Roadside Picnic

This should be my last-to-night in Lexington. If things go as planned, tomorrow I'll get the last of my material possessions boxed and packed and take them to the farm or to a storage facility somewhere.

I had a lot of help with loading up a 17' U-Haul truck today, and was reminded again that I have awesome friends. And my parents are wonderful beyond words for letting me store pretty much everything at the farm for the next few weeks.

Now, for the bad.

I own entirely too much goddamn stuff. Especially books and role-playing games. Goddamn, the boxes of books. Ridiculous. Hundreds of the things. Hundreds of pounds of them. This is a problem. People, that truck was 2/3 full and while much of that volume was furniture and appliances, so many boxes of books. As a straight-up technofetishist, I really should be deeper into electronic books and shit.

(Warning: Poster got back to his somewhat emptier apartment, took a shower, and poured himself a strong drink. As the observant reader may have noticed, I am under the influence of liquor. Have one yourself, and carry on.)

So, I am planning to purge the everloving hell out of some bookshelves. I'm going to start with the non-gaming side, as I think those will be easier to let go. Some books will stick around, of course - anything signed, items with VERY strong emotional ties - but other stuff is going to HPB or a recycling center. Look, yes, books are awesome and they have a tactile presence that nothing else in the world has. And for that, I'll soon have the Louisville Free Public Library, taking the place of the Lexington Public Library for me. I'm going to catalog all the books I have boxed up, and I'm going to make a big damn (I swear a lot when I'm wound up and have had a drink) shopping list and I'm going to finally buy myself a Kindle. Probably a non-3G Paperwhite model. Yes, I know there's a Kindle app for my iPad. I'm planning on some compartmentalization. I'd like to be able to get rid of (or repurpose!) the larger of my bookcases, and just have the smaller cases with physical books.

Now. The other books. The RPGs, some of which I swear to Gibson I've had since 1986 (Star Frontiers, which was okay when the Satanic Panic made my brother and me sell off our BECMI D&D stuff). Those, I'm going to have a much harder time parting with, but I have a plan. Except for a very few titles, GoodReader + iPad is cooler than the other side of the pillow. I'm going to take another, much harder look at my RPG inventory and be somewhat draconian with this set of cuts. For example, why the heck do I still have Freeport items, or Monte Cook's World of Darkness or, heck, Traveller: TNE for that matter? Damn, man, I'm going to be busting my huge ass on proving myself to SPHIS, I ain't got time for a creaking paper library.

It's midnight. I gotta go to sleep and let my subconscious think on this. More news as I make it.

Moved, but not yet unpacked.  Can't find remotes.

My desktop PC may be dying.  May be replacing it soon, but not sure right now.  Have to replace a door handle on the Mustang.  Again.

Gaming has gone through massive changes.  I have removed the Viking Hat, and feel good about it.  So far, no one's really picked it up.  I hope someone does, but I won't worry about that for a good long time.

More later.

We've lost the Crocodile Hunter.
Just a handful of days left at this apartment.  All the packing and cleaning in the world is on my agenda for today.  The track on my model railroad is being glued down so I don't have to reassemble the layout at the new place.  Books are boxed.  I'm probably going to have a hundred pounds of trash out of my bedroom.

Locals - I'm going to be calling on you for help Friday evening/Saturday morning.  I'll move scads of boxed stuff and small furniture on my own Friday morning and afternoon, but the couches and some of my bookshelves are going to require assistance.  Compensation in pizza and good moving karma.