Delicious!

A new version of Delicious Library is out!

If you haven’t heard of it before, it’s a program from the Mac for organizing your books, dvds, and such.

The new version adds more categories, including gadgets, toys, and tools.

Another thing they added is an option to export to a webpage. It’s not the best export, it’s a little buggy and has some design issues, but it’s decent enough.

You can check out my library here!

Taxonomy of Possessions

What with all this cleaning and organizing going on, I was thinking of taxonomy of possessions.

Junk

item that has no worth or value, but has somehow eluded being thrown out.
Examples: expired coupon, old catalog.

Artifact

item that may have no intrinsic value, and might not be used often if ever, but serves as a mnemonic link to a specific person, event, or time period.
Examples: concert ticket, handmade mug.

Potential

item that does not come into common use, but has the potential to be useful at some point.
Examples: drill press, necktie.

Collection

item that is used perhaps frequently, perhaps uncommonly, but belongs to a grouping of similar items.
Examples: book, DVD.

Useful

item used on a regular basis.
Examples: laptop computer, toothbrush.

So looking at those, Junk can obviously be tossed.

Artifacts are a bit trickier, since my memory can be swiss-cheesey sometimes, a symbol or reminder of some sort might be the only trigger that will remind me an event even happened. Probably the best thing to do with artifacts is to digitize paper ones, and dispose of the originals, or at least consolidate them into scrapbooks. Non-paper artifacts are tougher to deal with.

Potential also covers old stuff which I don’t use anymore, but keep around in case I *might* use it for some project in the future. My old gadgets fall into this potential category. The best thing for potential items is an honest assessment of if they will really be used. I can look at old PDAs, MP3 players, laptops, and cameras and say “you know, really, I’m not going to use these for anything.” If that’s the case, it’s time to give them away or sell them on eBay. Or, if they are of kinda questionable quality, like the old rusty outdoor grill or the weird voicemail system, throw ’em out.

Collection items are a matter of preference. I happen to like to have shelves full of books, DVDs, and video games. Do I need them? Not really. But every once and a while I like to return to them, and it’s sort of comforting to know they are there, since some aren’t easily available anymore. Kinda like my own personal library. I think financial records also fall into this category.

Useful items, obviously, are for keeping. As zen-like as one may be, one would find it difficult to brush one’s teeth without toothbrush or toothpaste.

Full to the brim

We originally got the dumpster for 2 weeks, but it only took 3 days to completely fill it.

If it wasn’t so expensive ($400) I’d say we should get a dumpster more often.

I have a pile of stuff in the living room that I need to go through and give away/sell.

Item #1 up for grabs:

Nomad II MG MP3 Player. Once considered high-end, now considered a toy. I it has 64MB of built-in storage, and you can put a 128MB SmartMedia card in it, for a grand total of 192MB of storage.

Not much, but enough to fit 4 or 5 albums on it, more if you compress them at lower quality. A good first MP3 player for a kid, perhaps.

It looks cool, and lights up blue. Ooo, blue lights. Sexy.

I have the MP3 player, docking station, and probably all the manuals and original packaging.

Anyway, let me know if you want it.

Waaaah

I’m tired and my back hurts.

My back probably hurts from lifting something incorrectly yesterday. I tried to be careful to lift with my legs, but might have lifted something with my back without noticing.

Not sure why I’m so tired… I went to bed around 12:30, then woke up at 4 feeling woozy and dehydrated. I drank some water and went back to bed, and got up at 8:15 and stumbled off to work.

Now that all the big stuff is in the dumpster (except my filing cabinets, which will go tonight) I think I will start in on sorting through stuff to give away or sell. I have a ton of old gadgets, some worthless, some decent, almost all should be in working condition, and for a lot of them I have all the original packaging. Yeah, I’m a packrat.

This weekend I’m going to Maine with Sarah to visit my mom for her birthday. We’re leaving Friday night, and Adam is talking about having the dumpster taken back this weekend, so that only gives me tonight and tomorrow night to purge any larger items.

So watch this space for stuff I’m giving away or selling cheap!
First come, first served!

Operation Cleanup

If all goes according to plan, when I get home from work today, there will be a dumpster in my driveway.

It will be there for two weeks, and it kicks off a flurry of cleaning and purging that will hopefully result in a much more organized and less cluttered house.

I am already thinking about process changes I can make to keep it clean once it gets to that state.
Recently, I’ve been doing “zero inbox” on my email, which means I deal with all emails in my inbox, either deleting them, archiving them or replying and then archiving them. The idea is by keeping your inbox clean, it’s easy to see new stuff, and by dealing with it as it comes in, it never gets overwhelming.
So far it’s working really well. I’ve been doing it at work and at home, and my email boxes are clean and tidy. If I need to find an old email, I just use search, or filter based on some simple tags.

I’m thinking I could do the same thing with physical mail as well. I could move the shredder and the filing cabinets out of my bedroom, and when mail comes, either shred it, file it, or if it’s a bill, pay it and file the receipt – immediately. That way I won’t even let paper into my bedroom, since once it gets there, it just builds up in huge drifts.

The dumpster will allow us to throw out some old crappy furniture which has just built up and is taking up space.

I also might convince myself to part with some packratted stuff…

I need to go through my clothes, and decide for each item if it needs to be tossed, donated, or filed as winter or summer or all-weather. My closet and hamper are overflowing with clothes, I definitely can do some paring down.

And gadgets… I have a bunch of old gadgets built up. One laptop is garbage, a 486 that I don’t even think I could give away. Then there are two other laptops, a Dell Inspiron and an Apple Powerbook… they are old, and need new batteries, but work fine… I never use them, I should give them away or eBay them. I also have an old Palm IIIx, for which I have just about every accessory made. Seriously, I have the little digital camera attachment, and the GPS attachment, and a bunch of other stuff… I doubt it’s worth much. Again, I should give it away or sell it. It’s hard to do, though. Every fiber of my being tells me “keep them, they are old but still work – if there’s an apocalypse, they might come in handy…” But they are just taking up space, and it’s time to pare down.

Heh, as I type this, I’m listening to the new They Might Be Giants CD, and the song “Climbing the walls” is playing, which has this lyric:

Too much junk
Too much junk
Can we please clear out this house
In the trunk
In the trunk
And then we’ll take it all to the dump

Cleaner Freezer

I bought some more plastic containers and finished converting from bagged storage to plastic bin. Much cleaner!

cleaner freezer

p.s. the bottom shelf is Adam’s.

p.p.s. The Skinny Cow ice cream cones are super-delicious. (150 Calories, 3g fat, 3g fiber = 3 points)

Freezer Epiphany

Ok, so this is probably an obvious one, but it just manifested itself to me, so it feels new to me…

I was looking at my freezer, which was overflowing with bags upon bags of frozen veggies, when it occurred to me that rectangular items stack more easily than floppy amorphous bags. Suddenly, it hit me – I could use the rectangular plastic containers that I usually use for microwaving food or storing leftovers!

So I took all the bags out of the freezer, and emptied them into the plastic containers. My food now converted into rectangular form, it stacked neatly, taking less space. As an added bonus, I can also see what I have, rather than a pile of bags where I can only see the top layer.

freezer

Hooray for small victories!

Of course, now I don’t have enough plastic containers, and need to get more.

Gettink ready for ze Deutschland

My trip suddenly looms, I leave next Wednesday, less than a week away!

Things to do:
[X] Get plane tickets
[X] Get passport
[ ] Plan Itinerary
[X] Buy German -> US power adaptor
[ ] Buy extra memory card for camera
[ ] Research cellphone use in Germany
[ ] Pack clothes
[ ] Pack gadgets

I plan to travel moderately light, so for gadgets, I’m thinking
* eBook reader
* Nintendo DS
* Camera
* Laptop
* Cellphone

So much to do! Guess I’d better get organized for a change.