OK I admit it. I am a hoarder. I look at the item, turn it over in my
hands, and think, "Maybe it will come in..." The consequences of this
behaviour have stared to hit me.

When I moved to my present house 35 years ago I brought an awful lot of
stuff. That was a warning, but I ignored it. This house is quite
big and for a while I was able to accommodate the ever-growing quantity
of 'stock'. Over a period of years I filled several rooms. We converted
to gas so the room that had housed the old boiler and two tons of coke
became free. I soon filled it with 'stock'. I then extended the (already
large) garage, and filled that with 'stock'.

The reason I'm apostrophising 'stock' is that the word, bare, suggests
that the items are saleable. I now realise that a large proportion of
the things I've hoarded will never be saleable, unless technology
suddenly and by some freak discontinuity in space and time reverts to
what it was in the 1970s. The absurd thing is that when I turned these
things over in my hands just after they had become obsolete I thought,
"Maybe it will come in..." No, they won't 'come in'. Technology that has
been superseded by a better, cheaper, more effective way of doing things
will never 'come in'.

What made things worse was that when I cleared my dad's house there was
so much that a sensible DIYer could not throw away. That's how it
seemed, anyway. The problem was that there wasn't just one or two
hammers, there were 23. Father had a long and varied career,
encompassing railway work, bridge building, joinery, road building, and
management, and I'm sorry to say it but it now seems that he had
sticky fingers. I guess it's the gypsy blood. I'm the same. I would
never steal, but really, sometimes, well, it would be a waste, a
criminal waste, to just leave things like that lying around, wouldn't it?

When Hil was in the early stages of recovery from her stroke she had a
problem with the shift key. She needed something to hold it down. I
found a very large bolt with a round head and a square nut. The nut
rested on the desk and the round head pressed down on the shift key. It
was a temporary fix that worked. Eventually Hil didn't need it any more,
so the nut and bolt sat on the windowsill waiting until I was due to go
near the box from whence it had come, the box called 'Misc nuts/bolts
(large)'. Father saw it and said, "That came from the wagon shops." He
worked in the wagon shops until he was called up in 1939.

And now the time has come to throw many things away. The dilemmas of
youth (shall I go to university; shall I ditch this girl?) are as of
nothing compared to what I face now. These masthead amplifiers, they are
brand new (although dated 1972). They require 16V DC negative inner on
the coax, and I have no compatible power supply units, nor have I had
any for 35 years. But they are still in their boxes, dammit! I can't
throw them away: I paid good money for them! They stand in the doorway
of the stockroom, in limbo. But into the bin they go, finally. I shed a
tear.

So many things were supplied but not used. Rather flimsy wall brackets
for Sky dishes (I substituted my own brackets). Single output LNBs when
quads were de rigour. Remote controls for receivers that we installed in
tens, leaving just a couple of remotes, because if we'd left any spares
the staff would take them home. Scart leads that were supplied
with every receiver and never used because we always took the AV from
the phono sockets. Instruction books, hundreds of them, for analogue Sky
receivers. Why did I save them? Sun shields for cameras that were
installed indoors, mast clamps for FM aerials that wouldn't fit a 2"
mast and so were not used, rubber boots for LNBs that were a predictable
failure, so I used self-amalg yet carefully saved the rubber boots in a
box marked 'useless rubber boots for LNBs', small aerial installation
items of uncertain provenance and utility in a box, haplessly marked
'Queer Things'.

Then there are the lead-headed wall nails, the 75/300ohm transformers
(you never know, they might start to import 300 ohm tellys again), 2A,
5A, and 15A mains plugs (they might start to use them again), plastic
element holders for VHF 'X' aerials, aluminium clips to hold 1/2"
elements onto 1" booms, flush plates with built-in aerial switches (that
had very poor isolation between inputs and were thus useless), fifty-two
great heavy diecast aerial switches that worked well once you'd fitted a
213 plug onto the coax, 119 U links for a type of modulator we haven't
used since 1990, 57 crimp plugs for CT167 but alas no crimp rings, 12
'CB filters', a whole box of filters built into aluminium boxes, all
mysterious in their function and labelled 'General Post Office', 500
yards of a rather strange 75ohm coax that was grey, had an OD of 5mm, a
seven-stranded inner, yet was air spaced and worked well enough at UHF
in strong signal areas, a huge coil of ribbon cable 3" wide and with 22
cores, 100 yards of heavily screened 3-core 1.5mm mains flex, 17
assorted indoor aerials, thousands of adhesive cable clips and thousands
of adhesive felt pads, all with the adhesive perished and hardly sticky
at all, an impressive demonstration board showing a Wolsey tap-off line,
a box of those very good Labgear tap-off units that had the 'f'
connectors in line so the thing would fit inside trunking (why were they
discontinued?), manufacturers' samples of four different in-line UHF
'signal finders', a board with the sign writing hardly discernable:
'Wright's Aerials' in that strange font ('Data'?) that was supposed to
mean 'modern' in the 1970s, the one that was meant to look like
'computer writing'.

