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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Glad you could fix it so quick! You're right: most people would look inside a PC and their eyes would rattle around a bit and they'd slowly back away. I know mine would, and, hell, I've even helped assemble a few in my lifetime!

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
We have a couple of old dinosaurs built of server grade stuff. They've got to be at least 12 years old by now, and in that time we've tossed a three or four laptops and four cell/ smart phones. We currently have a tablet and a laptop for casual use. The keypad on the tablet stopped working two years ago and a critical area on the screen (the one that displays all open windows) stopped responding to touch. (Fortunately it still responds to the special pen they included.) The laptop, which is only a year old, needs to be rebooted at least once a day, not sure if it's crappy software (memory leak) or something hardware, but it's a PITA to use.

Anyhow... glad you're able to cobble together working systems for yourself. Most people are hostage to the ready made junk that's sold today. If you ever wanted to go into business for yourself you could do repairs and upgrades and recoveries.

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*****

I took yesterday off. Aside from making b'fast and dinner and walking the dog, I crawled into bed and napped, or put my feet up and watched TV. I felt guilty bc there's so much to do, but I needed it. Gotta say, I made creative use of leftovers for b'fast and dinner. For b'fast I made hubby a bowl of leftover albondigas soup (no meatballs) and a wrap using locarb tortilla, mayo, swiss, a strip of hot pepper cheese and strips of leftover roast beef. For dinner I had a salad and leftover oven "fried" chicken, dear daughter had albondigas with meatballs, and hubby had meatballs that I turned into 'spaghetti and meatballs" with leftover tomato sauce and seasonings and no-cal "noodles", and a salad on the side. So we all had our veggies and the frig got cleared. Yay!

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Quote:

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Quote:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
We have a couple of old dinosaurs built of server grade stuff. They've got to be at least 12 years old by now, and in that time we've tossed a three or four laptops and four cell/ smart phones. We currently have a tablet and a laptop for casual use. The keypad on the tablet stopped working two years ago and a critical area on the screen (the one that displays all open windows) stopped responding to touch. (Fortunately it still responds to the special pen they included.) The laptop, which is only a year old, needs to be rebooted at least once a day, not sure if it's crappy software (memory leak) or something hardware, but it's a PITA to use.

Anyhow... glad you're able to cobble together working systems for yourself. Most people are hostage to the ready made junk that's sold today. If you ever wanted to go into business for yourself you could do repairs and upgrades and recoveries.

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I can imagine the problems you have. My only piece of relatively "new" hardware is the used cell phone I bought for my diabetes monitoring and the pods. It was the only way that I could use both and have them work in tandem with each other. (The fucking nerve of them to require me to have my own cell phone to do the heavy lifting with the fucking prices they charge for this bullshit).

It started acting jenky about 6 months ago and now the battery with a full charge will die in about 8 hours. I blame that on the software though. The damn insulin pod software won't even run unless you give it a ton of control over your phone, such as not being allowed to turn off notifications or turn the volume down or only have it vibrate when you are high or low. Nope. It's got to SCREAM at you when you're not in range. I absolutely hate it.

Quote:

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*****

I took yesterday off. Aside from making b'fast and dinner and walking the dog, I crawled into bed and napped, or put my feet up and watched TV. I felt guilty bc there's so much to do, but I needed it. Gotta say, I made creative use of leftovers for b'fast and dinner. For b'fast I made hubby a bowl of leftover albondigas soup (no meatballs) and a wrap using locarb tortilla, mayo, swiss, a strip of hot pepper cheese and strips of leftover roast beef. For dinner I had a salad and leftover oven "fried" chicken, dear daughter had albondigas with meatballs, and hubby had meatballs that I turned into 'spaghetti and meatballs" with leftover tomato sauce and seasonings and no-cal "noodles", and a salad on the side. So we all had our veggies and the frig got cleared. Yay!

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Sometimes you need a break. Don't feel guilty about it.


Thought I was going to my friend's today to get his computer situation taken care of. Ended up working with him until 9PM clearing shit out of his mom's basement that flooded with all the rain we just got.

That was fun.

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For all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged. In dreams until my death, I will wander on.

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Quote:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Quote:

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Quote:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
We have a couple of old dinosaurs built of server grade stuff. They've got to be at least 12 years old by now, and in that time we've tossed a three or four laptops and four cell/ smart phones. We currently have a tablet and a laptop for casual use. The keypad on the tablet stopped working two years ago and a critical area on the screen (the one that displays all open windows) stopped responding to touch. (Fortunately it still responds to the special pen they included.) The laptop, which is only a year old, needs to be rebooted at least once a day, not sure if it's crappy software (memory leak) or something hardware, but it's a PITA to use.

Anyhow... glad you're able to cobble together working systems for yourself. Most people are hostage to the ready made junk that's sold today. If you ever wanted to go into business for yourself you could do repairs and upgrades and recoveries.

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I can imagine the problems you have. My only piece of relatively "new" hardware is the used cell phone I bought for my diabetes monitoring and the pods. It was the only way that I could use both and have them work in tandem with each other. (The fucking nerve of them to require me to have my own cell phone to do the heavy lifting with the fucking prices they charge for this bullshit).

It started acting jenky about 6 months ago and now the battery with a full charge will die in about 8 hours. I blame that on the software though. The damn insulin pod software won't even run unless you give it a ton of control over your phone, such as not being allowed to turn off notifications or turn the volume down or only have it vibrate when you are high or low. Nope. It's got to SCREAM at you when you're not in range. I absolutely hate it.

Quote:

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*****

I took yesterday off. Aside from making b'fast and dinner and walking the dog, I crawled into bed and napped, or put my feet up and watched TV. I felt guilty bc there's so much to do, but I needed it. Gotta say, I made creative use of leftovers for b'fast and dinner. For b'fast I made hubby a bowl of leftover albondigas soup (no meatballs) and a wrap using locarb tortilla, mayo, swiss, a strip of hot pepper cheese and strips of leftover roast beef. For dinner I had a salad and leftover oven "fried" chicken, dear daughter had albondigas with meatballs, and hubby had meatballs that I turned into 'spaghetti and meatballs" with leftover tomato sauce and seasonings and no-cal "noodles", and a salad on the side. So we all had our veggies and the frig got cleared. Yay!

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Sometimes you need a break. Don't feel guilty about it.


Thought I was going to my friend's today to get his computer situation taken care of. Ended up working with him until 9PM clearing shit out of his mom's basement that flooded with all the rain we just got.

That was fun.

--------------------------------------------------

For all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged. In dreams until my death, I will wander on.

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How high was the water? Would shelving have helped?

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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

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Quote:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Quote:

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Quote:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
We have a couple of old dinosaurs built of server grade stuff. They've got to be at least 12 years old by now, and in that time we've tossed a three or four laptops and four cell/ smart phones. We currently have a tablet and a laptop for casual use. The keypad on the tablet stopped working two years ago and a critical area on the screen (the one that displays all open windows) stopped responding to touch. (Fortunately it still responds to the special pen they included.) The laptop, which is only a year old, needs to be rebooted at least once a day, not sure if it's crappy software (memory leak) or something hardware, but it's a PITA to use.

Anyhow... glad you're able to cobble together working systems for yourself. Most people are hostage to the ready made junk that's sold today. If you ever wanted to go into business for yourself you could do repairs and upgrades and recoveries.

---

I can imagine the problems you have. My only piece of relatively "new" hardware is the used cell phone I bought for my diabetes monitoring and the pods. It was the only way that I could use both and have them work in tandem with each other. (The fucking nerve of them to require me to have my own cell phone to do the heavy lifting with the fucking prices they charge for this bullshit).

It started acting jenky about 6 months ago and now the battery with a full charge will die in about 8 hours. I blame that on the software though. The damn insulin pod software won't even run unless you give it a ton of control over your phone, such as not being allowed to turn off notifications or turn the volume down or only have it vibrate when you are high or low. Nope. It's got to SCREAM at you when you're not in range. I absolutely hate it.

