Selling the Clutter

"Every one lives by selling something." -Robert Louis Stevenson

I don't know if this is just me, but I have this habit of buying something, usually online, and then keeping the box after opening it.  I don't know why I do it, but it makes me feel like I have the option to return it later if I change my mind. (Also keep receipts)  What happens is that in my closet I have this stack of shame, boxes of things that I probably shouldn't have purchased.  So now that I'm preparing to move, I'm starting to sell off some of my old things, namely electronics, and incidentally, those original boxes have been a god send for selling my items on ebay.  They make the item look newer when it comes in its original packaging.  Extra cash for things I'm not using often is worth the effort. 

It is not easy to decide what to sell. I have this idea that there will be a point when I "might" need that item, even though I haven't used it in over a year. This is probably the type of thinking that creates hoarding.  For example, my TI-85 calculator.  I haven't touched it since high school calculus and yet, I've held on to it for all these years. (Update: ended up selling to my cousin.)  Another item I had trouble considering to sell was this super remote I got as a Christmas gift from a former girlfriend a few years ago.  I really wanted it at the time and thought it would change my life.  I quickly found out that I hardly used it since my TiVo remote was enough.  So I decided to post the remote on eBay and it sold for a great price. Selling on Ebay is fun, despite the cut you have to pay them, and I keep going through all my things trying to find what else I can sell.  Things are not going as fast on craigslist as I thought they would.  So look at me, I'm having a garage sale of sorts.

I love buying stuff on craigslist too, but I'm trying to hold off until I move into my new place.  What I will say is that not having a truck anymore making craigslist shopping harder.  I can't buy desks or tables, or anything where I need larger transportation.  Maybe this is a good thing.

Let me do some catching up.  Easter weekend I stayed in town and mainly relaxed.  I also helped my brother Abram move into his new place in North Austin.  He and Ashley really found a nice place to rent that is near his new job.  Ashley is really great at decorating I will say.  It is going to take some time to get used to him being gone.  I feel like I went through the same thing when my cousin Rino moved out.  I'm sure the move into my new house next month will be a big change that will take more getting used to.

This past weekend my father came into town from the Valley to visit.  I took him by my new house which was under construction, to give him a tour.  He liked the house and was able to give me some ideas about what work I can do on it, especially with the fence.  I always think of crazy project ideas that I enlist my father to help me with.  Last time it was shaving the heels off the soles of my running shoes and this time it was stripping and staining my dining table. I have this light maple colored table and I wanted to make it a dark color for my new house.  So I picked up 4 leather chairs on craigslist, a truck would have made it easier, and then we started on the project.  I had never stripped paint before and it was pretty cool, but labor intensive. I used another table I had as a practice test and it turned out pretty good.  Now my dining table did not turn out like I hoped.  The dark color was just not even and you could see the brush strokes, so I put more and more on it and now it just looks painted and not really smooth. I probably shouldn't have messed with it after my father left.

I took my father to have dinner and kept trying to convince him to attend the wiener dog races in Buda, but he wanted none of that.  It is more fun than it sounds.  We had a BBQ at Abram and Ashley's place on Sunday.  It was fun and their place is really coming together.  Abram built a cool dog kennel in his back yard. Another big part of the trip was that I got my father an iPad 3G, which I tried to teach him to use.  I hope he ends up figuring it out and getting a lot of use out of it.  He has no computer experience, but Apple is very simple to pick up.  He likes the news apps, which I hope become gateway apps.

Finally, I sent my cat Maddie home with my father to my sister Ana.  She is a great cat and will be missed, but  three cats is two too many and with a dog, it is just too much to keep up with. I think she has found a good home.  She is still adjusting, but here is a picture that my sister sent me.

In other random news, I finally settled my last unpaid negative tradeline on my credit reports. It was a silly low amount, but out foolish principle I resisted for years.  It was a lot of work, but hopefully this will mark the beginning of more mature financial decisions going forward.  But just like dieting and exercise, next month I say, I mean, I am moving and I'll be buying lots of random stuff.  Paying out the money was not fun though and since the settlement agreement is confidential, I won't say too much about it.  Good news though.

My days now consist of a lot of packing, which is going at a really slow pace.  Cleaning in an effort to only be charged my security deposit and nothing more.  I'm hoping this month goes by fast because I'm really looking forward to moving into my new house. This week, my housemate Norbert has been out of town and it is like I'm living by myself.  It has been a while since I have lived alone and it was a weird feeling.  It definitely has its pros and cons.

distractions

Where Were You?

"Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body." - President Barack Obama, 05/01/11

I'll never forget where I was on September 11, 2001.  When the first plane hit the World Trade Center building, I was asleep in my house in Ithaca, NY where I was attending college.  My house mate, Juan Carlos barged into my room and told me to turn on my TV.  We watched the news in horror as the second plane hit the other tower.  We were about 5 hours away, but the NYC was where Juan's family lived, so this had an extra sense of urgency and reality to him.  For days after, we didn't know if there would be more be attacks and if the world would erupt into a war.  We did know everything would be different and I mainly remained in shock from the devastation I witnessed with all of America.  I got a lot of phone calls from family in Texas since I was closer to the tragedy, but I was such a safe distance away that there wasn't any real worry.  People I know lost love ones, but I was lucky enough to not have anyone close to me hurt. Watching the cops, firefighters and volunteers working tirelessly at ground zero really showed me how admirably people can act in a time of crisis.

I distinctly remember a conversation with my older sister Veronica about how she would be able to explain this tragedy to her two young daughters.  She was particularly sad about the children who would no longer have their parents and tried to use that context in talking to them about it. This really emotionally hurt her and her empathy showed so clearly.  Two years later when my sister passed away in a car accident, I remembered that conversation with her about the victims and the attack and the affect it would have on their families.  In a strange way it gave me insight about how she understood how hard it would now be for her two little girls having to grow up without a mother.  I imagined the comfort she wished for those families and it helped me.

Almost 10 years later, my father and I were in Austin driving home from visiting my brother's and his girlfriend's new place when I got a notification on my iPhone that the President was going to speak at 10:30pm EST.  No one knew what it was about, so we turned to the news and waited anxiously.  We speculated and thought it either had to do with Libya or a terrorist threat of some sort.  It was a Sunday night, this had to be urgent.  Then as we were nearing my home, we heard the news as it just leaked, that Osama Bin Laden was dead. It felt surreal.  I was so happy.  My dad hit his hands on the dashboard in celebration. I texted a few friends and family members and then went inside to watch President Obama's speech on TV.

Watching the crowds of people gathered and cheering outside of the White House and outside of Ground Zero really brought joy to my heart.  I never thought I would be rejoicing in the death of a person, but this was a good moment for America as he was brought to justice.  As I learn the details of how this all transpired, I'm in awe at the Navy Seals and intelligence people who pulled it off and especially at the decision making of our Commander-in-chief.  I'm sure there are countless people and countless decisions that got to this point, but we finally got him.  There would be questions about Pakistan later, the details of the hows and what happened, but at this moment, all that mattered was that we got him.

In this moment of unity and joy, there are some people already jockeying for political points, trying to attack the president of our country.  It puts a damper on the moment.  After 9/11, I stood behind a president who I not only didn't agree with, but didn't like.  His actions after, I still didn't agree with, namely going to War in Iraq with the argument that it was tied to 9/11, but it didn't change my unity with the country on what we went through.  But now, it just bothers me that others are trying to find a way to take this positive moment and try to use it to attack our president, namely on the issue of credit and who knows what else.  The more you learn about the mission, the more you see, the President is a badass.  Yeah, he isn't liberal enough for me, caters to the Right on so many issues, but I'm not using this time to vent those grievances.  It feels like people are saying, "How dare the President take credit for his decisions and actions when it included actions of many?"  I will say, those Navy Seals and intelligence people who he gave credit to, and a lot of people in the military are also badasses and I'm in awe of what they do.  I look forward to learning more about this.

I have tried to stay away from the political discussion for the most part, but I'm always ready to talk about it.  I'll take a break from that stance to say that to make rude comments doesn't make sense to me, especially in the face of points like, back in March 13, 2002, when President Bush said about Bin Laden:

"Who knows if he’s hiding in some cave or not. We haven’t heard from him in a long time. The idea of focusing on one person really indicates to me people don’t understand the scope of the mission. Terror is bigger than one person. He’s just a person who’s been marginalized. … I don’t know where he is. I really just don’t spend that much time on him, to be honest with you."


I actually agree with some of those points by Bush, but Bin Laden was a big deal, even if you argue symbolically.  Yes, terror is bigger than one person, and I understand that this won't make things safer, but a murderer was brought to justice.  Also, this shows you how actions are more important than words, results over false bravado.  The debate on who should get credit for what, the political one, just feels like sour grapes at this moment.  A real discussion about ALL the people that played a role is probably productive if it wasn't motivated with bashing people. 


