And so it goes
Jul. 13th, 2009 11:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
valis2Okay. So here's the final summary of the weekend.
Garage sale: grah. $330. We got rid of the Couch O' Mouse Nibblings and Misery, and we got rid of the giant corner cabinets, and a some of the stuff that will always sell (pots and pans, kitchen utensils), but not a lot more, unfortunately. Little of our stuff sold; it was almost all the stuff left by Husband's grandmother. Our portion was $70, which isn't very good when you consider that I spent $80 on signs and labels and etc. for the show.
Such is life on a country road. There were lots of cars, but not many people stopped. Apparently there weren't as many garage sales as usual. And the fair people were more into the fair, I guess.
So we have three recourses. 1) Have another garage sale. 2) Call Salvation Army and have them pick everything up. 3) There was this guy who stopped by on Saturday and said he'd buy everything. I kept pointing to all of the undesirable stuff and he kept nodding. "Everything," he said, without blinking an eye.
#1? NO WAY. This is it for me. I normally like to donate, so this was an experiment, and the result? I would much rather donate, let me tell you.
#2? Hmm. I would like to do this, but I have heard from friends that the SA no longer takes everything. Plus, to claim it all, we'd need to write out a very long bit of paperwork, as there are soooo many items.
#3? I'm very interested in this. Not only would we get a small bit of money (I'm not deluded about this, there's no way he's going to give us even the garage sale value for it, considering that he has to take the good, the bad, and the ugly), but he would take everything. Magazines. Metal garbage cans. Cassette tapes. One of those plastic expandable water tanks you can go camping with, which is so filthy it's unbelievable. And before you tell me about going to the metal scrap dealer or about this place that recycles cassette tapes, well, listen, normally I would totally do this, but the point is that I have an entire garage full of this stuff. A two car garage. Yeah.
I'm leaning toward option #3. I'd get rid of everything, get a little money, and have my garage nearly empty. Seriously.
I'll even pull some stuff out of the basement. And then the basement will be on its way to getting clean, too, because I have plans to get rid of the empty boxes she had down there (had I known they were empty, I would have taken care of them ages ago, but it's one of those things where I grabbed a few boxes and they had stuff in them, so I thought that the rest of the boxes did too, but they don't). Plus, she has ten boxes of books that she wanted to go through first, and so once we've taken care of that, I'll donate the rest of the books to the library, and then I'll sort through and set up my stuff in a more efficient manner.
Monitor: By Saturday night, my monitor looked like digitized Pepto-Bismol, and it was a strain to read anything. My video card arrived on Thursday, but because of the garage sale, I didn't have time to do anything. Anyway, Saturday night I pulled out the old card and plugged in the new one. I also moved the sound card further down the card slots to give the video card more air room. And it turned out I had an extra 4 pin power supply hanging out in the case, so I was able to hook it up without having to buy a new cable.
I put it in, and it immediately worked flawlessly. I merely changed the screen resolution, and then everything was wondrous. However, no sound. I have a horrible sound card, an Audigy 2, and I reinstalled the driver, hoping that would work, but it didn't--I got the blue screen of death, and then I remembered that this happened the last time I played around with the sound card. You see, the updated driver available at Microsoft update just will not work properly, which is what happened before when I had problems with it. So I reinstalled the original driver, and now it works again.
Then my scanner wouldn't work. I reinstalled that driver, and it still didn't work. Finally, after tinkering with the drivers a little more, I installed the driver that Microsoft cautioned me against installing, and that worked. So I'm back to business, mostly, except for a couple wonky moments with the sound, but that isn't as crucial as the monitor and the scanner.
So I'm done with my little Adventures in Computing for awhile, unless something else goes wrong, and then I'll probably break down and just get another system. That thought fills me with woe and squee both. I love my giant blue computer so much. So so so much. But now that I've had the thought of getting a new computer, I'm getting a little excited. Still, I think I can use this one for another year or two.
And now I'm trying to pack and run around and find things I need. I've got a whirlwind month ahead of me. One thing's for certain; I'm absolutely overwhelmed with relief about the garage sale being over.
Oh, and there was one funny garage sale customer. He was telling me stories about belonging to a cult church as a kid, and how his parents were told that the world was going to end in 1972, so they had a huge garage sale and sold everything, and then the world, um, didn't end.
Even funnier, he came up to me and said, "One of the people whose belongings you're selling was in the military." Yep, the grandmother. "And she's an anglophile," he said, holding up tea tongs. Yep, she is. So then he started doing an impression of Sherlock Holmes (I kid you not!) and examined the remnants of tea in the tea tongs, sniffing them expertly with a thoughtful expression. "I believe that this tea was harvested on Ceylon. From Arthur C Clarke's estate."
I laughed so hard. He kept doing all sorts of things like that. I don't even care that he scammed me (just a little), because it was so damned entertaining.
Garage sale: grah. $330. We got rid of the Couch O' Mouse Nibblings and Misery, and we got rid of the giant corner cabinets, and a some of the stuff that will always sell (pots and pans, kitchen utensils), but not a lot more, unfortunately. Little of our stuff sold; it was almost all the stuff left by Husband's grandmother. Our portion was $70, which isn't very good when you consider that I spent $80 on signs and labels and etc. for the show.
Such is life on a country road. There were lots of cars, but not many people stopped. Apparently there weren't as many garage sales as usual. And the fair people were more into the fair, I guess.
So we have three recourses. 1) Have another garage sale. 2) Call Salvation Army and have them pick everything up. 3) There was this guy who stopped by on Saturday and said he'd buy everything. I kept pointing to all of the undesirable stuff and he kept nodding. "Everything," he said, without blinking an eye.
#1? NO WAY. This is it for me. I normally like to donate, so this was an experiment, and the result? I would much rather donate, let me tell you.
#2? Hmm. I would like to do this, but I have heard from friends that the SA no longer takes everything. Plus, to claim it all, we'd need to write out a very long bit of paperwork, as there are soooo many items.
#3? I'm very interested in this. Not only would we get a small bit of money (I'm not deluded about this, there's no way he's going to give us even the garage sale value for it, considering that he has to take the good, the bad, and the ugly), but he would take everything. Magazines. Metal garbage cans. Cassette tapes. One of those plastic expandable water tanks you can go camping with, which is so filthy it's unbelievable. And before you tell me about going to the metal scrap dealer or about this place that recycles cassette tapes, well, listen, normally I would totally do this, but the point is that I have an entire garage full of this stuff. A two car garage. Yeah.
I'm leaning toward option #3. I'd get rid of everything, get a little money, and have my garage nearly empty. Seriously.
I'll even pull some stuff out of the basement. And then the basement will be on its way to getting clean, too, because I have plans to get rid of the empty boxes she had down there (had I known they were empty, I would have taken care of them ages ago, but it's one of those things where I grabbed a few boxes and they had stuff in them, so I thought that the rest of the boxes did too, but they don't). Plus, she has ten boxes of books that she wanted to go through first, and so once we've taken care of that, I'll donate the rest of the books to the library, and then I'll sort through and set up my stuff in a more efficient manner.
Monitor: By Saturday night, my monitor looked like digitized Pepto-Bismol, and it was a strain to read anything. My video card arrived on Thursday, but because of the garage sale, I didn't have time to do anything. Anyway, Saturday night I pulled out the old card and plugged in the new one. I also moved the sound card further down the card slots to give the video card more air room. And it turned out I had an extra 4 pin power supply hanging out in the case, so I was able to hook it up without having to buy a new cable.
I put it in, and it immediately worked flawlessly. I merely changed the screen resolution, and then everything was wondrous. However, no sound. I have a horrible sound card, an Audigy 2, and I reinstalled the driver, hoping that would work, but it didn't--I got the blue screen of death, and then I remembered that this happened the last time I played around with the sound card. You see, the updated driver available at Microsoft update just will not work properly, which is what happened before when I had problems with it. So I reinstalled the original driver, and now it works again.
Then my scanner wouldn't work. I reinstalled that driver, and it still didn't work. Finally, after tinkering with the drivers a little more, I installed the driver that Microsoft cautioned me against installing, and that worked. So I'm back to business, mostly, except for a couple wonky moments with the sound, but that isn't as crucial as the monitor and the scanner.
So I'm done with my little Adventures in Computing for awhile, unless something else goes wrong, and then I'll probably break down and just get another system. That thought fills me with woe and squee both. I love my giant blue computer so much. So so so much. But now that I've had the thought of getting a new computer, I'm getting a little excited. Still, I think I can use this one for another year or two.
And now I'm trying to pack and run around and find things I need. I've got a whirlwind month ahead of me. One thing's for certain; I'm absolutely overwhelmed with relief about the garage sale being over.
Oh, and there was one funny garage sale customer. He was telling me stories about belonging to a cult church as a kid, and how his parents were told that the world was going to end in 1972, so they had a huge garage sale and sold everything, and then the world, um, didn't end.
Even funnier, he came up to me and said, "One of the people whose belongings you're selling was in the military." Yep, the grandmother. "And she's an anglophile," he said, holding up tea tongs. Yep, she is. So then he started doing an impression of Sherlock Holmes (I kid you not!) and examined the remnants of tea in the tea tongs, sniffing them expertly with a thoughtful expression. "I believe that this tea was harvested on Ceylon. From Arthur C Clarke's estate."
I laughed so hard. He kept doing all sorts of things like that. I don't even care that he scammed me (just a little), because it was so damned entertaining.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-13 03:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-13 03:27 pm (UTC)The dude does this for a business. Clearly he makes out like a bandit on some of it, but he loses his shirt on other stuff, so it all evens out. I doubt he's driving a BMW, y'know?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-13 03:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-13 03:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-13 03:41 pm (UTC)But some guy was really interested in records, so I said he could come inside and take a look. He'd have to take everything, though. He did and I think I could have gotten more for them if I'd dealt with a store, but then again I'd have had to pack stuff up and take it somewhere. This way, all of that was out of my house in two minutes. Easy as pie and I didn't have to do anything!
So yeah, to call the guy and get him to take it all sounds like the best idea. Time is always more precious than money!
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-13 04:16 pm (UTC)Yes, exactly my thoughts! I do not relish hauling two old metal trashcans anywhere. Seriously. I know, I know, scrap dealers will take them, but still. I'm really hoping that the price the guy gives me is fair. Really, really hoping.
Of course, you and I both know the value of someone who will take the good, the bad, and the ugly. *grins* I have a feeling that I'll be calling him soon.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-13 05:49 pm (UTC)Give the guy a call and sell it all to him. Get a few bucks and get it gone.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-13 05:53 pm (UTC)Ours was big--but it just wasn't what people were looking for in these parts, I think. *nodnod*
Yeah, I'm going to call that guy and see what he'll offer.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-13 07:59 pm (UTC)The guys who buy up garage sale remnants are weird--even weirder than used book dealers. I imagine that there must be some sort of seller-of-used-goods hierarchy, with Sotheby's at the top and the winos who collect aluminum cans at the bottom, and garage-sale-remnant scavengers just a few rungs above that. I used to know a guy who did that, and his entire house was crammed with stuff; he and his wife lived near a busy intersection and had a perpetual garage sale open every weekend. He'd brag about the occasional treasure he found, but man, he had to go through a lot of pure junk to get to it.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-20 03:58 pm (UTC)Surprisingly enough, these people seem rather enterprising about the entire thing. The guy mentioned that he has to have a lot of rollover in order to keep the sales flowing--he said that people want to look at new stuff every weekend so he has to really keep buying new stuff and brooming the old.
My guess is he's going to offer me $50 for the lot. Let's hope I can talk him into higher.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-13 10:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-20 05:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-13 11:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-20 05:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-14 12:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-20 05:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-14 06:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-20 05:27 pm (UTC)