What is this thing?

Yesterday I started cleaning Jim's stuff out of the storage trailer. Right now I'm only dealing with things that I can easily make decisions about. I made a lot of progress yesterday and ended up with a big box of trash. Today I worked on clearing out a few more boxes. One of them really stumped me.

It was a box of miscellaneous cords, electronics, discs, cassettes and general nerd crap. Some of these things were in special anti-static packaging. There are a couple of mostly featureless plastic boxes that look like you're supposed to plug them into a computer. There are some small labels on them that list some numbers but nothing that says what they actually are. There are boxes of computer chips. There's this one really complicated looking piece of metal that's covered (encrusted more like) with resistors and capacitors and general electronicky crap that's enclosed in a scary-looking, anti-static pouch that frankly I was afraid to open.

And the cords! Holy shit! Mike cords, guitar cords, video cords, widow makers and mystery cables. Some of them are cords he made from scratch. Some are just pieces of wire. All of them are tangled beyond belief. I think they're breeding in there.

As I'm going through this stuff I'm laughing, then crying, then laughing again. I kept saying, "What the hell did you do to me??? You left me with THIS!!!! What the hell IS THIS???"

I set that box aside. At the back of the trailer are boxes and boxes and boxes and boxes and freakin' BOXES of books. And they're not any books that normal people read. Check out these titles. Elements Of Reusable Object-Oriented Software (a real page turner), WIN 32 Programming Using Visual C++(can't put it down), ASP In A Nutshell (there's a snake on the cover but it's not about snakes), and the verrrry sexy Objects, Components and Frameworks With UML, The Catalysis Approach. That's just FOUR of them! (Right now Dan, Brian, Dave and Ray are asking jeez, what's HER problem?)

I'm going to Texas for a week. When I get back I'm going to dive in and get the first wave of stuff figured out. Then I'm having a yard sale at the end of May. The next sale will be in September. Some of the equipment and books will be sold at the yard sales, others will be put on eBay or on Craig's List. I'll be working on finding out that the values are on all this stuff.

Ok, all you nerdy tinkerers out there, be good to your wives. Get rid of your goofy shit NOW!