Clutter.
My driveway looks like something out of Sanford and Son.
Piles of construction debris, auto parts, and various components either just removed from or about to go into the RV are either under blue tarps, my portable awning, or heaped unceremoniously on the side. It really boils down to how much I value the individual item. As I come to the end of the project, I am faced with the onerous task of sorting it all out and finding some way to store the good stuff and dispose of the rest. "The rest" is a description that encompasses the majority of the piles. It's truly amazing how much junk I pulled out of a relatively small space, and not all of it was orange shag rug. Some of the "good stuff" will go on Craigslist, in hopes someone will pay me a nominal amount and then haul it away.
It can't go into the garage. There just isn't room for anything else. There isn't room for what's in there.
I need to make room for winter month bike wrenching. There will come a time when I need to prepare for next season, and without sufficient room it becomes impossible to get anything done. As it stands now, I can't even hop from open space to open space. There are no open spaces, and the piles loom ever larger.
This has to change. It got out of hand over the last month with the wreck and the RV project. Actually, it was out of control a decade or so, but we've reached critical mass. It's to the point that if North Korea decided to launch a strategic nuke at Anchorage, the blast could not even begin to breach the outer perimeter of my garage. Basic cable channel reality hoarding shows have been hounding me for months, as apparently I fit the profile.
Layers upon layers.
The deepest points carbon date back to when I was a Jeep guy. I have piles of obscure Jeep parts that are literally worthless, but I couldn't bear to part with. "Keepers". Scraps of angle iron and metal working tools point to a time when my hands were perpetually cut up from crafting brackets and other modifications for the Jeep.
A layer after that is the Land Rover era, when I was still obsessed with my never-completed safari wagon. A rebuilt engine on a stand, transmission, and various body parts stacked and waiting for their chance to join me on rhino hunting expeditions or some such crap. Perhaps someday.
On top of the Jeep and Land Rover piles are stacks of bike wheel and frame boxes. Never know when you might want to ship something to someone sometime for some reason. I never have, but you never know. Might as well have 15 boxes, just in case.
Joining the boxes on top of the Jeep and Land Rover piles is the bike trailer, which my son never took to. His sister certainly did when she was his age, but my son has always been more of the independent type. He's rather push himself than be dragged.
Over there is camping gear, stacked neatly behind the cabinets of ski tuning gear I haven't been able to reach in years. A sizeable investment in high fluorocarbon waxes dating back to when I still fancied myself a ski racer. Now I just use the cheap stuff. Stacked somewhat neatly on those shelves is the remnants of the flooring I put down in the living room over a decade ago. Never know when you might need that stuff.
The steps are cluttered with various grungy shoes I use for mowing the lawn and my old-but-still-good LeMond Trainer that I intended to take to races for warmups but never got around to it.
The rest of the floor is cluttered with bikes. Bikes so intertwined that my children know to ask me to extract theirs rather than try it themselves. Only Dad knows the combination, and a false move might bury them underneath an avalanche of his past interests.
Yeah, time to sort it out a bit.
However, I also have to make time to ride, because I can do that again. Riding is the priority, because unlike sorting through my mess, I feel better when I get off the bike.
Ride a little. Sort a little.
Hopefully it all gets done.
Piles of construction debris, auto parts, and various components either just removed from or about to go into the RV are either under blue tarps, my portable awning, or heaped unceremoniously on the side. It really boils down to how much I value the individual item. As I come to the end of the project, I am faced with the onerous task of sorting it all out and finding some way to store the good stuff and dispose of the rest. "The rest" is a description that encompasses the majority of the piles. It's truly amazing how much junk I pulled out of a relatively small space, and not all of it was orange shag rug. Some of the "good stuff" will go on Craigslist, in hopes someone will pay me a nominal amount and then haul it away.
It can't go into the garage. There just isn't room for anything else. There isn't room for what's in there.
I need to make room for winter month bike wrenching. There will come a time when I need to prepare for next season, and without sufficient room it becomes impossible to get anything done. As it stands now, I can't even hop from open space to open space. There are no open spaces, and the piles loom ever larger.
This has to change. It got out of hand over the last month with the wreck and the RV project. Actually, it was out of control a decade or so, but we've reached critical mass. It's to the point that if North Korea decided to launch a strategic nuke at Anchorage, the blast could not even begin to breach the outer perimeter of my garage. Basic cable channel reality hoarding shows have been hounding me for months, as apparently I fit the profile.
Layers upon layers.
The deepest points carbon date back to when I was a Jeep guy. I have piles of obscure Jeep parts that are literally worthless, but I couldn't bear to part with. "Keepers". Scraps of angle iron and metal working tools point to a time when my hands were perpetually cut up from crafting brackets and other modifications for the Jeep.
A layer after that is the Land Rover era, when I was still obsessed with my never-completed safari wagon. A rebuilt engine on a stand, transmission, and various body parts stacked and waiting for their chance to join me on rhino hunting expeditions or some such crap. Perhaps someday.
On top of the Jeep and Land Rover piles are stacks of bike wheel and frame boxes. Never know when you might want to ship something to someone sometime for some reason. I never have, but you never know. Might as well have 15 boxes, just in case.
Joining the boxes on top of the Jeep and Land Rover piles is the bike trailer, which my son never took to. His sister certainly did when she was his age, but my son has always been more of the independent type. He's rather push himself than be dragged.
Over there is camping gear, stacked neatly behind the cabinets of ski tuning gear I haven't been able to reach in years. A sizeable investment in high fluorocarbon waxes dating back to when I still fancied myself a ski racer. Now I just use the cheap stuff. Stacked somewhat neatly on those shelves is the remnants of the flooring I put down in the living room over a decade ago. Never know when you might need that stuff.
The steps are cluttered with various grungy shoes I use for mowing the lawn and my old-but-still-good LeMond Trainer that I intended to take to races for warmups but never got around to it.
The rest of the floor is cluttered with bikes. Bikes so intertwined that my children know to ask me to extract theirs rather than try it themselves. Only Dad knows the combination, and a false move might bury them underneath an avalanche of his past interests.
Yeah, time to sort it out a bit.
However, I also have to make time to ride, because I can do that again. Riding is the priority, because unlike sorting through my mess, I feel better when I get off the bike.
Ride a little. Sort a little.
Hopefully it all gets done.
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