New Bookcases

I moved this year. I have set up several bookcases. There are 6 tall, 4 short, and two media cases. I also have two small tables.

The tall bookcases have five shelves and the short cases have three shelves. I have the shelves setup to take comic book boxes. Currently sitting mostly empty. I have comic book boxes on the bottom shelf. 2 boxes sit on the shelf sitting perpendicular.

The fourth short case holds my media and the two media cases has my non comic books and holds up the TV.

Video game stuff  like the Halo vehicle and WarCraft goes with the TV area.  

3rd bookcase is facing out of the space. I may put non toy and non comic stuff on that one. 

One of those tables is holding my fairy chess set and board. 

A short for miscellaneous like Godzilla and Lego.

A short bookcase for DC. 

Doctor Who is going to be on those shelves. 

I am reserving a tall bookcase for Marvel. 

A tall case for Star Wars. 

That Star Wars case may end up holding my ECCC and SDCC books too. 

That leaves 4 tall bookcases for GI Joe. That is not going to be enough space for my collection. I am not sure I have the space to add more cases. Those 7 tortilla boxes are going to fill up that space quickly. 

Time to Open Tortilla Boxes

 I made the decision last week to get some stuff out of my storage unit. I work a short day on Friday and have the weekend off. It took me until Sunday afternoon to leave my apartment. The empty bookcases called to me. I have a couple of things on the shelves but it is time to unbox some older stuff. These tortilla boxes dated May of 1994 have been unopened since I moved out of my mother's house. That was at the end of May in 1994. I put my toys into these taped up boxes and shuffled them between my mother's garage and my room at my father's apartment for years. Up until I moved to Seattle in October of 2001. 

10.5" Heat Pressed Flour Tortillas boxes from Taco Bell

According to the label, I shipped this in September of 2001. That sounds right. The 18 of 18 may be off. I have 7 of these boxes left in my possession. Did there used to be 11 more? Or were there 18 total and 7 of them were the tortilla boxes? I do think there were more of these at one time. I moved some stuff into the blue totes. Other stuff may have been in different type of boxes. I may have the old labels still. The slips are probably in some box somewhere in storage. I have kept the weirdest things over the years. 

The box waiting to be opened. Some of these boxes have labels and I should open up according to the label but I am just going to open at random. 

I do have to say, I have not had my toys displayed since Loma Prieta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Loma_Prieta_earthquake

in October of 1989. I was cleaning my room that month. My toys on this rickety white bookcase were out in the garage. I spent that quake on Marina Vista Soccer Field.  https://marinavista.mpusd.net/

Watching the grass wave was quite exciting to my 14 year old brain. 
I do not think I ever put the toys back up on the wall in my bedroom.  I was a teenager. I was trying to grow up but growing up did not mean I got rid of my toys. The five years between the earthquake and getting kicked out of my mother's does not bring any recollections to my mind about my collection. I think I was buying stuff still but nothing stands out for where I was putting the toys. 

There was one more blue tote in storage. Covered in greasy dust, I decided to throw it out. 

But what was inside it? It was the remaining stuffed toys that I own. 

I took them out of the bin and put them in the oven. AT a low heat, 170 degrees. 

I own a lot of Gorillas. I am not sure where these are going right now. 

I may do different posts for each box. OR just one post for the 7 boxes. I am not sure yet. It depends on how much writing I can get done. 

Buried Memories or Dreaming

While I was resting on Wednesday March 23, 2016 there was this dream I was having that was more of a memory than a dream.

It involved a food truck, a missing girl who had been my best friend, and the driver of the food truck. It seemed like I knew that the driver had taken the girl but no one believed me about it. So I had to do some investigation to find out what happened to my friend. There was a name like Lindon or Lyndon on the food truck. I can not recall how that could be a repressed memory since I have no clear indication when it could have taken place. It looked like I was a young boy.

What is odd, this was the second repressed memory/dream I have had this week. On Sunday, I was dozing in the afternoon and felt like I remembered something. But now four days later, I do not remember anything from that day. I wonder what it was I was dreaming about that felt more like a memory than a dream.

Did I really know a girl who went missing? I wonder who that could have been. This bothers me that such a well formed story formed in my head and as it filled my head, it recalled to my mind the circumstances of the story. This makes it feel less like a dream and more like a memory.