Over the years, each time we've got home after a few days working away
we've been tired, so we've simply put the returned boxes of left-over
stock -- their contents a dreadful post-job muddle -- onto a shelf, with
the vague intention of sorting them out 'at the weekend'. I have now
unearthed a large number of these boxes. Each one takes about an hour to
sort out, and typically yields a 50/50 mix of scrap and good stuff, the
latter probably being worth £200.

I know I've gone on about this before, but honestly it's a nightmare!
I'm having a one- or two-hour session every day, because beyond that it
is just so stultifying. I think the main stock room is going to take
another 15 sessions. Luckily I have a good arrangement with a licensed
waste carrier. Whatever I put out he takes, whether he wants it or not.

I feel better now I've got that off my chest! Thanks for listening.

Bill

On 20/01/2014 13:40, Bill Wright wrote:

failure, so I used self-amalg yet carefully saved the rubber boots in a
box marked 'useless rubber boots for LNBs',

I admire the completeness and honesty of your labelling system ;-)

I feel better now I've got that off my chest! Thanks for listening.

Its a cautionary tale for those of us that still aspire to ever bigger
sheds...

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

John Rumm wrote:
On 20/01/2014 13:40, Bill Wright wrote:

failure, so I used self-amalg yet carefully saved the rubber boots in a
box marked 'useless rubber boots for LNBs',

I admire the completeness and honesty of your labelling system ;-)

I have a box labelled 'Insulating tape (not very sticky)' and one
labelled 'Flimsy wall brackets'. The wall brackets were sold as outdoor
ones but I decided they were only OK for lofts.

Oh yes, and Paul (looking over my shoulder) reminds me of the box
labelled 'Belling line conns (****e)'.

Bill

Trouble for me is, those things which did get labelled are no longer
readable by me, so I get a person round to help and although they can read
them they have no idea what i meant when I did it in the first place and of
course, neither do I. I'm sure
Transistors, mixed but npn a bit noisy for amp, must have been very
helpgful at the time I did it and knew which amp I was talking about.
Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
John Rumm wrote:
On 20/01/2014 13:40, Bill Wright wrote:

failure, so I used self-amalg yet carefully saved the rubber boots in a
box marked 'useless rubber boots for LNBs',

I admire the completeness and honesty of your labelling system ;-)

I have a box labelled 'Insulating tape (not very sticky)' and one labelled
'Flimsy wall brackets'. The wall brackets were sold as outdoor ones but I
decided they were only OK for lofts.

Oh yes, and Paul (looking over my shoulder) reminds me of the box labelled
'Belling line conns (****e)'.

Bill

John Rumm wrote:

On 20/01/2014 13:40, Bill Wright wrote:

failure, so I used self-amalg yet carefully saved the rubber boots in a
box marked 'useless rubber boots for LNBs',

I admire the completeness and honesty of your labelling system ;-)

I feel better now I've got that off my chest! Thanks for listening.

Its a cautionary tale for those of us that still aspire to ever bigger
sheds...

Reminds me of the chap who found a well-stuffed box in the loft
marked "pieces of string too small to be worth saving".

Chris
--
Chris J Dixon Nottingham UK


Plant amazing Acers.

In message , John
Rumm writes
On 20/01/2014 13:40, Bill Wright wrote:

failure, so I used self-amalg yet carefully saved the rubber boots in a
box marked 'useless rubber boots for LNBs',

I admire the completeness and honesty of your labelling system ;-)

I feel better now I've got that off my chest! Thanks for listening.

Its a cautionary tale for those of us that still aspire to ever bigger
sheds...

Saving stuff with some vague purpose is natural. I have now reached the
stage where sorting though such items, with disposal in mind, becomes a
trip down memory lane. Each links to the memory of when, how, why etc.
and ends with a return to the shelf.


--
Tim Lamb

In message , brightside S9
writes



So the boxes etc are stashed in the garage for future inspection. Some
day!.

Why not take all the boxes and teachests to the local dump, empty them
into the 'household waste' skip, then take them back home. You'll then
have plenty of room to store all the really good stuff you're going to
acquire from now on.
--
Ian

On 2014-01-20, John Rumm wrote:

On 20/01/2014 13:40, Bill Wright wrote:

failure, so I used self-amalg yet carefully saved the rubber boots in a
box marked 'useless rubber boots for LNBs',

I admire the completeness and honesty of your labelling system ;-)

I feel better now I've got that off my chest! Thanks for listening.

