Less and Less of More and More

I took this picture in 2005 but I can't figure out where. Not that it matters. Isn't it amazing how recognizable the person behind the camera is in these pictures?

Today we lost our digital camera. And found it again. We both initially thought it was in FFP's car but we overlooked the first time. This sort of inspired me to have a look at a couple of old ones we have around. One has batteries that are probably refusing to take a charge and some other problems. Another is our second digital camera. What year we bought it I can't say. It runs on AAs and, according to the box, can "capture dazzling detail with over a million pixels." Our first digital camera didn't have an LCD. So this one was a real advance. The funny thing is that this one still works. You have to connect it to the computer with a serial cable and it's about the size of a big, plastic double thick sandwich. I don't know what to do with these. Clearly if we had really lost the 5 mega pixel one we use all the time now we would have replaced it and not tried to use one of these. My -2 camera (the one I had before I had the one that I mentioned above that doesn't work) was identical to one my niece has because I bought it for her. She'd lost the battery charger so I gave her the camera and whole kit and some Compact Flash cards for good measure for her to make use of if she could.

I am considering offering the two old cameras to people in my local Freecycle community. I suppose tinkerers could make some use of them. I'm betting someone would take them and try.

I complain to everyone I talk to about the downsizing dilemma. (Not just to you, dear readers.)

The other day someone said: "Yeah. And you have to touch everything. Decide what to do with it."

Isn't it the truth? When we cleaned out the garage, I came across a good-sized box of old bills and receipts and tax returns and stuff. You feel like you can't just toss it in the garbage. Some of it you feel like you should shred. I've been working my way through it shredding old checks and credit card things even though the bank accounts, card numbers and about everything but the name and address and signature are defunct. This stuff is truly old. As in over twenty years old. Yikes.

I have made another pass through the technical books, too, and have decided I can live without all but a handful. Now to find someone who might want them rather than discarding them. They are a little too specialized for the thrift store. I've found that Half Price will refuse to pay money for anything over a few years old in the technical line in spite of the fact that some are truly classics. The buyers just don't get it. I tried a few friends. I even got one of them to take some of them. That was before I started offering some that I was initially tempted to keep. Whether this makes them good books, I can't say.

So it goes. FFP and I have made a few more trips to the thrift store. Some days I'm hopeful. We have a year, allegedly, before we have to close on our much smaller space. Years can fly by, though. As my dad says: "The years go quickly but the days drag on." I went to his house today to take back some chairs I'd borrowed. He said he hadn't done much today. "I ate, of course. And I read the paper and finished a book."