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. 

Rose City Comic-Con 2013

I saw that the people that run Emerald City Comic-Con were going to be running a Comic-Con in Portland. I thought it would be fun to volunteer at another convention and get me out of town for a couple days.

At the last minute I posted that I could take someone with me in my truck. Someone from the message boards did respond. So I was able to pick up someone on my way down to Portland. Being that the person was in Kent, I was able to pick up some Jamba Juice and oatmeal on my way.

 

The way back from Portland to Seattle was fraught with rain and a tired driver. Some adrenaline from bad weather kept me going for a ways but then I had to pull off the road for some sleep. It took longer to get home than I was hoping but I still made it to work the next day

Questions and Decisions Time

I am on a 23 day vacation from The Seattle Public Library. One goal I had before this vacation started was to get my apartment empty. I was going to put everything into storage. As the time approached to start moving things into storage, that idea just did not seem right. I no longer want any of these things in my life. I should not own more stuff than what will fit in the back of my truck. And I do not mean a full load either. One tote of clothes, one tote of equipment, and one tote of personal items. That should be more than enough stuff in my life.

Tote of Clothes	Tote of Personal Items	Tote of Equipment	Backpack
Suit jacket/pants	Sword	Scanner/printer	computer
white dress shirt, undershirt	Snake-Eyes action figure(s)	Tool case	camera
blue dress shirt, undershirt	Snake-Eyes skateboard	surge protector	computer power cord
polo shirt	Chess Board	extension cord	camera power cord
pair of black pants		PS3	passport
pair of jeans		speakers	cell phone power cord
2 pairs of cargo shorts		phone modem	cell phone
pair of sport shorts		alarm clock	extra camera batteries (AA)
5 pairs of underwear and socks		camera printer dock/recharge station	sunglasses
blanket, pillow			MP3 player and cord
grooming items			extra AAA batteries
			journal
			pens

As this year came into existence, I knew I wanted to spend this time answering some big questions in my life.
1. Do I stay in Seattle?
2. Do I stay at the Library?
3. Where do I go?
4. Why?
5. What am I doing with my life?
One thing I learned in the last year is that my siblings consider me stable. Even my mother agrees with that statement. And I find myself not arguing with  the thought of me being stable. My soul yearns for that label to be wrong. This stability that others see is the act that I put on to hide. I am so worried about going crazy that I do nothing with my life.
As the past year unfolded, a wrinkle entered my life. A ‘wrinkle’ is not an adequate term. Something I had not counted on, entered my life. I fell in love, fell in lust, fell into an old pattern of obsession. Whatever the proper term or expression, this period of time that I requested off last year for reflection on my life has different priorities. Those things that I thought I would take this time off to think about, no longer has the same meaning that it did last year.
One major thing that I did not realize would change is the collection of toys. I am no longer interested in adding to or keeping my GI Joe collection. So I have been trying to sell them on the www.forums.yojoe.com I have been taking a lot of pictures of the collection. I have not opened the old boxes yet. I have been concentrating on the loose items I have bought since moving to Seattle.
http://picasaweb.google.com/jlbowen/GIJoe
Someone put the idea in my head of getting rid of books. Before I could change my mind, I took the books to Half-Price with this person. And I am thinking about getting rid of the rest of my books. I did not make any money on the books but at least the books are gone. The counter person pointed me towards the books that the store could not take. I went towards the box of books, reached towards them to see what was rejected, and said out loud, “No, Jason, RUN!”



  I have been trying to sell off my comic book collection. A couple issues here and there over the last couple of years but no major sales. I have been looking for a big dealer and I thought I had one lined up but that did not work out as hoped. Mostly, I messed up the automatic process of selling the collection. Trying to enter 4,000 comic books from one online program into another online program was not easy. I got maybe 100 books entered before I gave up.
This is where I am right now. I need to find some perspective on my life or something. I have been vaguely planning this vacation for years. Now the time is upon me.