Quote:

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*****

I took yesterday off. Aside from making b'fast and dinner and walking the dog, I crawled into bed and napped, or put my feet up and watched TV. I felt guilty bc there's so much to do, but I needed it. Gotta say, I made creative use of leftovers for b'fast and dinner. For b'fast I made hubby a bowl of leftover albondigas soup (no meatballs) and a wrap using locarb tortilla, mayo, swiss, a strip of hot pepper cheese and strips of leftover roast beef. For dinner I had a salad and leftover oven "fried" chicken, dear daughter had albondigas with meatballs, and hubby had meatballs that I turned into 'spaghetti and meatballs" with leftover tomato sauce and seasonings and no-cal "noodles", and a salad on the side. So we all had our veggies and the frig got cleared. Yay!

---

Sometimes you need a break. Don't feel guilty about it.


Thought I was going to my friend's today to get his computer situation taken care of. Ended up working with him until 9PM clearing shit out of his mom's basement that flooded with all the rain we just got.

That was fun.

--------------------------------------------------

For all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged. In dreams until my death, I will wander on.

---

How high was the water? Would shelving have helped?

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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

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Quote:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Quote:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Most of what Trump says or posts is cringeworthy and some of it is downright grotesque.

It seems to me that Trump can't wrap his brain around the idea that being President of the USA does NOT make him Master of the Universe. It looks like he keeps trying for leverage on China and Russia, and can't figure out that while he can bully and/or bribe Qatar or Israel or France or Venezuela, it's not going to work on the other big powers.

THGR:
It seems to me you can’t either. First, he could end Russian aggression in a week.

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If Trump could, then so could Biden*.
So why didn't Biden*?
I bet you never answer that question!

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He doesn’t because Putin has something on him, and or, he doesn’t think it benefits him personally.

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I see Q-anon's representative is posting.
Again.

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THGR:
And he didn’t bribe Qatar, they bribed him. Why did he crack down on Israel? They bombed his business partners, Qatar.

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Glad he cracked down on Israel.It's nothing but trouble and we should dump them altogether.

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THGR: I see no references in your posts expressing how he is acting like a dictator and destroying American institutions. Which shows your ignorance and biases regarding all matters, here and abroad. Isn’t that right comrade?

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The institution that counts is the Constitution. Everything else is a growth on that fundamental document, and not necessarily a good one.

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You are on board with the Alex Krainer's of the world. He likes dictators like Putin and believes Putin being a strong man benefits the masses. You think the same. Which is why you always come off as a Russian troll who never gets, how and why America is what it is and the promise only it offers. And, it's why you are all in for tearing it down.

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Alex said something interesting. He grew up in Communist Croatia, but came here as a foreign exchange student when he was 17. When he got here, everyone said "So aren't you happy living in a free country?“ or words to that effect. And what he said was that people ASSUMED we were free with only one frame of reference, without anything for comparison. But he felt freer in Croatia.

An additional point that Glenn made was something along the lines of "virtue by identity" ... you ASSUME you're virtuous, or free, or civilized, or advanced, not because of what you do but bc of who you are (American, in this case).

Also, quotes from de Tocqueville about democracy.
It was an interesting conversation, which I'll try to find for you.

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Trump’s Qatar military deal is historic — for all the wrong reasons

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For a while Saudi Arabia and Qatar were competing to see who could find their preferred faction of head chopping jihadi extremists who were, strangely, our proxies in our "wars“ against Assad and Qaddafi and Putin.
Now that Assad and Qaddafi are out of the way, are they done with the head chopping stuff?
We've been buying their oil and gas for decades. I can understand that. But we really REALLY should be more careful who we partner with! So, no, I'm not a big fan of buddying up with Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the "mujahideen", and our many other unsavory proxies.

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You never speak of any of this because your agenda is Anti-American comrade.

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I've posted MANY times about that, stupid. Something's wrong with you.

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Trump is a Putin ally.

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One of us is confused. I thought he was a Qatari ally!

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blah blah blah ...

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Just consider this a friendly gesture ...


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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
OMG, how old are you, THGR?

Four?

Nobody thinks you have a point.

Everyone sees that you're childish.

Think of this as a friendly gesture:



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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

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Quote:

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Originally posted by THG:

Quote:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
OMG, how old are you, THGR?

Four?

Nobody thinks you have a point.

Everyone sees that you're childish.

Think of this as a friendly gesture:



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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

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You and Jack crack me up. Everybody, who the fuck is everybody? You can count the posters here on one hand. You want your thread clean, don't use my avatar. Hint, I can do this forever. Which means I read your personal shit. I'm good, how about you? Shall we talk about your aliments? Shit, even SECOND is starting to stop by. He is reading your shit as well.

T

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originally posted by THG:

Quote:

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originally posted by THG:

Quote:

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originally posted by SIGNYM:
OMG, how old are you, THGR?
Four?
Nobody thinks you have a point.
Everyone sees that you're childish.
Think of this as a friendly gesture:

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You and Jack crack me up. Everybody, who the fuck is everybody? You can count the posters here on one hand. You want your thread clean, don't use my avatar. Hint, I can do this forever. Which means I read your personal shit. I'm good, how about you? Shall we talk about your aliments? Shit, even SECOND is starting to stop by. He is reading your shit as well.

]

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
How high was the water? Would shelving have helped?

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Quote:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Quote:

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originally posted by THG:

Quote:

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originally posted by THG:

Quote:

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originally posted by SIGNYM:
OMG, how old are you, THGR?
Four?
Nobody thinks you have a point.
Everyone sees that you're childish.
Think of this as a friendly gesture:

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You and Jack crack me up. Everybody, who the fuck is everybody? You can count the posters here on one hand. You want your thread clean, don't use my avatar. Hint, I can do this forever. Which means I read your personal shit. I'm good, how about you? Shall we talk about your aliments? Shit, even SECOND is starting to stop by. He is reading your shit as well.

]

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Shut up, fag.

You have zero leverage. You have nothing. You are nothing.

Go to BlueSky with the rest of your endangered species.

Everybody here hates you.

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Originally posted by Brenda:
Drizzle when I left and dry on my way back. Sun is out now. Can't make up its mind.

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Quote:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
How high was the water? Would shelving have helped?

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It wasn't very high, and shelving would have helped. I guess at the low point it had been a few inches over the sump, but there are parts of the basement that didn't get any.

His problem is that there's plenty of shelving but there's 10 times as much stuff down there as there should be and it's all over the place. It's kind of a rough patch he's going through right now. His Dad, one of the most positive role models in my life passed away 2 years ago next month. He had quite a hoard (mostly tools and extra supplies from his rehab jobs) all over the basement and filling the garage so nobody ever parked in it.

Then when he sold his house that we were fixing up, he had to move all the stuff he had in the huge garage out and that ended up at his folks place too, along with some of his own furniture and other things he had let the tenants use. He had already been removing a lot of the first hoard, and then filled it up with his own. He was working on that after work and on weekends when his mom had to get back surgery and then he started having to look after her all the time. After that, the person he and his wife had been renting a house from for years decided to sell and they were basically given a 90 day notice to move all their shit out. So that is now all in his folks house too.

They've got their own apartment now for the time being, but with his mom in the state she's in, he's spending most of his nights there now, always chipping away at 3 hoards worth of junk.

I think this flood was probably a blessing in disguise though. I could tell how it shifted his focus from deliberately weighing out what he wants to keep to what can be thrown away NOW. We got a ton of stuff up and out, and 70% of it was either in the trash bins or too big for the bins and they'll be put on the side of the trash for the pickers to go through before the trash man comes. They've got a ton of trash cans and he took off work yesterday and got them all filled up. (I just remembered he said that Wednesday night is when the trash goes out, so I'm going to see if he wants me to come over tomorrow and help with that and maybe start working on that computer situation too).


It's actually amazing how much he has gotten rid of so far, considering it was a lifetime of hoarding in one house, and all of his own crap from 2 other houses. Especially given the fact that he's almost as bad as his dad was. He and his dad never denied they had a problem with hoarding, but until recently nothing had ever been done about it. Every time I've come over it's clear that there is less stuff there. If I go 2 or 3 months in between the difference is staggering.

But him and his mom (mostly him) are at each other's throats half the time, and I keep telling him that this is his fault. There's a couple of reasons for that:

1. He keeps putting all the shit upstairs in places like her living room with all the sunlight so he can go through and make good choices of what to get rid of and what to keep. She HATES that. The 1st floor was never, EVER part of the hoard, and he's making her see it with her own eyes how much shit they accumulated when he does this (and it's even worse when he fills up the room with his own shit for sorting). And now that she's wheelchair/walker bound and needs space to move around to walk on that walker and hopefully get back to the point where she can walk on her own again. He keeps putting all the shit in her way and in her face.

2. She will swear up and down that the hoarding issue was solely her husband's, but she's a hoarder herself too. Every single time we came up the stairs with something, she had to know exactly what it was, and it keeps triggering shouting matches.

I know that behavior very well. My uncle and I had learned pretty fairly early on that you couldn't do any of that while Grandma was home, and you couldn't clear out a ton of stuff over a short period of time. Certainly not back when my grandma had full movement capability, went down in the basement several times per week to do laundry, and was still as sharp as a tack. We had to "salt" it all out a bit at a time, and we made pretty good use of the small business dumpsters that were just across the ally over the span of a few years because if she saw something we threw out in our trash she made us go out and bring it back in and we knew we had to wait at least a few weeks before we started up again.

When the change is small and slow and not in your face, it's hard to really know if people are throwing your old junk away. It wasn't until the last year that I was really able to go over there and take care of business. At that point she'd sit in her chair all day long and watch FOX News with the TV on nearly full blast because her hearing had gone.

Right now, I'd say a good 1/3rd of the crap in that basement is his mom's stuff. Tons and tons and tons of Seasonal decorations accumulated over the years, and I'm sure that most of it never even goes up. And because all the shelving for it is full (and there's a lot of shelving for it spanning 1/3rd of the long wall and 1/2 of the short wall in a corner), 4/5ths of her seasonal junk was just sitting on the floor in cardboard boxes. They were all sitting on top of carpet that was waterlogged, and anything at the bottom is likely ruined unless it was plastic. We didn't get to that while I was there, so I didn't see it... But I'm willing to bet that half the seasonal stuff was purchased and then never even opened.


I'm just going to make myself more available to help him out right now. He's got so many bigger things to think about like buying a house and getting on with his life and marriage. He's hyper-focusing on this hoard situation, and I feel it's to the detriment to everything else in his life. I keep telling him that most people wouldn't do any of this stuff, and they'd just call 1-800-GOT-JUNK when their folks passed away and left them with a hoard mess in the house. That's what my dad and aunt/uncles would have done had I not been there to do it for them and leave them with a clean house to sell when the time came. Granted, I was very good at checking everything quickly when I went through it and I did save a bunch of great stuff like family photos and antique tools which would all have been tossed in a dumpster. So I get why he's doing it since he's super sentimental like is dad was. But he needs to get back to his life before his life moves on without him. The last thing I want to do is see my "ladies man" friend from childhood end up single and living at his mom's house in his late 40's.


The one thing I have to say though is that I'm really impressed with how well he took the flood. All of my shit in the basement is up off the ground now and it wouldn't be a catastrophe if it happened again, but the last time it did when I wasn't prepared I was ranting and cursing out loud for days while taking care of business. Aside from he and his mom raising their voices at each other, I didn't hear him complain once.
-------------------------------------------------

For all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged. In dreams until my death, I will wander on.

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