VHS and Audio tapes under Control

This past winter the focus of my reduction project was to tackle my recorded media stored here at the house.  Here’s what I got done.

I think I wrote before about my audio cassettes, how I sorted them down to one carrying case plus a bag of extras to listen to before I decided if they would stay.  They never were listened to, so I recently resorted what I had left and now all my audio tapes fit inside that one carrying case.  My large heavy boom-box stereo was donated to a local church.  It was hard to let that stereo go, but I really don’t use it anymore or have space for it.  All my music is digital now on my computer and iPod.

At some point in my reshuffling and organizing history I had collected all of my VHS video tapes in one place, and they fit into one bankers box plus a handful of extra tapes on top.  Rough estimate of time in storage – 12 years?

Mostly recordings of old TV shows that were saved to watch again “someday”.  In this case someday was in January 2010!  Some favorite shows were saved to “preserve” them.  I liked them so much that I wanted to make sure they did not disappear from the world, and future generations could enjoy them.  I now know this was rather stupid – I had incomplete seasons and lousy video quality.  All of those old shows are available on DVD, full seasons recorded in digital quality.  They certainly don’t need me to archive their shows.

Well I had all these tapes but no VCR.  After Christmas last year I borrowed a VCR tape deck for a month so I could go through all the tapes at my leisure.  The VCR was connected to my video encoder box, and that was plugged into my MacBook’s USB port.  With the EyeTV software I could play a tape and watch it in a window on the computer screen.  Also the software could record anything in that window and save as a video file on the hard disk.

The plan was to see what was on the tapes, and record anything that I wanted to keep.  One or two tapes were scanned through every evening, and more on the weekends.  The recordings I kept are stored only as digital files on a computer disk, so they don’t take up much physical space.  I ended up saving 9 movies and around 6 shorter video clips.  There were some funny videos I had made with a camcorder 20 years ago, so I saved those.  Also a video made at my late grandparents house – that was a keeper.

Now here is something that bothers me.  One reason I wanted to scan through every part of every tape was that I remember having a specific video recording that I wanted to find.  It was important to me so I could not imagine not keeping it.  All those years I knew it was in the storage unit somewhere but I didn’t know where.  I went through all my boxes in 2008 when the storage unit was emptied, so I knew for a fact that all my VHS tapes were together in that box.  I was excited to be finally going through my videos, partly because I wanted to see this recording again.  The strange thing is that I did not find it.  A few times I started thinking maybe it’s in a box at another storage location, but it can’t be because I have everything here now.  Don’t understand how something I was so sure I had could have been permanently lost in the clutter.  Do you own something you never got rid of but you don’t know where it is?

Video tapes that had anything personal on them were erased.  I gave away the whole box of used tapes on Freecycle.  Right now I own zero VHS tapes.

Television

There aren’t many TV shows that I watch, but there are still a few that I follow.  Part of my reduction project has been to try living without television.  It’s difficult because I grew up watching hours of TV every day.  To be knowledgable about entertainment was part of my “identity”.

To this day my mother still keeps her TV on 24 hours a day.  She says that the background noise helps keep her company when she’s alone.  Personally I don’t get it.  I can’t tolerate the cacophony of the noise and flashing light, the cheering/screaming crowd sounds, the rapid-fire staccato of the sales pitches.  Right now I only watch TV to see a story that I’m interested in, and I try to skip over the commericals.

When my storage unit was packed full of junk from my former life in an apartment, I had a small TV with a 10″ screen stored in a box.  It was an old one bought in 1985, so it was analog and not cable-ready.  Before that my TV set had a 13″ screen.  I always wanted the smallest TV screen that I could get because I didn’t like the influence that TV had on me and wanted to minimize it.  Those TV’s are long gone now.  When I moved into this shared house, I’d try to coordinate schedules so I could watch my shows on someone else’s TV when they were watching the same show.

That was okay for a while, but I wanted to get my own TV to increase my own personal freedom to see what I want when I want.  Now I live in a rented bedroom, so space is very limited.  The TV set would have to fit on my desk next to my stereo and computer.  I looked for a tiny TV that could be put on the corner of the desk and connect to the cable.  There were some “DVD player” gadgets with small screens, but I could play DVDs on my computer so I didn’t need that function in my TV.

What I purchased instead was a TV tuner gadget from Elgato, which worked with EyeTV software on my MacBook.  The TV cable plugged into the back of the tuner, and then connected to the MacBook with a USB wire.  With this setup I could watch cable TV channels on my computer, either in a window or full-screen.  It could also record and play back shows.  This tuner box combined with my computer removed the need to have a television or VCR on my desk – that was a huge space-saver!

Last year I upgraded my main computer from the MacBook to a PC laptop running Linux.  To make a long story short, I could not get the tuner to work with the new computer.  It still actually may be possible, but after working on it for more than six months with little success, I decided instead to change my approach.

The plan up to that point was to watch cable TV shows on my new computer like I used to on the Mac.  Instead, I could use this problem as an opportunity to reduce my TV viewing, which really was my long term goal.  I made a list of the shows I currently watch, and discovered that all but one were available online.  Either through Hulu or by streaming them on the network’s own website.  The one other show can be downloaded from a torrent site.  So I can still watch shows on my computer without a TV or VCR, and now also without the Elgato tuner.  Having no cable TV means I spend less time idly flipping through channels looking for something to watch.  This has been my entertainment system for about four months and is working well.

