Packus Ratillium

Its been quite the busy few days, some of which has even been productive. Last week I came through on a promise to my mom to get her a copy of season 1 of 24. In the process I realized that I hadn't actually seen any of season 1 as I only started watching towards the end of season 2. So on Saturday night I began a 3 day orgy of the season, and have now decided that I need to see the rest of the seasons sequentially too. I don't think its possible to overdose on Elisha Cuthbert anyways.

While waiting for my computer to finish with season 2, I got to work on some of the work that needs to get done around here in the next 4 months, starting with the workshop and fruit cellar in the basement. One can only wade through tool boxes and randomly stacked boxes for so long, and being as all the other renovations around the house will need me to know where the hell my tools are, I figured this was a good place to begin.

What a mess its been. Most of the mess is remnants left behind from when my father left over 8 years ago. It was a big mess then, and I didn't want to touch it, but it finally had to be done. Simply stated, the man was a pack rat. Old piping and fittings enough to probably re-plumb two homes, if only it wasn't all corroded and in infintesimally small bits and pieces. Old aluminum wiring, along with some copper stuff with a weaved covering around it so deteriorated that there is no way it wouldn't short against something if actually used. And somewhere in the neighbourhood of 100 pounds of nuts, bolts, and assorted fixtures and brackets. Nevermind the 50 rolls of random tape, all of which with the glue long dried up, or the half used bag of what was once concrete mix now hardened with ambient humidity over the years.

In the past two days I must have bagged and hauled 200 pounds of useless junk outside (as well as inhaled another 5 pounds of dust), and there's more to come. I think I'll be a nice guy though and spread it out over a few weeks for the garbage guys, even if it is ridiculously nice out for southern Ontario in mid-January. But I just don't grasp how someone could think that all of this stuff would be either essential, or valuable to hang on to down the road. I have a couple of my own probably useless collections, like National Geographic and Sports Illustrated magazines, or my rapidly expanding beer bottle collection. Things like that though have reusability, or at least the decorative value that a bunch of corroded copper pipe fittings and old wiring just doesn't have.

Next up - The attic: