Welcome to 2008.  It pretty much feels like 2007 doesn’t it?  Well I have a bug up my ass and I want it gone (it’s itchy you know?).  My bug, you ask, the purging of all the crap I have been collecting, “Just in Case”, since the early nineties.  Yes, early nineties, what a waist of space.

I know it has bothered my for some time–having to look through multiple boxes to find stuff, tripping over other household members crap to get somewhere.  Well I am done with it and I have Steve to thank for it. No, I don’t know Steve, but for some odd reason his blog has interested me over the last couple of years.  He wrote toward the end of the year that he is purging his house.  My initial thought was, that interesting.  Then I started to read what he has been doing, throwing away all them old drives and cell phones and other ‘stuff’ we all seem to gather over time.

I still wasn’t sold, how am I going to go through all this ‘stuff’ of mine when I am away from the house thirteen plus hours a day, and spending time with the family on the weekends.
“Anyway, I may need that some day.”
There was this other link in Steve’s  article, a link to Paul Graham’s site, an essay titled, of all things, Stuff.  A very interesting explanation of this all this ‘stuff’ we have packed into our homes, and the pseudo value we place on it.  And most importantly how our ‘stuff’ starts to run and dictate our lives.  It was enough for me, time to purge!

I have started this weekend, starting with my desk and the two thousand receipts which clutter a corner of it because I may need to reference them some day.   You know I never do, I let them gather up until I can’t take it anymore and throw them in the trash or use them as starter fuel in my fire pit (a wonderful gathering place).  Well it’s a start, next off to some boxes sitting on my desk and close by.  Boxes of old computer ‘stuff’, documents, check stubs (I have been on direct deposit for ten years, I don’t care what my check said in 1998, really.  I can’t remember the last time I actually went back to reference one of the twenty million check stubs I have stashed away.  These will be purged too, they just need to be destroyed as the older ones contain a social security number, etc.) and who knows what else.  Out of all the boxes I went through, I think I kept 1% of the stuff within.  Mostly manuals to appliances and gadgets.  When I go though this ‘stuff’ again, I am sure I will throw them away too, I am sure they are available online.

It’s a slow start, but a start nonetheless, plus I have gathered a full garbage bad of ‘stuff’ already.  I am already thinking about all the different ‘stuff’ to purge from my house.  My mind’s eye running amuck identifying ‘stuff’ crap, I don’t need and haven’t used in years.  Even though my main reason for keeping it is, “just in case I may need it”, and my other favorite, “Man this was expense when it was new”.  Of course, it’s worth nothing now, I would be lucky to get a dime on Ebay (no, I am not an Ebay fan by the way).

Here’s to a cleaner, uncluttered, nobody-wants-that-suff-anyway, 2008 <clank>!