Its a cautionary tale for those of us that still aspire to ever bigger
sheds...

Indeed.

In message , John
Rumm writes
On 20/01/2014 13:40, Bill Wright wrote:

failure, so I used self-amalg yet carefully saved the rubber boots in a
box marked 'useless rubber boots for LNBs',

I admire the completeness and honesty of your labelling system ;-)

I feel better now I've got that off my chest! Thanks for listening.

Its a cautionary tale for those of us that still aspire to ever bigger
sheds...


I think that my wife finally realised the depth of my collecting
addiction when she came home to find a 16 wheel Scania lifting a small
(ish) ISO container into the back garden! Do you think I should seek
help, or a bigger container?
--
Bill
( A different one )

On Tue, 21 Jan 2014 18:59:30 +0000
Bill wrote:

In message , John
Rumm writes
On 20/01/2014 13:40, Bill Wright wrote:

failure, so I used self-amalg yet carefully saved the rubber boots
in a box marked 'useless rubber boots for LNBs',

I admire the completeness and honesty of your labelling system ;-)

I feel better now I've got that off my chest! Thanks for listening.

Its a cautionary tale for those of us that still aspire to ever
bigger sheds...


I think that my wife finally realised the depth of my collecting
addiction when she came home to find a 16 wheel Scania lifting a
small (ish) ISO container into the back garden! Do you think I
should seek help, or a bigger container?

Did you keep the Scania too?

--
Davey.

In message , Davey
writes
On Tue, 21 Jan 2014 18:59:30 +0000
Bill wrote:

In message , John
Rumm writes
On 20/01/2014 13:40, Bill Wright wrote:

failure, so I used self-amalg yet carefully saved the rubber boots
in a box marked 'useless rubber boots for LNBs',

I admire the completeness and honesty of your labelling system ;-)

I feel better now I've got that off my chest! Thanks for listening.

Its a cautionary tale for those of us that still aspire to ever
bigger sheds...


I think that my wife finally realised the depth of my collecting
addiction when she came home to find a 16 wheel Scania lifting a
small (ish) ISO container into the back garden! Do you think I
should seek help, or a bigger container?

Did you keep the Scania too?

No, it didn't quite fit in the garage :-(

--
Bill
( A different one )

On Wed, 22 Jan 2014 00:14:44 +0000
Bill wrote:

In message , Davey
writes
On Tue, 21 Jan 2014 18:59:30 +0000
Bill wrote:

In message ,
John Rumm writes
On 20/01/2014 13:40, Bill Wright wrote:

failure, so I used self-amalg yet carefully saved the rubber
boots in a box marked 'useless rubber boots for LNBs',

I admire the completeness and honesty of your labelling system ;-)

I feel better now I've got that off my chest! Thanks for
listening.

Its a cautionary tale for those of us that still aspire to ever
bigger sheds...


I think that my wife finally realised the depth of my collecting
addiction when she came home to find a 16 wheel Scania lifting a
small (ish) ISO container into the back garden! Do you think I
should seek help, or a bigger container?

Did you keep the Scania too?

No, it didn't quite fit in the garage :-(


Darn!

My wife complains that we never have a big enough kitchen. I reply that
we always seem to have too much stuff for the kitchen size we have.
Strange, she doesn't cook me many meals nowadays......

--
Davey.

Bill wrote:
In message , Davey
writes
On Tue, 21 Jan 2014 18:59:30 +0000
Bill wrote:

In message , John
Rumm writes
On 20/01/2014 13:40, Bill Wright wrote:

failure, so I used self-amalg yet carefully saved the rubber boots
in a box marked 'useless rubber boots for LNBs',

I admire the completeness and honesty of your labelling system ;-)

I feel better now I've got that off my chest! Thanks for listening.

Its a cautionary tale for those of us that still aspire to ever
bigger sheds...


I think that my wife finally realised the depth of my collecting
addiction when she came home to find a 16 wheel Scania lifting a
small (ish) ISO container into the back garden! Do you think I
should seek help, or a bigger container?

Did you keep the Scania too?

No, it didn't quite fit in the garage :-(

Surely that's the reason for needing a bigger garage?

On 20/01/2014 14:04, John Rumm wrote:
On 20/01/2014 13:40, Bill Wright wrote:

failure, so I used self-amalg yet carefully saved the rubber boots in a
box marked 'useless rubber boots for LNBs',

I admire the completeness and honesty of your labelling system ;-)

I feel better now I've got that off my chest! Thanks for listening.

Its a cautionary tale for those of us that still aspire to ever bigger
sheds...



I have a boxed mint condition Pro Cassette deck ... and a 3,500 singles
collection .... think I have missed the boat for teh time to sell them on.



