Post #4: It's REALLY Not Worth Anything

Ebay is an exceptional tool for quickly assessing value. By searching completed listings, you can easily see if something has sold recently and if so, for what amount. I used to collect Coke bottles. I didn't get very far, because at heart I am not really much of a collector. But I have a 1980 UGA National Champs bottle and a Paul "Bear" Bryant one, and several other miscellaneous ones. I went to Ebay tonight to see what they might be worth - after all, they were of a limited edition, and they are now 28-ish years old. Perfect condition! Like new! Mint! Worthless. You can't even GIVE them away on ebay - I could find nary a completed listing for either one of these beauties that had even sold. How much do we own because we think it might be worth something, either today or someday?

Post #3: Emotions

So after being back home for 5 days with mom, who is admittedly a packrat, I see that our connection with stuff is partly emotional. I went through an old dresser and came across stuff that I know I've had for more than 20 years, but now I can't remember why the stuff was important to me. I remember that I used to have an emotional connection to it (which explains the 20 years); I just don't remember the connection anymore. So it was easy to toss. Letters from my dad, however, I couldn't quite part with.

Emotions don't explain all the addiction to stuff. In my mom's case, a lot of her stuff is here because there's so much stuff already here. It's too big a job to get rid of any of it. So it stays. And it grows. Today alone she received in the mail 6 pages of address labels. She already has about 600. Yet she keeps the new ones. Why? I don't know.

I found a tote bag full of tote bags. And then I found another tote bag full of tote bags. In all, there are about 25 tote bags. Does anyone need that many tote bags?

She has about 15 2008 calendars. Also complimentary of the people who send her address labels. Why can't we recycle those? "I like the pictures," she says. But she doesn't look at them.

Post #2: The Election

I am highly interested in this presidential election, more so than any other presidential election since I turned 18. This is my sixth one. I watch a lot of CNN, listen to a lot of NPR, and check cspan.org with some regularity. A significant amount of Americans are worried about the economy. I'm just getting into this, but surely economies can't always be growing. Don't sometimes they have to be resting? The government has decided to give lots of people some money to go buy some STUFF to prop up the economy. Then what?