The techno-crap is gone!!

[fenchurch]

I'm really quite impressed with how they set things up for the electronics recycling yesterday. It was in the parking garage next to Safeco field, with plenty of people directing traffic and with the (VERY long) line of cars moving at a steady pace. They had us wending our way through the parking levels, until we came to a very long, unobstructed area where they were just directing people to pull in at the side (parallel parking style, but done in a way that all you had to do was pull right in) and then there were hordes of young people wearing gloves who would converge on your car and start hauling things out. I think we were there all of three minutes, which is pretty astounding when you consider the LARGE amount of techno-crap we had in the back. Even more impressive was the long, deep pile of techno-crap they'd already accumulated from other people that morning... considering the event had only been going for about two hours when we got there.

And here we have a pic of the stuff piled into the back of my car. And yes, I had the back seat down, so there was a LOT of space to fill.




We ended up with several boxes filled with old hard drives (that rackham spent Friday wiping clean of info), video cards, audio cards and motherboards. There were a few things that tugged at the nostalgia centers of my brain... like when we chucked my old Orchid Righteous 3D card into the box. Man, I loved that card when I got it. It was pretty sweet... completely cutting edge. You know, about 11 years ago.

I love having all that space back... even though there's still a ton of non-techie stuff I want to go through and get rid of. I can't believe I started this whole purge thing about three years ago and we've still got way too much crap in the garage and in closets and, well, in several other rooms of the house. I guess I shouldn't feel too bad, since I pretty much took a year and a half or so of a break to deal with recovering from the car accident (it's a bit tough to purge boxes when you can't even lift the boxes in the first place). But yay!! Techno-crap gone!! And we didn't have to pay the estimated $300 it would have cost us in recycling fees any other time.

ETA: The other bit of nostalgia... we got rid of the 14" VGA monitor we bought with our very first PC. It still had things written all over the case in pencil from when I used it as the monitor for my BBS (I wrote on the monitor and on the computer case, since they were handy and very hard to lose).

Comments

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

Holy crap, that's a lot of stuff! :D

My dad called me Saturday morning and asked if I wanted anything on my old PC. I'd already wiped it for my mom (thoroughly enough, I hope), so I told him to take it. Whoo hoo for recycling!

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

And the horrible thing is, that it's simply the stuff that's been leftover from the various computers we've built over the years for other people. Basically, we did a lot of "will work for hardware" type things, where we'd install upgraded hardware in people's computers and they'd give us the old hardware (assuming it was worth keeping), and when we had enough for a complete system (usually including castoffs from our own upgrades), we'd build one and find somebody who needed a computer. Of course, that's also meant we ended up with all sort of bits and pieces that never went anywhere.

I forgot to add the other nostalgia bit... time to do an ETA.

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

Damn, I wish I'd known that you guys did that. My old PC never worked out for Mom because it was too obsolete, and she's wanted to have her own computer since this time LAST year. I've asked for advice about what to buy on occasion, but I keep flaking about helping her with it. :/

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

Yep! And we're still willing to help with that sort of stuff, if you need it. Nowadays, though, it's gotten so cheap to pick up a barebones new system that it's almost not worth keeping the old stuff around anymore.

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I'll probably take you up on the offer soon. Most likely we'll just head to Frye's or something, but I'll inevitably end up asking what to get. ;)