I had to get that out, because some things I heard urked me and I had a lot of thoughts and feelings about this great moment.  Yes, we all have different political views, we all like an dislike different presidents and politicians.  I get that, but how about we just keep the hate held back a bit while we all celebrate.  We can go back to fighting over politics another day, but for today, I'm happy we got him.

united

A Changing Grasshopper

“You can close your eyes to the things you do not want to see, but you cannot close your heart to the things you do not want to feel.” - Unknown

I'm sure you know Asoep's fable of The Grasshopper and the Ant. I think of my life this way sometimes and I hate that I identify with the actions of the grasshopper. There are some things where I have been the Ant in my life, especially when it comes to education and hard work. But I must admit, for the most part, I live the life of the grasshopper, enjoying my time and spending too freely, without properly saving/planning for the future. The winter has not hit, but we are all one life changing moment from very hard times. (Watch The Company Men with Ben Affleck and you'll see.) I don't regret all of my spending ways, mainly because I have priceless memories that I would not have had if I had always been doing the financially responsible thing since I turned 18. But still, for the most part, my hope is to take this year to turn my financial habits around and start focusing on this part of my life, especially since I'm picking up a mortgage now. I'm not going to become a super ant, as my grasshopper tenancies will always be there, but I'm going to search for a little more balance. My hope is that by the end of the year to have met with a CPA and a financial planner and have read a few more books on the topic. I pay way too much in taxes because I have not taken the time to plan properly. It is easy to think that my decisions only affect me, but they also affect my family and any future family I may have. Plus, since they affect me, I want them to be good ones.

I have started using Dropbox and think it is a great program. If you don't know what it is, it is a folder on your computer that you can sync with another computer or your phone. You get 2gb free online storage and let's say you are working on a brief for work, you can put it in your Dropbox folder on your work computer and when you get home, it will be there on your home computer. I get 500mb of extra space for each person that joins with my link, so I will shamelessly plug my link here: http://db.tt/QzaZU5s. If you don't like the program, just uninstall it, I get my extra space anyway. I'd appreciate the favor since I'm using it a lot now, especially as a type of backup for my files. I will say that the worst part is that I'm doing exactly what the company wants me to do, shill for them to my friends, but in this case I'll do it since I like the program, but I still feel a bit bad.

I recently saw the movie Source Code and I thought it was very good. It is one of those enjoyable movies where you feel good during and after, but don't really have a reason to watch again. One of the things I thought was interesting was that the male character falls for the female character in a just a few minutes of knowing her and is ready to embark on a relationship with this very attractive women without really knowing who she is as a person. And if you saw the movie, and saw her, you would totally understand how it could be so easy. But I wonder, if it was switched, and a woman had just met this guy/stranger on a train, if in the spur in the moment, she would be content running off with him. Maybe I'm biased by my thinking that men are more irrationally romantic than women. This will make more sense if you see the movie I think.

Along the same lines, I was thinking the other day about how I didn't tell women I had dated enough that they were beautiful. It wasn't that I wouldn't say it, but it became more rare as I got older. It wasn't because I didn't think they were beautiful/gorgeous/pretty, but I knew that each successive time you say it, it seems to mean that much less. Maybe I thought by saying less it would mean something more that way. The problem was that I got so used to not saying it, that I probably got to the point where I wasn't saying it enough and that I regret. This hit me when I was thinking how it would probably take me a really long time before I told a girl I just met that I thought she was beautiful. This didn't feel right and it made me wonder how I changed from the overly affectionate, ok I get it, you love me, to a more withdrawn, guarded person. Don't get me wrong, I can still be a wussie who shares too much too soon, but it is just not as usual. So, I'm not saying I want to be one of those guys who tells every woman she is beautiful and who says it so often that the words become as robotic and meaningless as saying the Our Father as a kid. I just think that you can't take for granted that people always know what you are thinking.

On Sunday, I had my second sailing lesson. This time I went on a bigger boat that went much faster and I had a blast. It is a great way to spend Sundays. Here are a few photos on Facebook. I'm testing out using Facebook public links for my photos to see how it works, but I still prefer Flickr. I hope to keep these lessons up. Abram went racing on Friday, something I have yet to try, but am looking forward to.

This weekend I also went to visit my good friend of mine from high school, Justin. He has been in the Austin area for as long as I have been here, but I've only seen him a few times because life gets busy. We knew each other through school since elementary and at one point as kids I found out that he was kind of my neighbor. We lived out in the country at that time, I'm using that term loosely. It was great catching up with him this weekend and meeting his wife and kids. It is so neat seeing how people have grown up when you have the memory of them from when they were younger. He is a great dad, runs a great business and gave me such great advice. I really enjoyed myself and hope to keep in better touch with more of my friends.

