. Miguelito: Thanks again for all your purchases.  You are enabling future projects (and a bit of my children's college education ).

[earnmyturns]

2 hours ago, Superdad said:

Don't worry, if anything, John will have more time to hang about CA.  And the most fantastic part is that he will get to spend as much time as he likes doing audio engineering stuff.  

 

Everyone here has a lot to look forward to.  We already have about a 3-year product roadmap--and we are both anxious to dig into a long-planed, highly ambitious project that could really set a new direction for digital audio.

As a happy owner of two microRendus and two LPS-1s, really looking forward to what you and John cook up when John settles in his new home and restarts working on audio. 

[JohnSwenson]

We finally made it into Washington state. We moved into the apartment yesterday evening. I am trying to de-stress right now, there is a LOT of construction going on in Tacoma which has cut streets in two, moved things around etc. This made trying to find things last night in the dark very difficult, google was telling us to take a street that didn't go through, when we went around, the new route was also blocked, at one point we went around in circles for 20 minutes before I found where we were going. I'm definitely going to have to do some scouting trips (during the DAY) to find out how to get from here to there. To make it more fun most of the streets don't have street name signs that you can see at night. It really felt like driving blind.

 

The apartment itself is very nice and spacious, the company that furnished it did a great job, except for some office chairs for the two desks.

 

It just got the computer up and running, tonight I'll try he music system.

 

It's going to take me a couple days to get settled down enough to start being able to comprehend questions and making useful responses so bear with me.

 

John S.

[JohnSwenson]

We have now been in the apartment for two weeks, finally starting to feel settled in.

 

Last Monday we met with the agent, this time with cash in the bank, it was for real this time. He had a bunch of houses for us to look at. The very first one was amazing, it met or exceeded every one of our criteria, it felt like HOME. All the rest were terrible in comparison.

 

That first house was it, it was at the top of the budget but there was almost nothing that needed to be done. We talked it over and decided that was going to be it. We made an offer that night! The owner accepted the offer, we were almost there. Wednesday we had the inspection which uncovered one issue under the house and a few very minor things. The inspector loved the house. When the inspector is gushing about how much he would love to buy it you know it is in pretty good shape.

 

We put in a modification that the seller should take care of the structural issue under the house. They accepted that the next day.

 

The title company has already done all their due diligence, we are just waiting on the owner to be ready to move out and we can close.

 

This whole thing has happened way faster than I could ever have hoped for.

 

Now we just have to wait!!

 

This house has a separate "den" that is perfect for a listening room, a large empty lot out back where I can build a large shop for all the woodworking machinery I have, and large bedrooms to put my electronics lab and my wife's quilting room. It is hard to imagine a house that would be better suited for us.

 

And the electric rates are insanely low. The county built their own hydro plant so we get electricity almost for free.

 

I'm going to like this!!!

 

John S.

 

 

 

 

 

[ted_b]

Great news John!!!!

[Jud]

53 minutes ago, ted_b said:

Great news John!!!!

 

+1