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. 

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.

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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

Last Day of June 2010

Spending the day taking pictures of my collection. Watching movies. And this is just the loose stuff from the bottom of the closet. I still need to unpack 20 boxes from the other side of the closet and clean off the shelf at the top of the closet.
Plus take pictures of all the stuff I bought last July. I bought a ton of stuff for the Rise of Cobra movie. I did enjoy the movie and I do like the toys. The time came a few months later when I realized that the toys and spending the money was no longer what I wanted in my life.
http://goo.gl/photos/iQmK
I hope to sell all of these things as one big collection. To save some time and effort. Selling the items individually may make me more money but not selling for the money.
The time has come for me to purge my life. I no longer want to own more than one load for the Back of the Truck.

GI Joe for Sale

I am selling my whole collection minus a few pieces. And even those might go. I opened my big closet for the first time in years over the weekend. I had forgotten how much stuff I had bought since I moved to Seattle. There are boxes I have not looked inside since 1989 or was it 1993. Taco Bell boxes that were loaded full of toys. I wonder what other stuff I will find in those boxes now that I am ready to sell everything.