In other news, I bought my Dad an iPad 1 this weekend. He doesn't use computers, but is interested in the stuff that is on them. I figured an iPad would be easier to learn for him and give him access to a lot of information and entertainment. I take the internet for granted and to think he never gets to use it. So I found a used iPad 16gb for sale on craigslist, I made an offer and they accepted. When I got home with the package, I was surprised to find out that it was not just an iPad, but an iPad 3G, which is worth more than what I paid for it. I was happy to have scored such a great deal. I look forward to giving it to him when he comes to visit. Until then, I'll be setting it up for him, i.e. playing with it myself to see if I want an iPad 2.

In trying to be more responsible, I downgraded my cable. That was hard, but I went to the bare minimum and set up my TiVo with over the air reception to get the local channels in HD. That will help me save a few bucks which is cool. If you call the cable company to cancel, you usually get great deals they don't tell you about. I advise you give it a shot, but I guess you need to be willing to cancel, I was.

Construction is still happening on my house. Still waiting on final word on that loan. Here are some new photos of pictures of my house status on Facebook Photos. I was excited to learn that Memorial Day Weekend there is a tax free special on appliances, so I'll be buying my new fridge then. Not sure about buying a washer and dryer yet though. I have a long list of things I need to buy for this new house.

I get Good Friday off this week, so that is awesome. I haven't figured out yet how to best use my weekend. Easter did come fast this year.

everyone except you

Starboard

"The greatest wealth is health." -Virgil

I have a lot to catch up on, so I'll just jump right into it. Last week, I was talking with Abram and he told me about some sailing lessons he heard about from a co-worker and I decided to sign up and give it a shot. On Sunday, we headed out to Lake Travis and had our first lesson. It was awesome, especially considering I had only been on a sail boat once. We spent an hour in class learning some terminology and basics and then we got on a sail boat for about 2 hours and learned interactively how to sail. The wind was gusting and it made for such an enjoyable experience. I almost lost my hat at one point, but didn't feel that bad when our skipper lost his. Clearly, I still know very little, but I know a lot more than I knew before it. I hope to do it again.

On Thursday, my friend Rick hooked me up with some Guster tickets at Stubbs because he couldn't make it to Austin. I was pretty excited and it was a great concert. They put on a great show. The other great news is that he and his girlfriend are moving to Austin soon. I'm very happy about this because it is great to have more good friends in town. That last time I hung out with them was a lot of fun.

Here is my house update. My closing date and time have been set for May 31, 2011 at 11am. I have all my paperwork in for my loan and I'm waiting for underwriting to get my final approval. As excited as I am, I can't shake the fear things might fall through, so the day I get that final approval I'll give myself license to rest easy. I'm enjoying watching the home go up and can't wait until I'm moved in. I haven't given notice yet on the house I rent because I want to make sure I have it first. My first big purchase is going to be my fridge. I'm usually a big comparison shopper, but in this case I'll probably just go with any stainless steel one that holds my food.

My brother Abram moves out of the house we rent on April 22nd to live closer to his new job. It was a good run and I'll miss having him as a housemate. There have been so many changes going on recently. I can't wait to see his new place and am jealous that he has a jacuzzi tub. He will be taking his two dogs, so our farm will be a little bit smaller.

In more personal news, my grandmother has recently been sick and was in the hospital last week in Ft. Worth. From what I understand, she came down with bronchitis and/or pneumonia, but I know it is more complicated than that since I don't have all the medical background. I learned today that after getting out of the hospital late last week, she had to go back because she started to feel bad again. It is hard not to feel helpless when a person you love is ill, especially when there isn't a lot you can do about it. My main concern is that she is getting all the medical care she needs to make a strong recovery. Because she believes prayer has the capacity to make her feel better, in her case, knowing her family is praying for her I'll admit can have a positive effect. I love my grandmother, as I'm sure you love yours, and I'm glad that my aunts are there taking such great care of her. She is a remarkably strong women who has been through more in her life than I ever will understand, but the effects of age are something none of us can overcome. But you can delay it and I want every moment of wonderful health that is possible for her. My mother is flying up to visit her this weekend and stay for a week, which makes me very happy.

And back to the superficial. Friday, I'm going to see Wet Hot American Summer at the Drafthouse. I invited a lot of friends, but it sold out before most were able to come. This is one of my favorite movies that Rick introduced me to in college. If you haven't seen it, I recommend renting it, you will thank me.

As I'm preparing to move, I'm also doing some spring cleaning in the sense that I'm trying to sell old items that I no longer use. I'm using craigslist and ebay. It is funny how it hurts to part with an item that has been sitting in your closest for years because there "might" be a day when you "might" need it. I'm not clearing much money from it, but it feels good to declutter my life. I'm not a garage sale person, so this is the closest I get to it.

everyone you meet is the main character of their story