--
UK SelfBuild: http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/UK_Selfbuild/

On 22/01/2014 17:48, Rick Hughes wrote:
I have a boxed mint condition Pro Cassette deck ... and a 3,500 singles
collection .... think I have missed the boat for teh time to sell them on.

I think not. There seems to be a special section on eBay.

If you're lucky, and you have the right one, it might be worth a lot.

Andy

I feel better now I've got that off my chest! Thanks for listening.

Bill

Why don't you get it on Ebay someone somewhere might think its worth
something?...
--
Tony Sayer

On 20/01/2014 14:05, tony sayer wrote:
Why don't you get it on Ebay someone somewhere might think its worth
something?...

A friend of one of my colleagues was moving house and helped him clear
his attic. They found a large party-sized can of beer of a brand that
no longer exists (Double Diamond, I think). It must have been there
since a party some time in the 1970s and would have been vastly beyond
its drink-by date (if such things had existed at the time). Anyhow they
put it up for sale on ebay and despite the hefty postage charge, it sold
for a good price, which came as a nice surprise.

But that wasn't best bit - a couple of days later an advertising agency
contacted him and asked if they could buy rights to his picture of the
can. The agency offered him more for the picture than the can itself
had fetched, and he sold that as well. So you never know your luck.

--
Clive Page

On Mon, 20 Jan 2014 14:05:12 -0000, tony sayer wrote:


I feel better now I've got that off my chest! Thanks for listening.

Bill

Why don't you get it on Ebay someone somewhere might think its worth
something?...

I cleared out half my attic once by putting things on Ebay, and if they were worth nothing (or less than the postage) on Freecycle. I threw away virtually nothing, which was more satisfying than wasting it.

--
My wife sat down on the couch next to me as I was changing channels. She asked, what's on TV?
I said, Dust.
And then the fight started...

Bill Wright wrote:

I feel better now I've got that off my chest! Thanks for listening.

I come from a family of horders; Garages full of oddments and ornaments
from great uncles that died the year I was born, things my brother and I
played with as kids, stuff that was always there. There's absolute
rubbish that has sentimental value only because it's escaped being
thrown away for so long that it now seems harsh to do so. etc.

I have learned to overcome the "Oooh, that'll come in handy" urge. I
keep all sorts of things but I've fine tuned my idea of what actually
/will/ be usable. And then to bin everything else without concern. If it
turns out I really could do with something that was skipped then, tough,
I'll buy another one. Also, the chances of remembering that I had
something useful to bin in the first place is remote. The reverse of
this is that, in keeping something of use, the chances of finding it
when it's needed are remote. And one just buys another happily.

Even worse is the "I shan't use this scavenged XYZ for this job, it's
too good. I'll save it for a really good use." My uncle pointed this one
out to me (which I had always been guilty of" and now I make a point of
using anything and everything that comes to hand whether it's too good
for the job or not!

As a result of years of chucking my own things out and never having much
space to call my own, I'm excellent at helping people clear out their
junk. A flint heart and an objective viewpoint means I can scour boxes
at a rate of knots filling endless containers to sling in the trailer
and hoik to the tip.

I still have more things than I really need (one doesn't really need
that much in life) but at least it's under control.

--
Scott

Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?

In article , Scott M
writes

The reverse of
this is that, in keeping something of use, the chances of finding it
when it's needed are remote. And one just buys another happily.

That.

--
(\_/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")

On 21/01/2014 11:00, Mike Tomlinson wrote:
In article , Scott M
writes

The reverse of
this is that, in keeping something of use, the chances of finding it
when it's needed are remote. And one just buys another happily.

That.

The trouble is that every time I have a clearout, I throw things away
that have hung around for a decade or more, but then within a fortnight
I'm doing something and think, "I just need xxxx, I've got one of those
.... Oh Damn!" and then have to waste time going to get another and
having to pay for it again as well! It's guaranteed, every single time

SteveW

In article , SteveW steve@walker-
family.me.uk writes

"I just need xxxx, I've got one of those
... Oh Damn!"

for me, usually after the bin wagon has just been.

--
(\_/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")

On 2014-01-21, SteveW wrote:

The trouble is that every time I have a clearout, I throw things away
that have hung around for a decade or more, but then within a fortnight
I'm doing something and think, "I just need xxxx, I've got one of those
... Oh Damn!" and then have to waste time going to get another and
having to pay for it again as well! It's guaranteed, every single time

Then you find you get a much better unit price on a pack of four of
them....

Don't ask me how I know this.

On Sat, 25 Jan 2014 22:17:07 +0000
Adam Funk wrote:

On 2014-01-21, SteveW wrote:

The trouble is that every time I have a clearout, I throw things
away that have hung around for a decade or more, but then within a
fortnight I'm doing something and think, "I just need xxxx, I've
got one of those ... Oh Damn!" and then have to waste time going to
get another and having to pay for it again as well! It's
guaranteed, every single time

Then you find you get a much better unit price on a pack of four of
them....

