How to Have Less Stuff

What is it?

2012-02-16T20:49:00.001-07:00

I have no idea.

Shirt

2012-02-15T21:54:00.001-07:00

Its a shirt:

And it's a good shirt, too, except for that pesky hole in the elbow.

Electric griddle

2012-02-14T21:27:00.001-07:00

These things are cool, but this one is half broken and they take up a lot of space:

Giant novelty pencil

2012-02-13T23:34:00.001-07:00

It's from Lagoon! Tic Tacs included for size reference.

Book Week: Day 7

2012-02-12T19:57:00.001-07:00

This is a great book:

But, we have several copies of it.

Book Week: Day 6

2012-02-11T09:55:00.001-07:00

Here's a little gem:

It's a book of the proceedings from a conference in 1991 that I have never been to, and have no interest it. Compulsive book collecting strikes again!

Book Week: Day 5

2012-02-10T06:00:00.000-07:00

Fast forward to 2005. Still drinking the graphing calculator Kool-Aid that was given to me by every single one of my Junior High and High School math teachers, I decided that I needed an updated calculator to get me through college, and foolishly bought an HP 49g+:

This was a terrible calculator. So bad, in fact, that when this calculator died mere weeks after I bought it, it had already been pulled from shelves and replaced with the 50g model. Oh well, free upgrade, and the 50g isn't too bad of a calculator.

Book Week: Day 4

2012-02-09T06:00:00.000-07:00

If I remember anything from Junior High, it's programming games for the TI-83 graphing calculator. In those days, this book was indispensable:

Nowadays, I've pretty solidly reversed my stance on giving graphing calculators to children who are still early in their mathematical development. These things are bad for you. Parents: talk to your kids about graphing calculators, before some ignorant school district does first.

Book Week: Day 3

2012-02-08T06:00:00.000-07:00

I picked this book up at a used book sale for a buck:

Mostly, I liked that the guy on the cover looked like the most prototypical basement-dwelling, D&D playing computer geek I had ever seen. Plus I wanted to learn C#. As it turns out, the "beginning" classifier on the cover made this book lose most of its usefulness to me. The book assumes no previous programming experience, which makes it too arduous of a task for anyone with some experience to work through.

Book Week: Day 2

2012-02-07T06:00:00.000-07:00

Here's a reference book that I've had on my shelf for years, but never seriously used:

Anytime that I needed any information that might be in this book, the internet always turned out to be a more convenient resource.

Book Week: Day 1

2012-02-06T06:00:00.000-07:00

I decided that everyday this week I will give away a book. To start it off, I'm getting rid of a book that I'm sure a lot of us have hanging around somewhere, simply because we haven't gotten around to tossing it out:

An old phone book! I found this little guy squatting on some prime bookshelf real estate. This is an easy one to get rid of, just a quick toss toward the recycle bin.

Kitchen redundancy

2012-02-05T20:14:00.001-07:00

We got two blenders as gifts when we got married. Since each blender seemed to have a distinct feature set (and apparently we had an abundance of kitchen space) we decided to keep both of them. Here is one:

As anyone probably could have guessed, one of the blenders has gone virtually untouched all this time. It is time to eliminate that blender redundancy.

A good idea, but...

2012-02-04T12:23:00.002-07:00

I guess I am getting rid of a lot of kitchen items that I have had since my bachelorhood. Here is a microwave rice cooker:

It actually works pretty good, as long as you only make a very small amount of rice at a time in it. Because of this limitation, it just hasn't gotten used like it did before I was married.

From the depths of my kitchen cabinet

2012-02-03T09:34:00.002-07:00

A long time ago I saw this sandwich toaster at the D.I. and decided to buy it:

It's like a George Foreman grill, except that it's purposely shaped into an awkward design that makes it utterly useless for making anything except grilled sandwiches. Come to think of it, it might actually do a decent job at making homemade Hot Pockets, too. Oh well, it's already gone.

Sorry, I tried my best.

2012-02-02T11:50:00.001-07:00

This classic board game was a wedding gift:

It is a beautiful edition of the game, with a neat wooden box made to look like a thick reference manual when viewed from the side. I was excited to get the gift, until we actually took it out and played a game. Turns out, Sorry! is a terrible game. I have no idea how it managed to become the American board game icon that it is, because it is totally boring. It's like an Art Deco-style cousin to Candyland, Shoots and Ladders, and Trouble, but without the fun of the pop-o-matic bubble. It's the board game version of a carousel, it doesn't take too long before you get tired of just going around in a circle. I'm sure that someone out there will love it, though.

Souvenir

2012-02-01T15:17:00.000-07:00

Twice upon a time I worked at a circuit board fabrication shop. While I was there, I came across a small piece of broken circuit board that was headed for the scrap pile:

It caught my eye because it was torn in such a way that it clearly exposed the inner layers of the board. At this time I was still fascinated by circuit board fabrication, so I held on to it as a souvenir.

Deja Vu

2012-01-31T16:59:00.000-07:00

I already gave one of these away not too long ago:

Would you believe that I had two of them? I would.

Stereo Receiver

2012-01-30T18:01:00.001-07:00

Here's a broken stereo receiver that I got from someone who was hoping that I could fix it:

This was back in high school, when my own perception of my electronics skill and knowledge far surpassed my actual skill and knowledge. By now my perception and my skill have gravitated toward one another, but I am just too busy to take a second crack at this receiver.

Awkward

2012-01-29T06:00:00.000-07:00

A few years back I heard an ad on the radio from the so-called "conservative thinktank" The Heritage Foundation offering a free pocket sized copy of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. I requested a copy and soon received this in the mail:

I don't really know why I wanted it. It's not like I frequently find myself sitting around with nothing much to do wishing that I had a conveniently-sized Constitution that I could read. So, I decided that this guy was next to be given away. I had just decided this as we were walking out the door to attend a ward party, and so I took it along hoping to be able to convince someone at the party to keep it. We shared a table with a couple that I had not met before, and so I decided to try my luck at trying to get the husband to take the booklet. I'll spare the details and make a long story short, but even though he did accept the booklet, it was a pretty awkward exchange that took place. I think that I need to spend some time practicing tact in social settings, although it is funny once in a while to get a true deer-in-the-headlights response from someone as you shamelessly try to foist a worthless item upon them. (Not that I think the words in the booklet are worthless, quite the contrary, just the booklet itself has no value in the digital age)

Nothing says fashion like...

2012-01-28T22:13:00.000-07:00

...Short-Sleeved Dress Shirts!

The three amigos here will probably be glad to get some fresh air after being crammed in the corner of my closet for so long.

Lost and Found

2012-01-27T20:21:00.001-07:00

Once upon a time we packed up the family and went hiking. As we were walking, we spied this little guy all alone on the trail:

It's an Energizer flashlight that is powered by hand-cranking a little on-board generator. It's cool, to be sure, but the crank handle broke off during a ski trip (I mentioned earlier that I had only been skiing once in many years... it was during that one trip) and it was never particularly bright. When it comes down to it, there is only so many flashlights that a person can own before it just doesn't make sense to own any more. For me, that number is one less than the number of flashlights I currently own.

I think I know my own name by now

2012-01-26T18:24:00.003-07:00

This was my nameplate at my old job:

It was actually a very useful thing to have, because even long after I had been hired into a permanent position, people still referred to me as "the intern". All I had to do was look up at my nameplate to remind myself of my true title, and all the hurt feelings and self-doubt would just melt away. But now that I am secure in my role at my current job, this little guy is fired.

Leftovers

2012-01-25T06:00:00.000-07:00

At times when I was working on my senior project, the hardest thing was sourcing the necessary parts. Here is one piece that we acquired which we didn't actually end up using:

It is a 10 watt, 2 meter band RF power amplifier. A Heathkit model, no less. I don't actually know for sure that it works, but I only operate on the 2 meter band with my handheld radio, so I don't really have a need for this amplifier.

If you want to see my senior project poster, you can find it here.

A piece of history

2012-01-24T09:12:00.001-07:00

In 1975 HP released a slimmed down version of its original pocket calculator (the HP-35), and called it the HP-21:

This bad boy sports four stack levels of Reverse Polish Notation calculating goodness. And, since there is only one line on the display, you have to keep the other three levels of the stack in your head in order to use them. Original List Price: $125

(I gave this one to a friend, because I wanted to make sure that it found a home with someone who could appreciate its retro-awesomeness)

Just Pants

2012-01-23T06:00:00.000-07:00

If you read this blog, then like me, you may be thinking that my stuff reduction lately has been a little lacking in interesting stuff. Just have a look at today's item:

It's just a pair of pants. That's all. But don't give up hope! I have some really awesome and interesting things that I am going to be giving away soon. The problem is that a year is a really long time, and we are still in the first month. I can't get rid of all my interesting junk at the beginning of the year, or else even I would be bored with day after day of giving away old socks and empty Altoids tins. So I try to stagger it a little bit. Once I start delving into my boxes of electronics paraphernalia, however, even I don't know what kind of weird stuff will end up on here.