It's just a thing, though. When I moved my wife down to California I had to relocate the studio, too, which meant the ridonkulous Kurzweil needed a case (it weighs 80 lbs). That case is now under the bed. And in that case are every negative taken by my parents, ever, including (hopefully) some my dad took in Thule, Greenland when he was doing his co-op. What's left of my grandparents' albums are in there, too, picked clean by my opportunistic and rapacious aunt.
One of these days I'll run it all through the film scanner, hopefully while you can still talk to SCSI II via Firewire. Somehow I'm not optimistic that SCSI II - Firewire - Thunderbolt is going to work and the slide scanner I have can't be beaten for less than $8k.
Sounds pretty damn good. You're right to leave it though and grab the negatives. I asked my wife what she'd grab and she knew immediately. Photo's of her mother.