Don't ask me how I know this.

Simple. It's The Natural Order of Things.

--
Davey.

"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
OK I admit it. I am a hoarder. I look at the item, turn it over in my
hands, and think, "Maybe it will come in..." The consequences of this
behaviour have stared to hit me.

When I moved to my present house 35 years ago I brought an awful lot of
stuff. That was a warning, but I ignored it. This house is quite
big and for a while I was able to accommodate the ever-growing quantity
of 'stock'. Over a period of years I filled several rooms. We converted
to gas so the room that had housed the old boiler and two tons of coke
became free. I soon filled it with 'stock'. I then extended the (already
large) garage, and filled that with 'stock'.

Makes for uncomfortable reading , the theme being a bit close to home!

mark

mark wrote:
"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
OK I admit it. I am a hoarder. I look at the item, turn it over in my
hands, and think, "Maybe it will come in..." The consequences of this
behaviour have stared to hit me.

When I moved to my present house 35 years ago I brought an awful lot of
stuff. That was a warning, but I ignored it. This house is quite
big and for a while I was able to accommodate the ever-growing quantity
of 'stock'. Over a period of years I filled several rooms. We converted
to gas so the room that had housed the old boiler and two tons of coke
became free. I soon filled it with 'stock'. I then extended the (already
large) garage, and filled that with 'stock'.

Makes for uncomfortable reading , the theme being a bit close to home!

mark

I hope I've spurred you on!

Bill

"mark" wrote in message
...

"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
OK I admit it. I am a hoarder. I look at the item, turn
it over in my
hands, and think, "Maybe it will come in..." The
consequences of this
behaviour have stared to hit me.

When I moved to my present house 35 years ago I brought
an awful lot of
stuff. That was a warning, but I ignored it. This house
is quite
big and for a while I was able to accommodate the
ever-growing quantity
of 'stock'. Over a period of years I filled several
rooms. We converted
to gas so the room that had housed the old boiler and two
tons of coke
became free. I soon filled it with 'stock'. I then
extended the (already
large) garage, and filled that with 'stock'.

Makes for uncomfortable reading , the theme being a bit
close to home!

mark


+1
--
Woody

harrogate three at ntlworld dot com

In message , Woody
writes
"mark" wrote in message
...

"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
OK I admit it. I am a hoarder. I look at the item, turn
it over in my
hands, and think, "Maybe it will come in..." The
consequences of this
behaviour have stared to hit me.

When I moved to my present house 35 years ago I brought
an awful lot of
stuff. That was a warning, but I ignored it. This house
is quite
big and for a while I was able to accommodate the
ever-growing quantity
of 'stock'. Over a period of years I filled several
rooms. We converted
to gas so the room that had housed the old boiler and two
tons of coke
became free. I soon filled it with 'stock'. I then
extended the (already
large) garage, and filled that with 'stock'.

Makes for uncomfortable reading , the theme being a bit
close to home!

mark


+1

+2
--
Ian

On Mon, 20 Jan 2014 14:43:27 -0000, "mark"
wrote:


"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
OK I admit it. I am a hoarder. I look at the item, turn it over in my
hands, and think, "Maybe it will come in..." The consequences of this
behaviour have stared to hit me.

When I moved to my present house 35 years ago I brought an awful lot of
stuff. That was a warning, but I ignored it. This house is quite
big and for a while I was able to accommodate the ever-growing quantity
of 'stock'. Over a period of years I filled several rooms. We converted
to gas so the room that had housed the old boiler and two tons of coke
became free. I soon filled it with 'stock'. I then extended the (already
large) garage, and filled that with 'stock'.

Makes for uncomfortable reading , the theme being a bit close to home!


It's a material world, get over it! :-(

This propensity for the male of the species (in general) to
accumulate 'useful' bits and pieces that might come in handy some day,
must surely heark back to neolithic times and beyond.

It's most likely a genetically inherited feature of the male psyche
that contributed to our success as a species and, up until the middle
of the last century, was still a useful characteristic to be blessed
with.

The problem now is that due to our ever accelerating rate of
technological progress over the past half century or so, this
'character trait' has now come to be regarded as a 'character flaw'.

In short, this strategically important characteristic of accumulating
'useful things' is now a victim of its own success. For 'our
generation' (those of us who _can_ remember the sixties), it is we who
are suffering the most psychological trauma of these (admittedly,
largely self inflicted) changes in society brought about by the
technological revolution of the last half century.

I'm afraid to have to say this, but that leaves us with only two
stark choices. either we "Suck it up" and clear everything out or else
simply let the problem sort itself out posthumously by leaving our
surviving relatives "Something To Do"(tm) after they've gotten over
celebrating our demise and the reading of the Will.