That was the same thing that happened on Sunday. Something I had not thought about for a while came to my mind. As I started thinking about it, more of the story was remembered. Something that I used to do all the time? But I had not thought about doing in a while? Something about memories being buried. But once the dam holding back the memories breaks, whole things that have been hidden come to light.

Sometimes my pride gets in the way of my memories. I remember things that no one should and people do not believe me because no one seems to remember those things. This interferes with social interactions.

So I have to ask, did a little girl go missing that I may have known?

90 Day Challenge Testimonial

Sometime in 2014, I found myself outside the 24 Hour Fitness location near Denny Way in Seattle. It was 3 a.m.. I felt like I needed to do something about my fitness.

There have been two times where I have lost significant weight. At the end of 1999, I was 330 pounds. When I moved to Seattle in 2001, I was down to 250. In August of 2009, I was at 350. By March of 2010, I was down to 295.

At the beginning of 2015, my weight was up to 360 pounds.

In December 2014, Gold’s Gym was sending out mailers. These mailers had offers for 7 day trials and 4 Personal Trainer Sessions for $30.

These offers were enticing. It seemed like everyday I was in the grocery store underneath the gym. It just kept calling me. During the holidays, I was talking to my brother about the mailers and maybe about joining a gym. He offered to help me out financially if I decided to join one. Mid January I got another mailer.

On my next day off, I stopped by the gym. I was given the tour. I liked what I saw and I was sold on the 90 day challenge. I did the personal training sessions and signed up for more. Whenever I work out now, I can hear the trainer's voice saying, "Straighten your feet."

This year I am turning 40. I want to be in better shape for my birthday this year. And for next year, I want to be in even better shape.

It is a slow process. There are many challenges to overcome. But I feel that every day, even if I only do a little workout, I make progress.

On January 31, 2 weeks into joining the gym, I went out to Spokane for my grand niece’s first birthday. I had a beer at the birthday party and since then I have been accidentally sober. February, March, April. Almost halfway through May, and still no beer or alcohol.

For close to 30 years, I have had trouble with my left knee. I know that exercise helps it but I wanted to do more than just adjust it. I want to retrain it so it stops bothering me as much. 

For the past two years, I have been having problems with my lower back. I felt that working out would help that issue too.

Food Coloring, Not just for Easter

I have been making more food at home lately. I have a bunch of food coloring bottles. I have been putting random food colors in all kinds of things. The colors do not come out well in the photos so I put some descriptive words around the pictures. What is nice about the food coloring is that it really does not change the taste of the food.

Rice yellow food coloring

Cookies red with green M&M’s

Muffins red

Tuna Mac and Cheese aka “Brains” green

Cream Cheese Frosting blue

A Giant Cookie orange

Adding the food colors to random food has made cooking a little more fun. You should try using food colors throughout the year.

Homemade Cheesecake

I have been feeling adventurous with baking lately. Even though I did not like how the wedding cake came out, I still am enjoying baking. I am trying to clean out my baking supplies. Though I guess I should not have bought more chocolate chips. I have a bunch of cream cheese I am trying to use up. I bought some graham crackers and made my own crumbs. I crumbled too many so I made two cakes. In the round one I added some fresh squeezed lemon juice.

 

I ate this square one last night. It was pretty good. A little over cooked perhaps.

This one I added lemon juice. The lemon was not noticeable in the final product. The taste was not as dry as the square one. Taste was about the same. I meant to add strawberry jam to the top of one of the cakes. I forgot about the jam though.

No G.I. Joe at Hasbro Toy Shop

Response By Email (Mike) (10/14/2014 10:26 AM) Hi Jason Lee, Thank you for contacting Hasbro regarding G.I. Joe. I'm pleased to reply.  G.I. Joe products are now carried exclusively by Toys R Us stores. You can view many of our current G.I. Joe products at www.ToysRUs.com. Again, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to reach out to us.  I hope you have a fun day! Kind regards, Customer By CSS Email (Customer Support) (10/10/2014 01:55 PM)

An email response I received when I asked why G.I. Joe Toys are not listed on the www.hasbrotoyshop.com web site. While I like Toys R Us, they do not always have the best prices. It seems weird to me that the manufacturer is not selling product directly. But then again, that is a way to keep your supply chain happy. What do you make of this tidbit of information?