Hoarding: computer edition

*The picture above is not of my house*

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My 2nd PC ever.

On the tail end of my “Paternity Leave” I realized I have not done much to aid MommyMD. Well I cant really breast feed Juliette, but I suppose I could be more pro-active with diaper changing. Then again I HATE POOP diapers. That I can get over, but everytime Juliette eats, she poops soon after. Talk about gastro-colic reflex. When she is changed, it really ticks her off and she cries bloody murder. Once she gets boobed again, all is good.

I digress. So on the tale end of being off work, I told MommyMD her “push gift” was that I would clean out the basement. A big problem in the basement is the mass amounts of computers I collect.

At the office, we had a ton of outdated PCs that were still functional. I took them home to clean them up. It is odd, even when stripped down from the crap-ware, they still seem to run slow. I dont know if I am just used to faster computers, but I assume the continuous updates require more processing power and memory.

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there is more crap than it seems underneath

Suffice it to say, like everything else I hoard, I figure I would be able to find a use for the old hardware. So I keep them. I am finding that I personally dont have any use for these things, and dont know anyone I can give them to to use. I should just sell it! So today I gathered all the outdated, marked-for-disposal equipment in the office, as well as my house. Took it to computerexpress and figured I could maybe get 20$ to buy some pizza at the office.

 Well no. Apparently ink-jets are useless (my sentiments exactly), and anything running XP is too old. Most of this stuff pictured is crap from the office. My main contribution is the old P3 from dell pictured above. Now that computer I purchased for my freshman year at Ohio State. At the time it was rather snazzy and expensive. It has gone through many upgrades and had finally become a ghost of a shell for the past 11-12 years. I dont know why I kept it around really. Maybe it’s the hoarder in me. I do hope one day it does not get so bad I end up on A&E’s HOARDERS.

So I had a decision to make. Let Computer Express recycle it all, and not get the bounty I was hoping for, or try to donate it to get a tax write off, or take it to Ohio Drop off where they may give 3cents/lb of a PC. After mulling it over for a while, and being consoled by the associate at the store (he was very empathetic), I figured I’d just recycle it all. I could have dumped it all in a trash can, but I’ve been trying to be environmentally conscious when possible. Also I dont want sensitive data laying around. When I piled it all up, I literally sat and mourned for about 1 minute. I felt I was quitting some habit cold turkey. I had this sensation of guilt. I felt I let someone down (but who?). I was not able to re purpose (or at least make some money) off of these relics.

Now I am home. ViviBear is napping. JulietteBear must be pooping as I hear her crying upstairs. And MommyMD is obviously mommying upstairs. Strangely enough, I actually feel relieved now that I got rid of that clutter. Now what to do about my plants…

**disclaimer – i did pull and thrash the hard drives before dropping them off**

 

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