Stuff

We've been in the 'new' house now a little over six months. Since I've been staying closer to home lately to keep an eye on Snoopy I've finally started to clean up the garage. Man, I thought I got rid of a ton of stuff when we moved, but I was wrong. I wanted to clean out the loft of the garage so I could try getting rid of the nasty carpenter bees that had moved into the eaves, but before long I realized i had no place to move anything to.

Time for a dump run! I started throwing stuff out of the garage and piling it up next to the dump truck. It felt good to finally start clearing a path through the loft, and getting rid of stuff. I packed up the truck this morning after taking Snoopy and Maggie for a walk down to the river. (The CTLPs doghter Maggie had a sleepover with Snoopy this weekend. I think Snoopy's in love). Anyhow... Back on track.

I didn't believe FlatTires when he told me this, but now I get it: On weekend mornings the dump is *the* happening social scene. This morning was no different, half the volunteer fire department was there talking about all kinds of stuff over their coffee. I dumped the trash then headed up to the metal dumpster to toss our old mailbox-baseballed up mailbox.

You would be absolutely amazed at what people throw out. Sitting right on top of the metal pile was a perfectly good Specialized Stumpjumper frame! A chrome-moly steel, Made in the USA, Horizontal dropouts frame. Since I had busted up my old Raliegh M80 I had been looking for a replacement frame to build up a 26" singlespeed again. This should do, and the price was right, free. Right underneath it was two kids bmx bikes, with nothing wrong with them. Not even a flat tire. I left them, no need for any of those these days.

When we lived in Pennsylvania there was a rich township in New Jersey that had ONE DAY a year when they could throw out anything they wanted. Other than that, each household would have to only throw out one trash can full of regular garbage and recycling. They had to hang onto all those old bikes, bigwheels, exercise machines, lawnmowers etc that these people apparantly briefly use then push to the curb. Well, this one day a year turned into a sort-of Superbowl of Recycling. I kid you not, we used to load the trailer, the sawzall, an inverter, multimeter(to test stuff), tools, and head out. In no order we scored: too many 'powerwheel' ride on beasty mini cars(you know, the kind that people use to train their 2 year olds how much fun it is to drive), bikes, lawnmowers(on one the wheel had fallen off... not broken, the bolt loosened and fell off. so it got pushed to the curb, where they put the wheel and bolt on top), a treadmill, an electric start weedwacker(the battery was dead) and various motors, fans, etc, etc.

Now, don't think we were the only freaks out there digging for treasure, it was like a parade of scavengers, bumper to bumper, checking the piles, making selections, moving on. You laugh but we got some good stuff that way. Don't be afraid to pull over, toss a bike frame in the trunk, and keep going!