Possible 35th Birthday Tahiti Trip Part II

Summer 2009
July 1 to September 27, 2009
Things were lining up for next years trip. I seemed to be on the path to being out of debt by December.
On July 1st, I went crazy for G.I. Joe toys. There was a spending spree for the The Rise of Cobra movie toys. Hasbro released new products to coincide with the movie release in August. Over July and August I spent a lot of money and time shopping for the toys. I spent over $2,000 on related merchandise. Including a Playstation 3 because of the G.I. Joe video game. This was before the price drop on the PS3. I think the last G.I. Joe thing I bought was some wristbands at Hot Topic. That was on September 27, 2009. Some time soon after that purchase, I realized that I was done with buying G.I. Joe merchandise. The appeal of filling my life with these toys was gone. I no longer want to buy anything. In fact, I started feeling the want to sell everything.

View Full Album

This craziness put a small hiccup on the plans for July 2010. I thought this was nothing too major though.
FALL 2009
Then in October/November I bought some electronics. The screen on my laptop died. My digital camera stopped working at the same time. I bought a new camera ($175) and a netbook ($325) in late November. October, I broke down and bought a Pre-Paid Cell phone. New stereo ($200) for my truck. Which meant a new passenger window ($200) when someone tried to steal it. Finally broke down and paid Toyota ($200) to change the dashboard lights that had been out for a long time.
In September I started wearing pants on a regular basis. This led to all sorts of wardrobe changes. Which meant spending money. I have bought pants, jeans, dress shirts, ties, and a suit.
Started drinking on a daily basis in October. At 23:00 almost every night I would go to Cafe Metropolitan and have 3 beers and a cocktail. I would do some writing. Then go home.
Started walking up the hill towards home after work. Losing weight made me have to replace those pants and jeans I had just bought. Regular walking everyday helped me work on the food side of my life. Fruits and vegetables became a staple of my diet.
END OF 2009 FINANCIAL PICTURE

Spending spree in July and August. Electronics in November. Trip to see family in December. Drinking. All these things put me further behind on getting out of debt.
But all the money problems do not address the main reason I am not going to Tahiti this year.
How to talk about that….See Part III

First Day of July

One goal I set late last year was to have the apartment empty by July 1st. That did not happen.
Three big projects to get done; Comic Books, Toys, and Paperwork.

COMIC BOOKS
I started on the Comic Books a while ago. There has been little progress towards selling the books. I have sold some of them over the last two years but no dents have been made. I need to get going on a new aspect of the Comic Book Project. That is going to be time consuming. At least that is one project I can work on when I am not at home. An internet connection will help me transfer the data from one program into the other program. I am hoping that a good deal is offered from the company I contacted. A good deal and the company takes all the books.

PAPERWORK
I made some progress at the beginning of June on the Paperwork. I took some vacation days where I just stayed at home. At one point I was taking out several bags of trash every day. The only stuff that was taken out was shredded paperwork. And I still have 4 feet of paperwork to scan and shred. There is a lot of paperwork in 4 feet.

TOYS
Wednesday I took a lot of pictures of the toys but did not make any progress towards emptying the apartment.  I have procrastinated too long. This project should have been done 6 months ago. Yet I waited until June to get started. Batteries for the camera ran low so I reshuffled locations of the toys. I emptied one side of the closet into the kitchen. I moved the stuff on the one side of the closet to the empty side and put the stuff in the kitchen back into the new empty side of the closet. Not quite as well packed as it was but at least I have pictures of the individual items on that side of the closet. Now to do the shelf and start unpacking the Taco Bell boxes. Those boxes have been sealed for 16 years. If the timing is right, I sealed those boxes in 1994. Who knows what the inside of those boxes will be like after all this time.

GO TIME

Thought about the project all this time and did nothing about getting rid of this stuff. Purge time is go and 20 days until my vacation starts.  I am going to be working my ass off for the next 20 days.