Garage Days Revisited (400th Post)
Over the last year or so, our little garage has gotten a little messy, full of boxes piled on boxes, all crammed with random stuff. This in itself is bad enough, but to top that off, we had no idea what was inside said boxes unless we actually opened ‘em up and started rooting around.
It was the worst, especially when you were looking for something important. This video, taken in November, 2009, shows off some of the mess:
Garage Days Revisited from Mike C on Vimeo.
Jill knows me well enough to know that when things start getting messy and unstructured, I start getting antsy. Well, I must have hit my maximum capacity for messiness, because I spent much of the weekend (and part of the week) straightening out the garage.Though it’s still a work in progress, it’s a lot better than what it was.
When I first started cleaning up, I noticed that many of the cardboard moving boxes we’d been using for our junk were starting to break down. The cardboard was beginning to warp and sag. I decided to replace them with 18 gallon plastic tubs.
Though it took a while, during the transition from old, soggy cardboard to shiny, new plastic tubs, I made sure to inventory all of our junk and keep the data in a Google Docs spreadsheet.
Though our wireless network initially didn’t extend to our detached garage, I created a second wireless network with an old Airport Express access point I had and placed it as close as I could to our garage. Luckily, it worked out and I now had wireless access in the garage!
It’s so cool. I can bring a laptop into the garage and use Google Open Docs to help keep the garage in order. I share the spreadsheet with Jill so that at any time she can see if something she needs is in the garage. If she sees something she wants in the spreadsheet she can grab it herself or just say, “Hey, can you grab me that Diddy Kong Racing cartridge? It’s in bin #27.”
Yep, it’s a very satisfying feeling indeed when your techy, geeky, and Felix Unger sides can all meet and play nice.
BTW, this is our 400th post. Can ya believe it? 400 posts about cats, babies, and tv shows. In case you’re interested, here are some past ‘milestone’ posts: