Call it Spring Cleaning or the anticipation of moving, whatever the case, I’ve been going through cabinets and closets and eliminating things that I no longer need or have use for.
I typically find plenty of clothing items to donate once or twice a year, but this year I noticed something new showing up in the now-obsolete bin.
Although it sat in the basement for a few years, I thought it might be a good idea to keep my VCR. I may just very well want to watch my own copy of Dances with Wolves again, but now I realize that I can get rid of that too. Virtually any movie I wish to watch can now be downloaded to my computer.
Upstairs while rummaging through the closet in the spare bedroom I found stacks of city maps. New York, Salt Lake, Helsinki as well as a Columbus street atlas. Suddenly I realize that maps are everywhere now and most notably in the palm of my hand.
No longer must I search for a street in an alphabetical list then turn over the map and look for the coordinates where the street is printed. In fact, I really don’t even need to know the city’s name any longer. A zip-code will do and if I don’t have it, my new maps will offer suggestions.
It was time to rid myself of city maps.
Downstairs I have stacks of CD’s, most of which I’ve burned to my hard drive and I really should get rid of them. I have copies of my music library on two separate external hard drives. But there’s something about holding Marie Osmond’s CD jacket in my hands that I just can’t seem to do without.
Under the TV sits a DVD player that I still use from time to time. A blockbuster hit or an avant-garde film from Video Central makes its way here from time to time. I’ve had the DVD player for at least ten years and it is wearing out. I can hear the laser searching over and over again as it samples the disc.
I’ll eliminate the DVD player right before I move because I’m not taking my television either. I see no need to carry a 150 pound 27” CRT TV any further than I have to. Sometimes I turn on the television for the sake of background noise while I work (like now) and glance up from time to time. But I can do that with my radio and the programming is much better anyway.
There’s no need to watch the local news any longer unless its to see Kurt Ludlow’s shirt/tie combination. With all due respect, the local news is pretty much worthless no matter where you live and for world news, there’s the BBC on the radio. Still, RSS feeds deliver most of my news.
I sorted through a box of old photographs. Most of them were of buildings and places – few with other people in them because I’ve always traveled alone. I tossed a bunch of them because, after all, how many photos does one need of the Trans-America Pyramid or the IDS Tower? I can look at them any time by going to Flickr and see better photographs than the ones I took myself. I’ve had my important photos digitally scanned. I store them away from the house, but keep a copies on my hard drive to view whenever I wish. I was able to discard hundreds of photos.
In the bookcase I found a personality profile that a friend had made for me while I was living in Salt Lake. The profile was based upon my birthdate, birth location and time. I paged through the document having forgotten that I still had it.
The profile stated that I was somewhat of a minimalist and that I wasn’t very sentimental. I paged through it leisurely then tossed it into the trash bin.
Urban In-Fill 