Divestment: Week 2

Posted on August 27, 2008 by Steve

8/21: First missed day due to last-minute travel arrangements, so I have to cite my plywood/medical device double disposal last week.

8/22: Gabriel García Márquez, Memories of My Melancholy Whores, left on a bench in Fuengirola, Spain.

8/23: Hoyle Classic Games CD ROM left on a trash receptacle in Málaga Airport. It was a waist-high platform with a recessed metal top on which some food wrappers and napkins were conspicuously not exploding.

8/24: Home improvement handbook left by a home inspector seven years ago. Nice guide, but never consulted. Trashed.

8/25: Blue school binder found in basement. Salvaged a tube of 0.5 mm lead from a pocket and trashed.

8/26: Sony Discman portable CD player. Quite scratched up but worked the last time I tried it, years ago. Left in a stairwell with a note reading "free."

8/27: Two packages of souvenir coasters. There are probably enough coasters in our house to decorate every corner of every flat piece of furniture. Trashed.

Divestment: Week 1

Posted on August 20, 2008 by Steve

Inspired by this divestor, I've begun getting rid of things, one a day, that would otherwise become inert ingredients of my eventual estate. Here's a report from the first week.

8/14: A small wooden box containing a button and a brass lamp pipe adapter. Left on a picnic table outside the office.

8/15: Three plywood planks left over from a furo project (instructions), and an ankle support brace. Left with the trash.

8/16: One cubic foot of gardening soil. Spread over front lawn with fresh grass seed (divestiture meets home improvement).

8/17: A hideous set of five (originally six) fragile multicolor spindly party glasses, unsuitable for use or regifting. After being moved from one basement nook to another for years, dumped without ceremony and with some relish into the kitchen trash bin, though I did pause to wonder if the plastic tray was worth saving.

8/18: A 12-pound dumbbell. Left on the sidewalk in front of Sports Authority.

8/19: One 30-watt Panasonic stereo speaker. Left out with trash. I couldn't stop myself from harvesting one tweeter for a refrigerator magnet, but now I regret my weakness and intend to throw it out later, along with the speaker's mate.

8/20: A foot-operated bicycle pump. Old and leaky, it required much finesse to get more air in than it let out, but it was still kept as a backup for a new electric pump. Trashed.