Personally, I'm leaning towards the latter 'solution'[1] as it does
quite nicely fit my 'procrastic' nature which makes it, in my mind at
least, a perfectly natural solution (i.e. it doesn't go against (my)
nature). Besides which, if procrastination doesn't intervene, I could
play some posthumous 'Mind Games' with my beneficiaries come the
'Reading of the Will' with regard to how my 'collection of valuable
assets' should be properly disposed.

Sadly, and as tempting as it seems to make my passing a more
memorable occasion to my surviving children, I think procrastination
will win the day and spare them all from this 'Sacred Task'.[2]

[1] Since our Childrens' generation have been accusing us of Polluting
the Environment, Global Warming, and Global Financial Disaster, this
sort of 'personal mess' will be the least problematical legacy we can
leave for them to sort out (at least they _can_ actually do something
about it, unlike the aforementioned legacy of seemingly insurmountable
global issues).

[2] Still, it's quite a thought[3]. The more cereberal of us just
might take a more optimistic view and regard their stockpile of
'valuable junk' as an opportunity to make their surviving relatives
'earn their inheritance' by use of a carefully crafted (and
watertight) Last Will and Testament.

[3] Ok, I admit it, I'm a 'Thinker' rather than a 'Doer' these days.
If my 'thoughts' seem evil, it's only because I find such thoughts to
be the more entertaining and amusing as I approach my dotage.
--
Regards, J B Good

On 20/01/2014 19:15, Johny B Good wrote:
I'm afraid to have to say this, but that leaves us with only two
stark choices. either we "Suck it up" and clear everything out or else
simply let the problem sort itself out posthumously by leaving our
surviving relatives "Something To Do"(tm) after they've gotten over
celebrating our demise and the reading of the Will.

I'm clean on my own junk, I had a major clear out just before we moved
at the end of last year.

Among other things I chucked out the old ball valve missing one part
which would have been all I needed to replace the one in the old loft
that started squirting on the ceiling a week before we moved. I had to
buy a new one.

The new house doesn't have a garage worth the name, nor a workshop.

Yet.

So my project is to build one, thus finding a home for all the tools my
Dad left which will have to be moved one day - my mum isn't going to
want a complete workshop forever. (1)

My kids will have to deal with _that_ in their own time.

Andy
--
I still won't have 23 hammers though. I don't have more than
half-a-dozen at the moment

On 20/01/2014 21:30, Vir Campestris wrote:
On 20/01/2014 19:15, Johny B Good wrote:
I'm afraid to have to say this, but that leaves us with only two
stark choices. either we "Suck it up" and clear everything out or else
simply let the problem sort itself out posthumously by leaving our
surviving relatives "Something To Do"(tm) after they've gotten over
celebrating our demise and the reading of the Will.

I'm clean on my own junk, I had a major clear out just before we moved
at the end of last year.

Among other things I chucked out the old ball valve missing one part
which would have been all I needed to replace the one in the old loft
that started squirting on the ceiling a week before we moved. I had to
buy a new one.

The new house doesn't have a garage worth the name, nor a workshop.

Yet.

So my project is to build one, thus finding a home for all the tools my
Dad left which will have to be moved one day - my mum isn't going to
want a complete workshop forever. (1)

My kids will have to deal with _that_ in their own time.

Then there is the fear that if one's kids are not interested in DIY or
furniture making etc then one's lovingly collected workshop of tools
will be disposed of in the most speed efficient manner with no real
interest in the actual value contained therein. Still I guess that is
their problem ;-)


--
Cheers,

John.

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Huge wrote:

Makes for uncomfortable reading , the theme being a bit close to home!

Precisely.



Come now gentlemen! Take up your ****e and walk! May the landfills of
our green and pleasant island receive gladly a million tons of cassette
players, analogue Sky boxes, VCRs, monochrome CCTV cameras, and masthead
amplifiers with valves in them!

Bill

Bill Wright wrote:

Come now gentlemen! Take up your ****e and walk! May the landfills of
our green and pleasant island receive gladly a million tons of cassette
players, analogue Sky boxes, VCRs, monochrome CCTV cameras, and masthead
amplifiers with valves in them!

I have a hundred or so C90 cassettes, with material I've recorded
on them. Because of this, I don't think any of the usual routes -
charity shops, Freecycle etc. will accept them. Seems a shame to
send them for landfill, but there doesn't seem to be much option,
or in truth much demand. ;-)

Chris
--
Chris J Dixon Nottingham UK


Plant amazing Acers.

On 20/01/2014 15:03, Bill Wright wrote:
Huge wrote:

Makes for uncomfortable reading , the theme being a bit close to home!

