Hi. I’m … I’m Rhythmdvl and I’m a small-scale hoarder.
I just cleaned out a storage drawer in our home office.
I have a problem.
The drawer. That jumbled tangle of cables and electronica had twelve USB cables with Mini-B ends. Twelve. I carefully coiled them up, secured them, and grouped them in a clear Ziploc baggie. Then I … I … I put them back in the drawer. All twelve. I don’t think I have any devices that take a Mini-B end.
I have several S-Video cables. When was the last time I needed S-Video? They are tied together and ready to go downstairs into deep basement storage.
In the basement, I have wood. When the Dudeling gets a little older, he will be able to derive and prove algebraic limits all by staring at the scrap wood pile, because everything stays. The unused half of the piece I just cut goes in the pile. It will be halved again … and again … and no matter how many times I cut it in half, it will always go back into the pile.
But then again, having scraps of electronics, old screws and various building bits has saved us on many occasions. A friend brought an old computer by to figure out what was wrong with it and not only did I have a spare power supply, I had all the right cables to connect his IDE drives …
I also have a drawer full of them, and I don’t have a clue what they’re for. They might be for a TV, a cassette player, an old computer. Or maybe the VCR or that DVD player I tossed out.
I’m afraid to toss them, and it’s only one drawer, so I keep them.
I have a box…or two or three? … in my office closet with all that stuff. I haven’t touched anything in my office closet except printer paper in years!
How is your wood stored in the basement? Wood and dampness…ugh…that makes me nervous. I used to save cardboard boxes (someone was always moving!) until I had a mold inspector come by and he was like “HOLY SHIT GET RID OF ALL THESE BOXES!” and so I did. Do you keep your wood in a wire cage off the ground at least?
I have several wire cages, but I don’t want to use them up.
(Wood is in the basement next to the shop–but there’s an auto-draining dehumidifier that runs year-round so hopefully mold/ants/zombies won’t be a problem.)
If I had a dollar for everything my wife ever pitched and I had to go buy another one three weeks later, it would cover about a tenth of the cost of all the stuff I’ve had to re-buy.
Oh, I would, except we just bought one on Sunday. Literally hours after we’d just thrown out several, along with fuckloads of other old cables, because we’re moving and getting rid of old crap.
Know what? I don’t care. Not having to move tons of stuff is totally worth it.
Have you checked under your woodpile for zombies, Mr. I’mSoSureTheyWon’tBeAProblem?
In all my time of fighting against the creeping kipple, I’ve only thrown one thing out that I regret - we had the ugliest electric can opener in the world, but it worked better than anything I’ve had since.
I’m about to embark on a winter of getting ready to possibly sell our house next summer - I’m going in, guys! Wish me luck!
I, too, have a drawer full of baggies, and the baggies are full of wires. Component cables for DVD players and video game consoles that I don’t even own? Check. The aforementioned mini-B USB cables? Absolutely. At least six VGA cables, still in their original twist ties? Assorted 12-inch ethernet cables? I’ve got it all, baby!
It’s one thing when you’ve got spare generic cables. But it’s really annoying when you find a device-specific cable or AC adapter (i.e., wall wart, power brick, etc.) and you don’t know what it’s for. Perhaps the thing it came with is broken now but you can’t tell. For that reason I’ve started to label the AC adapters (and device-specific cables), so if they get separated from the device I’ll know where they go. (Those little Brother P-Touch label machines are very handy.)
I’ve been going thru a long term clean out process.
An example in just the cable department. Remember those old “Laplink” cables? Parallel port things for two computers to talk to each other. Good for transferring data way back when. I’ve got several of those. I promise myself to throw out all but one. (Not sure why I want to keep one …). But they are all over the house. Let’s see, is this one safe to throw out since there might be another one somewhere else?
Multiply that by a thousand for all the other stuff I’m looking at. (How many PS/2 KVM cable sets do I need?) Too much mental effort for so many little things.
You know what really helps in getting around to years of backed-up organizing? Having more important things to do. Nothing justifies procrastination better than finally hitting age-old chores that improve things!
I have two of those Laplink cables (wasn’t ‘Laplink’ the name of the software?) buried deep in the basement. Why two? Because I don’t have the machine/need to test them, and I’m not sure if they’ll both work. I did just set the Dudeling up with a laptop from 1999 or so, which means I’d better hold on to these cables in case both the USB and Ethernet ports fail and I need to transfer data!
I’ve been building my PCs since the '386 days, so I have enough spare rails, cables, motherboards and bits for when the Cylon war begins and we all need archaic equipment.
I also just found a stash of 5.25 C-64 disks. Anyone want to play Impossible Mission? I’m tempted to set up a drive and VM just to hear *Another visitor. Stay a while … stay FOREVER! *.
I loved that game (Impossible Mission for the Commodore 64). We played it a lot in college in my off-campus apartment. If you miss a jump in the game, you fall down a shaft, with a great death scream. I was on the phone with my mother once when one of my roommates was playing that game. She freaked out at hearing the scream.
I have agreement from my husband that we can throw out the hockey bag full of assorted cables that he’s collected over the years. He’s allowed to go through the bag and select the ones he wants to keep as long as they don’t fill more space than the old laptop bag that I’ve given him to hold his new cable stash. I think small steps like this will help.
Something I have really stockpiled are the detachable power cords used with computers, monitors, etc–since even though I’ve thrown out the computer there’s nothing wrong with the cord.
Yeah mold remediation. They come check out your house and point out mold and tell you how much it’ll be to clean up. I saw them all the time on “Holmes on Homes” and decided to get my basement worked over before I had it painted.
Dear husband Shoujin corrected me, noting that not only were they Monster brand (and thus expensive at the time we got them), but that they went to Goodwill, not the garbage. So that’s something at least.
