Rants and Chants

We bought our house six years ago. We moved in with about two dozen cubic yards of boxes. Because we had to do renovation work — and we had two kids and we had to start our own company and this, that, and the other distraction — many of the boxes remained packed for the last six years.

My new home office is now at least complete enough to have assembled furniture, which means I can start using it. I began moving into it this weekend.

In boxes packed six years ago, I have found the following:

• Every computer book I unpack violates my rule of not having any computer books with copyrights more than five years old.
• Worthless software from the Windows 98 and ME era.
• My 15-year-old After Dark Disney screensaver collection. I doubt it will run on Vista.
• Scores of 3.5″ diskettes. One box was new, never used, and went straight into the garbage.
• A pair of analog “rabbit ears” TV antenna — very useful now that digital TV has finally become the standard.
• A bunch of remote controls for things I no longer own.
• A brand new Handspring Visor that cost $400+ as a gift for my wife. Now worth less than $50 on eBay.
• An all-too-silly “Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 Commemorative Edition” CD in a tri-fold mailer full of marketing hype. Commemorative? I wonder what that is selling for as an eBay collectible?
• Scraps of paper with reminders for things I was supposed to do six or more years ago.
• My original scissors, tape dispenser, letter trays, stapler, and a complete collection of other original desk accessories — all of which I bought replacements for two-and-a-half years ago when I started Thabit Lee Media and couldn’t find the box of original supplies.
• My 30-year-old index card file box, which I have long since replaced with Windows Contacts.
• Close to 100 audio cassettes, most of them containining personal stuff I will now need to digitize. I also found my audio cassette deck to aid in the transfer.
• Enough recyclable paper to fill a paper grocery bag. And enough shredable paper to fill a third of a grocery bag.
• My first LaCie external CD burner, which ran at an amazing 4X speed and connected via a SCSI cable and card.
• A 56k dial-up modem.
• Enough dried out pens and highlighters to build a nice scale model of a log cabin.

I wouldn’t mind all this quite so much if something among it had retained or increased in value. After all, the new office has cost me probably over $2000 and will continue to require more investment for a new router, a NAS, probably a new Mac and maybe even a new PC soon, among other expenses. I just hope in six years I am not picking through another round of boxes of junk.