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Last week was first week of classes, easy as lectures just introduction to the courses. Back in the game which is good as I get to lazy during the summer. Feeling energized again working with a new class of students.
Today, Monday, had no classes scheduled. Good because I needed some time to rearrange the boxes in my home office. I am a box hoarder! My home office is stacked to the ceiling and decorated with boxes with the United Van Lines North Dallas Moving & Storage logo. At least all boxes same neutral earth tone color. These boxes packed and contents marked Dec. 2003. Many of these boxes have not been opened since 2003. Content labels now so old and faded not sure what I have in those boxes. I also have a large storage locker in the building basement full of stuff and have not looked into the storage locker for about 8 years. Believe it or not the owner of my cat sitting service has stored about $1,500 of my flattened packing boxes in her garage plus four boxes of silver & crystal stuff I intended to sell. Believe it or not when I moved from Dallas to Ottawa I paid United Van Lines almost $2,000 for empty packing boxes alone but it has taken me years to realize a horde of empty boxes are not collectables (lol). Thought I had edited before moving to Ottawa as I donated two full vans of clothing to an abused women's shelter for resale plus some furniture. Also just gave away stuff to Dallas friends because not much of a market for stuff like my 14-foot palm tree I had in my Dallas living room or other Dallas large scale stuff. In retrospect I still paid to move a few thousand pounds of useless stuff when I moved to Canada.
New technology has required I address my box hoarding issue. My apartment building was designed as a state-of-the-art highrise condo in 1980. Therefore there is one cable TV outlet in the master bedroom and one phone jack in my master bedroom and one phone jack in my living room (no phone jack in the middle bedroom which is now my home office). Therefore, my current cable TV connection requires a single cable running from master bedroom, punched a hole in the wall through middle bedroom (home office and box storage) and punched another hole in the wall to my living room to connect to TV (connection comes out behind a wall of bookcases and into an old fashioned media cabinet where living room phone jack is also located). Cables in living room behind some massive heavy furniture that is bolted to the walls. So this Thursday changing to a new internet, home phone, & TV service provider that will be all fiber optic (whatever that means). Reason: My current service provider for 11 years can not figure out why I lost my on-demand channels 5 weeks ago and that is not acceptable after four on-site visits into my apartment.
This new technology caused me to rethink my box hoarding, perhaps new wiring will have to snake through my home office to get to my living room TV. So today I rearranged my floor to ceiling boxes in middle bedroom/home office to better access cables I had so perfectly hidden all these years. I hate clutter. So I was able to de-clutter a little. Dumped old worn out shoes I have not seen in 3 years, much computer equipment that was state of the art 6 years ago but had replaced last year, and a few boxes of old vinyl records I have been dragging around with me since age 14.
Realized last weekend I have held onto boxes of stuff for too many decades. Now understand that because as an Air Force brat we moved almost every year and I had over 30 addresses since age 18. Guess I just held onto "stuff" because I never felt a sense of permanence in any one place. Why unpack if you are just going to move again? The new technology and wiring to deal with this week, made me realize I am not moving again anytime soon as I have been at this address longer than anywhere else in my life. There is more stuff to edit and dump, perhaps in Dec. The new internet, home phone, TV provider with fiber optics going to have their work cut out for them on Thursday and good they scheduled five hours for the installation because think they will need those hours. I intend to play the old man card and say "too heavy for me to lift". But they know this is an old building, been trying to get a foothold into this building for more than eight months. Their issue, not my issue to move around my packing box collection and some serious heavy furniture.
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