Minimalism in a Nutshell

1. Stop acquiring new things.

2. Get rid of things you have.

3. Find new ways to live that don’t require keeping stuff.

Eyeglasses

Looked at my collection of glasses today.  I have worn glasses since I was five years old.  While I don’t still have any of those early frames I do have the glasses I wore in 6th grade at age eleven, and every pair since.

Now, I was just about to write up a nice blog post here about keeping old eyeglasses, but it started to sound familiar.  Did a search and found out that I already blogged about this last November!  Ugh, almost forgot about that.  Months pass but little changes.

Still have all the glasses here.  They really are not needed for anything.  I’m never going to wear them in public, and I have the prescriptions written down.  It could finally be time to donate them.

Insurance

One thing I can do without is insurance.  The concept of insuring your possessions in flawed because it’s based on the idea that you should have lots of things that you think are valuable, and that your life would be devastated if they were lost.  The insurance is sold as a means to protect you from this devastation.  Also the idea that you do not have enough money to replace that which could be lost.

I prefer to save up money so that I can replace things if they are lost, a situation that very rarely happens anyway.  Keep fewer things around, so that replacing lost items is easier.  Keep only what you use, and what you love (which cannot be replaced at any price).

Insurance makes sense for health, and also for real estate.  But not for things like TV, car, and other consumer items that can be repurchased from savings if the need arises.

One Less Bicycle

Someone on my local Freecycle list asked for a road bike, and it reminded me that I still had two old bicycles stored in a shed, that I wrote about last year.  So I wrote back and offered up the 10-speed.  And now less than a day later it’s gone.  That was easy!

I have no idea why this seemed to be impossible last year but this year I can just give it away.  I guess if I wait long enough, any dilemma doesn’t seem to be worth the mental energy anymore so I just let it go.  Maybe the mountain bike can go too.

Small Shoe Regret

Well I threw away a pair of shoes last week.  They were still usable.  Black office shoes, and a pretty good brand name.  The sole was worn so that the tread on the bottom was worn flat in places.  They were scuffed up around the sides, but I could have fixed that with some shoe polish.  The heel was a little too high for me.  The laces broke a couple years ago and they were replaced.  I could have continued to wear them or keep them in my wardrobe.  Haven’t used them in more than half a year because I have other shoes that I like better.

They were high-quality black leather shoes, water-proof, good enough to wear to work.  Condition was poor enough that I would not want to donate them.  A person with no shoes would probably be happy to have them. So, instead of putting them on the floor of my closet for ten years I decided to throw them away.  Before doing so I tied the laces so they would stay together.  Then I wrapped them in a plastic bag to protect them from the garbage.  And then put the bag in the trash bin.

I don’t know how garbage is processed, but I imagine there could possibly be an opportunity for someone who works for the garbage company.  That worker might see them and know someone who has no shoes and the same size feet as me.  This is the kind of stuff that runs through my head.

The Greater of Two Goods

A comment on a retirement blog got me thinking.  It was about how a person may want to live a freer mobile lifestyle in an RV or a boat, but at the same time they just bought a nice sofa set for the living room.  They believe that moving is not an option because it would mean giving up the new furniture.  The blogger’s point was the sofa set was holding them back from following their dreams.  In other words they are “owned by their stuff”.

I don’t think “owned” is the right word for it.  That person has made a choice without realizing it.  The choice to have the decked-out living room instead of living on a boat.

When I was younger I thought that all choices were between something good and something bad.  Do I keep the perfect condition blue shirt or the old green shirt with a hole in it?  Of course you keep the blue shirt because the other one is ripped.  But what if they are both in good condition?  A packrat will want to keep both because they are perfectly good.  The packrat mind doesn’t realize that real choices can be made between two good options.

The homeowner who dreams of a mobile life sees value in the freedom of living aboard a boat, and also values having a comfortable house.  Both choices are good.  It’s not that their life is being controlled by the furniture, just that the decision to stay in the house has been made.

Too many computers

Have this nagging feeling that I own too much computer stuff.  I have three laptop computers, and each one can be used for tasks that the others can’t do.  I can’t simplify the computer gear by selling a laptop, because that would sacrifice some functionality.  The question then becomes, instead of simplifying by reducing the hardware maybe I should first simplify by reducing the options that I need.  Do I have too much functionality available?  Are all these tech options necessary for a fulfilled life?

It seems that I am already at the minimum number of machines, and to reduce further would require giving up functionality.  What if this is a hoarding behavior? I’m not comfortable with having this many computers, but at the same time I did not consider giving up the ability to do some things.  It was the hoarding of features.

Strangely it did not occur to my stuff-centered mind that I might be able to grow by reducing the number of computer tasks my home computer is capable of doing.  I could see the hardware side, but just now understood the software side.  The packrat mind thinks only about what is in front if it (physical objects).  There is this idea that if the MacBook is sold, it means I’ll never again have a Mac, so this all will be lost.  That’s not really true because I will be keeping the data.  And I can always get a newer Mac later, the next time I upgrade.

Advice for a young one

You can have anything you want in this life, but you can’t have everything you want.