Location: a secret lab on the shores of lake titicaca
Posts: 23,063
free stuff from work
i work at the local college and at the end of the year the kids throw all kinds of stuff away.
this is what i got yesterday.
1 nice leather jacket
1 carrhartts jacket
1 bissell stand up vacuum
2 dell dimension 2400 computers
1 big box of all kinds of gourmet canned goods
various DVD's
1 gallon of soy sauce
i think i am set for soy sauce for the next few decades......
__________________
__________________ "I don't practice what I preach because I'm not the kind of person I'm preaching to."
The unfortunate part of this is that the kids don't care about what they have. For most of them, mom and dad have gone into debt/provide them a credit card to put them through college so they just toss what they don't want to pack up. You can bet if it was a keg or a case of beer, it would have been loaded on the truck and taken with them.
A couple years ago I furnished my room with what the college kids threw out. Dresser, tables, lamps and a nice office chair. Dresser and table were solid wood and just need to be refinished to look very nice. I also found on the curb a nice little antique writing desk that a kid just didn't want to move! It is occupying a proud place in my gun library as we speak.
My cleaning and gun parts are stored in what was once some lady's jewelry amoire! Bore Snakes hang quite nicely on necklace hooks!
__________________
Dedicated to SwedeSteve, Arkansashunter and Ezearln. Rest in peace my friends.
In New York City, there are people who keep track of the bulk trash pick-ups that occur a couple of times a year on a rolling basis across the city. When Her Imperial Majesty was a starving college student she made a couple of interesting finds. One was an antique writing desk with a marble top. We still have it in Junior's room as his computer desk.
While we didn't track them, walking to and from work you do see things. One she would not let me bring home was an old-style telephone switchboard - you know, the kind they show in 1930s movies with the oak cabinet and all the plugs and the headset for the operator? I still kind of regret not picking that up. I did score a 1940s-vintage executive leather desk chair. I'm sitting in it as I type this. It needs some repair now, but it's still comfortable.
When towns have big trash pick-up around here, I do look around, mostly to see how and if I could furnish a Zen apartment for free. The next town over just had one, and I was astonished to see the number of picture tube TVs that were out at the curbs. I don't mean little junky ones by no-name companies, either. I'm talking Sony Trinitrons that are 36 inch or better! These sets likely cost the best part of $1,000 three or four years ago, and there they are on the curb! It surely seems wasteful to me. My dad would be appalled - and he likely would have picked all of them up and if they worked, given them to people who need a working TV.
When i helped my daughter move after she graduated there was loads of that cheapo WAL MART junk furniture and dorm room stuff piled up next to the overflowing dumpster. Got a goose neck lamp for my reloading bench and a set of cubbies for catalog amd magazines next to my easy chair. We did donate and old HP pooter to the pile though.
__________________
"I only use my gun whenever kindness fails"
Forbidden fruits create many jams
I have a bulk item pick up scheduled for next Friday. If anybody needs a broken refrigerator, some rotten boards that were removed when I had the roof done, or a broken heater, let me know!
The stuff I'm putting out there really is trash. But it is interesting to see what disappears from the pile and what gets added to it in the middle of the night.
Heck, the high school kids do that here. Calculators, backpacks, Ipods, all kinds of neat stuff. The student parking lot has nicer cars than any of the businesses around here. BMW's, Cadillacs, tricked out pickups, RX8's, convertibles, you name it. Can you spell spoiled?
One town we lived in had the annual cleanup day and you piled it all on the curb. We sat on the porch and watched two guys load up a chair down the block, stop at our house, unload the chair, and load up the one we put out. It was cheap entertainment.
__________________
Bob
Beware the fury of a patient man......John Dryden
