Cleaning house.

I have been cleaning house lately. To me, I am getting rid of the old stuff, to make room for the new stuff. Or said another way- letting go of things I used (and paid attention to) in the past to make room for the new stuff (things I want around).

Here is what I have done. I went through my library and gave away four boxes of books. Then I went to my storage space and gave away my tools I once used as a carpenter and builder. People were glad to get what I had, and I was glad to let go things that have no meaning or use to me anymore. I threw away a lot of stuff

Next comes my attic. There are boxes of things that used to mean something to me. Most of it is useless stuff that I will throw away. There is an expensive leather punching bag I will give away to a martial arts school. I’ll probably find many things that will evoke memories; good ones and bad ones. I’ll look at them maybe for a moment- and then throw them out.

My garage is last. My Dad’s wood working tools are there. I used to be an avid woodworker like my Dad, but they are rusting now (more from misuse). I will give them away.

So here is a question to all of you here. Should I clean the message board? There are a lot of conversations posted that are no longer active. Do we need them? Do they serve a purpose? That is my question.

My father is a tradesman who collects anything that has a remote chance of being used. He's offered it all to me, and I gratiously declined. I can't envision hauling the thousands of pounds of material that he would like for me to have. I want to live my life like a treeclimber and an experienced hiker - carry only what's needed and nothing more.

However, I feel entirely different about information. I will retain information for as long as I possibly can. With respect to this forum, I use the search function to review topics. Also this serves as a community diary. Even where the exchange is routine and factual, it represents a point and time in the voice of the experienced climber.

There will be evolutions in climbing, and this forum will capture it for historical review.

Regards,
JimK

Treeman, I believe that we are on the same track of cleaning the old stuff from our places. I think that you should go ahead w/ the clean up of the message board specially all of the argumentative stuff and stuff that is not relevant to the learning process of the mayority of users. You will be accused of all types of crimes and be called all kind of ugly names but most of us will survive the cleaning process. It will make for an easier and faster search of educational facts and historical postings. I trust you to do a fair job of keeping the usefull stuff and getting rid of the junk. Have a Prosperous New Year and good luck w/ your house clean up. I am doing some of that cleaning myself and donating it to a local Goodwill Industries group!

Oldtimer

Only about ten minutes ago I posted this on Wood Central:

Today I watched a couple of episodes of "Garage Takeover" on Discovery. The premise is a synthesized overhaul of a garage.

At the beginning they open the garage doors and see piles of stuff. IN the end they yuppy the garages and smash up a lot of decent stuff. Granted, there is a lot of junk and garbage there was still life in a lot of the stuff. Think about the thread from below about scoring a bandsaw out of the trash.

I know that it doesn't make good TV but it sure would make a good point if the stuff that has life in it either go to Goodwill or recycling. Doing a better job of building storage systems would allow packrats, like me , to have the goods at hand.

My ex and I had an agreement about my stuff. As long as she didn't need to see it or walk over it, I could have all that I wanted. When I'd bring stuff home and leave it out she came up with a non-confrontational way of giving me the nudge. She'd say, "Oh, I see you have some new stuff." Followed up with "The Look" I knew that the next conversation would be a kick in the butt. That was a nice way to have a respected boundary.

Before I moved my shop and garage had lots of shelves filled with milk crates and buckets of my stuff. At first glance it looked cluttered but no one had to walk over or around any of the stuff. It did give me a knot in my stomach when I moved. Too much stuff to move. Recycling, Goodwill and FREE boxes in the alley gave new homes to most of the stuff. There was a certain amount that did have to go to the trash.

In the next few weeks I'll be looking at houses. I told my Realtor that the most important thing for me is a three car garage or large shop area. There are plenty of good houses on the market. How many good shops are there?

Tom
******

Recycliing, selling or giving away your own stuff is your priveldge. You're the one who knows their value. And...you're the one who will have to live with the loss. Going in and tossing out stuff that belongs to others crosses a boundary.

A fellow who used to work for me would ask, "Do you have______?" After a while he said that he was going to ask me "Where is _____?" because everytime he would ask I would cock my head, squint my eyes and tell him exactly which bucket or box _____ was stored in. Having all of this stuff has come in handy many times. Instead of having to run to the harware store, especially at off-hours, is a priceless savings of time and materials.

Unless the walls are bulging, you have to trip over the stuff or the monetary cost is higher than the value, I'm of the opinion that the stuff stays.

I'm such a confirmed, and proud of it, pack rat, I've saved the emails that Pete Donzelli and I shared. Every once in a while I go back and read them to remind me of my good friend. Having those souveniers is comforting to me.

Tom

Treeman,
While your cleaning house and getting rid of…
“all of the argumentative stuff and stuff that is not relevant to the learning process” I was wondering if you would consider letting us have a Not Just Trees or perhaps a Miscellaneous section. There are occasions when it would be nice to be able to chase an off topic subject in greater detail. We could swing it over to the Miscellaneous section of the board rather than lose the original topic.
A Not Just Trees section might make a nice place for “newbies” to loosen up a bit. Ya know, chat about some non-expert stuff rather than just hawk all the time.

My 2 cents worth (and worth every penny)

Please leave the old threads. We need to refer back to them every now and then. New people will come along and say, "How do I tie a blakes hitch." Then we can just send 'em to that thread.

love
nick

Electrojake and NickfromWI. Good suggestions from the both of you. I see the point on keeping up the postings. I often look at the big threads (controversial topics) too see if the “look see” hits are increasing and they always are. This is probably why the message board is taking thousands of hits a day- to look at all of the topic threads. It would take a while to read all of the threads. Doing a search would certainly be easier if the topic has already been discussed.

The Miscellaneous and Not Just Trees heading is a splendid idea. This is a good example of asking for input from the community for ideas that are so simple that they arrive at elegant. It would provide an opportunity just as you said for folks that had no experience to start talking so we could meet them and make friends.

I know I am much more quiet when around people who are up to date on things I know nothing about. For me, I want to be quiet so I can listen better, or I don’t want to appear ignorant, which can often be true in the case of subjects I do not know.