Precisely.



Come now gentlemen! Take up your ****e and walk! May the landfills of
our green and pleasant island receive gladly a million tons of cassette
players, analogue Sky boxes, VCRs, monochrome CCTV cameras, and masthead
amplifiers with valves in them!

Now there probably is someone on ebay that will buy the valves!

--
Cheers,

John.

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\================================================= ================/

On 20/01/2014 15:47, Tim Streater wrote:
In article , mark
wrote:

"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
OK I admit it. I am a hoarder. I look at the item, turn it over in my
hands, and think, "Maybe it will come in..." The consequences of this
behaviour have stared to hit me.

When I moved to my present house 35 years ago I brought an awful lot of
stuff. That was a warning, but I ignored it. This house is quite
big and for a while I was able to accommodate the ever-growing quantity
of 'stock'. Over a period of years I filled several rooms. We converted
to gas so the room that had housed the old boiler and two tons of coke
became free. I soon filled it with 'stock'. I then extended the
(already
large) garage, and filled that with 'stock'.

Makes for uncomfortable reading , the theme being a bit close to home!

There are people who keep previous telephone directories "just in
case", and a friend of mine, doing VMS support at work in the 80s, kept
/two/ previous versions of the VMS manual set at home "just in case".

Which unless you have actually seen the grey/orange "wall" that is a
full manual set, probably does not sound anything like as extreme as it
really is ;-)

I figured someone out there would have a picture...

quick google image search

Aha:

http://williambader.com/museum/vax/vax.html

(about three quarters of the way down)

--
Cheers,

John.

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Tim Streater wrote:

a friend of mine, doing VMS support at work in the 80s, kept
/two/ previous versions of the VMS manual set at home "just in case".

coughthere's an orange wall and a grey wall in my loft/cough

Tim Streater wrote:

Andy Burns wrote:

coughthere's an orange wall and a grey wall in my loft/cough

Blimey. But are you running VMS?

No running it, but there is a VAXserver 3300 under a dustsheet in my
lounge. I persuaded myself to chuck out the HP-UX server and magnolia wall.

And where is the blue wall?

Before my time, was that for PDPs?

On Tuesday, January 21, 2014 7:24:05 PM UTC, Andy Burns wrote:
Tim Streater wrote: Andy Burns wrote: coughthere's an orange wall and a grey wall in my loft/cough Blimey. But are you running VMS? No running it, but there is a VAXserver 3300 under a dustsheet in my lounge. I persuaded myself to chuck out the HP-UX server and magnolia wall. And where is the blue wall? Before my time, was that for PDPs?

HP-UX was grey, surely? The box contained shrink-wrapped manuals and separate ring-binders, and you could never completely pair up the manuals to the ring-binders...

--
Halmyre

Halmyre wrote:

HP-UX was grey, surely?

No this was mid 90's they weren't in ringbinders (well there was one
ringbinder with a gold spine that I think was the instruction set docs)
the rest were just softback bound books mixture of A4'ish and A5'ish,
plenty of them though.

The box contained shrink-wrapped manuals and separate ring-binders,
and you could never completely pair up the manuals to the
ring-binders...

On Mon, 20 Jan 2014 13:40:24 +0000
Bill Wright wrote:

OK I admit it. I am a hoarder. I look at the item, turn it over in my
hands, and think, "Maybe it will come in..." The consequences of this
behaviour have stared to hit me.

When I moved to my present house 35 years ago I brought an awful lot
of stuff. That was a warning, but I ignored it. This house is quite
big and for a while I was able to accommodate the ever-growing
quantity of 'stock'. Over a period of years I filled several rooms.
We converted to gas so the room that had housed the old boiler and
two tons of coke became free. I soon filled it with 'stock'. I then
extended the (already large) garage, and filled that with 'stock'.

The reason I'm apostrophising 'stock' is that the word, bare, suggests
that the items are saleable. I now realise that a large proportion of
the things I've hoarded will never be saleable, unless technology
suddenly and by some freak discontinuity in space and time reverts to
what it was in the 1970s. The absurd thing is that when I turned these
things over in my hands just after they had become obsolete I thought,
"Maybe it will come in..." No, they won't 'come in'. Technology that
has been superseded by a better, cheaper, more effective way of doing
things will never 'come in'.

What made things worse was that when I cleared my dad's house there
was so much that a sensible DIYer could not throw away. That's how it
seemed, anyway. The problem was that there wasn't just one or two
hammers, there were 23. Father had a long and varied career,
encompassing railway work, bridge building, joinery, road building,
and management, and I'm sorry to say it but it now seems that he had
sticky fingers. I guess it's the gypsy blood. I'm the same. I would
never steal, but really, sometimes, well, it would be a waste, a
criminal waste, to just leave things like that lying around, wouldn't
it?

When Hil was in the early stages of recovery from her stroke she had a
problem with the shift key. She needed something to hold it down. I
found a very large bolt with a round head and a square nut. The nut
rested on the desk and the round head pressed down on the shift key.
It was a temporary fix that worked. Eventually Hil didn't need it any
more, so the nut and bolt sat on the windowsill waiting until I was
due to go near the box from whence it had come, the box called 'Misc
nuts/bolts (large)'. Father saw it and said, "That came from the
wagon shops." He worked in the wagon shops until he was called up in
1939.

And now the time has come to throw many things away. The dilemmas of
youth (shall I go to university; shall I ditch this girl?) are as of
nothing compared to what I face now. These masthead amplifiers, they
are brand new (although dated 1972). They require 16V DC negative
inner on the coax, and I have no compatible power supply units, nor
have I had any for 35 years. But they are still in their boxes,
dammit! I can't throw them away: I paid good money for them! They
stand in the doorway of the stockroom, in limbo. But into the bin
they go, finally. I shed a tear.

So many things were supplied but not used. Rather flimsy wall brackets
for Sky dishes (I substituted my own brackets). Single output LNBs
when quads were de rigour. Remote controls for receivers that we
installed in tens, leaving just a couple of remotes, because if we'd
left any spares the staff would take them home. Scart leads that were
supplied with every receiver and never used because we always took
the AV from the phono sockets. Instruction books, hundreds of them,
for analogue Sky receivers. Why did I save them? Sun shields for
cameras that were installed indoors, mast clamps for FM aerials that
wouldn't fit a 2" mast and so were not used, rubber boots for LNBs
that were a predictable failure, so I used self-amalg yet carefully
saved the rubber boots in a box marked 'useless rubber boots for
LNBs', small aerial installation items of uncertain provenance and
utility in a box, haplessly marked 'Queer Things'.

Then there are the lead-headed wall nails, the 75/300ohm transformers
(you never know, they might start to import 300 ohm tellys again), 2A,
5A, and 15A mains plugs (they might start to use them again), plastic
element holders for VHF 'X' aerials, aluminium clips to hold 1/2"
elements onto 1" booms, flush plates with built-in aerial switches
(that had very poor isolation between inputs and were thus useless),
fifty-two great heavy diecast aerial switches that worked well once
you'd fitted a 213 plug onto the coax, 119 U links for a type of
modulator we haven't used since 1990, 57 crimp plugs for CT167 but
alas no crimp rings, 12 'CB filters', a whole box of filters built
into aluminium boxes, all mysterious in their function and labelled
'General Post Office', 500 yards of a rather strange 75ohm coax that
was grey, had an OD of 5mm, a seven-stranded inner, yet was air
spaced and worked well enough at UHF in strong signal areas, a huge
coil of ribbon cable 3" wide and with 22 cores, 100 yards of heavily
screened 3-core 1.5mm mains flex, 17 assorted indoor aerials,
thousands of adhesive cable clips and thousands of adhesive felt
pads, all with the adhesive perished and hardly sticky at all, an
impressive demonstration board showing a Wolsey tap-off line, a box
of those very good Labgear tap-off units that had the 'f' connectors
in line so the thing would fit inside trunking (why were they
discontinued?), manufacturers' samples of four different in-line UHF
'signal finders', a board with the sign writing hardly discernable:
'Wright's Aerials' in that strange font ('Data'?) that was supposed
to mean 'modern' in the 1970s, the one that was meant to look like
'computer writing'.

Over the years, each time we've got home after a few days working away
we've been tired, so we've simply put the returned boxes of left-over
stock -- their contents a dreadful post-job muddle -- onto a shelf,
with the vague intention of sorting them out 'at the weekend'. I have
now unearthed a large number of these boxes. Each one takes about an
hour to sort out, and typically yields a 50/50 mix of scrap and good
stuff, the latter probably being worth £200.

I know I've gone on about this before, but honestly it's a nightmare!
I'm having a one- or two-hour session every day, because beyond that
it is just so stultifying. I think the main stock room is going to
take another 15 sessions. Luckily I have a good arrangement with a
licensed waste carrier. Whatever I put out he takes, whether he wants
it or not.

I feel better now I've got that off my chest! Thanks for listening.

Bill

That's what local auction houses are for.

A friend of my parents owned an old-style electrical shop in the Essex
Road, East London, back in the 1960s. He and the manager decided to
clear some stuff out, including a glass jar full of radio cats'
whiskers, which was covered in dust and had clearly not been opened for
years.
Soon afterwards, home radio kits came on the market for D-I-Yers, and
people started coming into the shop asking if they had any of the old
cats' whiskers still in stock. If only they had kept the jar...

--
Davey.