 |  | The Stuff Page: Things that ended up tossed but that seem like they have another life ahead of them.
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This Quickie RX wheelchair is in fine shape and is overall a pretty nice device. It was discarded into the garbage by the local branch of the Red Cross. This surprises us a somewhat as we had always imagined that one of their core competencies was giving stuff to people who need it. No worries though, we were there to salvage it and we shall find a new owner for it, probably via the list of craig.
This mildy random Saint Tropez 3-speed bike was found at the side of the road with the red Schwinn Breeze. It is a little beat up but has great promise as hipster transport.
This Schwinn Breeze bike was one on two sitting by the side of the road. Our correspondent on the scene could not carry them on the vehicle he was using at the time. He put them behind a barn and went back five days later to retrieve them with a suitable vehicle. Now that is a friend with initiative.
It is slightly scruffy but it has great hipster bike appeal to certain demographics we have access to.
This Peg Perego Atlantico model pushchair has slightly faded fabric and is missing the little bar thingy across the front. Despite these issues somebody will probably want it as this is a handy dandy offspring transportation device.
This random Spalding Blade bike was in pretty sorry shape when we picked it up but not much has really changed! It has been restored along the "Mad Max" lines to give a pretty nice ridable machine. Though there is a reasonable chance that the hipster who buys it will never ride it.
What is with Spalding making bikes anyway (yes, yes, we know they probably did not actually make this)? Is it for riding round the golf course or something? The business-weasel phrase "focus on our core business" springs to mind....
This Raleigh Grand Prix road bike was found more or less stripped, but parts from various places and other junky bikes have resurrected it nicely. This was built to order for a weekend hipster friend of ours, though she may go for the Spalding when she sees it.
This handy dandy steering lock was found complete with key. It is not the most secure thing in the world but sometimes handy to brandish.
This Roadway QC-1 beach cruiser did not look like this when we picked it up. In fact it looked 50 years old and as if it had spent that time in a barn. The dust washed off and the chrome cleaned up to give this junky bike that will win some female hipster's heart by virtue of its colour.
Yet another Peg Perego Pliko pushchair, this time the more recent P3 model. Due to the combination of robust fabric, nice colour and good condition we may keep this one and sell all previous Plikos. We were flirting with the idea of keeping the brown one found last week but this is nicer.
Yet another double Peg Perego Aria pushchair. This is fortunate as we have just sold the last one we got. These are hot items it seems. Their prinicple virtue seems to be their super low weight but they seem a little junky and fragile, maybe just because of their weight?
This Kelty offspring portage device is in fine almost unused condition. We have been known to foist our offspring on their grandparents in one of these so this may get used. On the other hand it may just get sold via the list of craig.
A complete Inglesina Sofia pram, a current model. This is an excellent find and will be investigated further. A pic of the chassis for now, watch this space for the bassinet. You might consider this the Maserati of prams.
This Schwinn Suburban 5 speed bike has new tyres, is in beautiful condition and only needed air in the tyres to be ridden. It is the weird lime green colour that is pretty nice and seems hip and desirable in certain large cities of our acquantance. It will meet its new hipster owner soon.
This was actually a garbitrage trade. A gentleman whose retirement hobby is perusing the discards of other people saved it for us and traded it for a large BMW SUV alloy wheel which we picked up a while ago. Everyone is happy.
This Nishiki 5 speed cruiser seems in fine shape. The derailleur seems a but mis-configured but other than that it does not even need a clean. Hipster equipment to be.
This old-ish Emmaljunga pushchair is in pretty fine shape. It has barely been used and just needs a clean and some oil on the folding joints. Destined for the list of craig.
Within half an hour we found three double jogging strollers. Two of the recently ubiquitous purple Babytrend models and one red Baby Jogger. We may have to reduce our prices a little to get the inventory down, but then people value what they get less. It is a difficult tradeoff.
The Babytrend ones were pretty fine and just5 needed a quick wash but the red Baby Jogger need a fair bit of scrubbing with powerful cleaning agents. It is now fit for sale.
Along with the great selection of double joggers we got this single Baby Jogger jogging stroller today. The front tyre was bald, which is not really a big deal, but we replaced it anyway.
This GT Vertigo Freestyle BMX is in fine shape modulo the surface rust in some places. It has never really been used, more neglected. It will find a new, hopefully less neglectful, owner via the list of craig.
This random Huffy 3-speed bike is pretty spiffy looking after a spot of cleaning etc, but it is still junk. It was one of the batch of four and will join the others, it does look spiffy enough to attract hipster purchasers though.
This AMF 3-speed bike is a right catastrophe of design, but it does look pretty shiny after our lavish detailing attention. It will probably end up the fashion toy of a hipster, like the other two wheeled conveyances from the batch of four.
We actually think that the rear dropouts look somewhat like a hurley stick.
This Huffy Regal is anything but. It does however clean up in a nice superficially shiny way so it will find a home as a retro fashion accessory. For the detail minded among you this has a twist grip two cable 5 speed derailleur, that actually still works and needs no adjustment! What a load of junk. Part of the batch of four.
This AMF 3 speed is one of a batch of four found late one night by the side of the road. It is really ugly and unpleasantly executed but it has the same seventies coolness that a AMC Gremlin might have. It cleaned up pretty well and rides as well as it ever did during its neglected life so somebody will probably wish to exhibit their retro hipster cred by purchasing it from us.
These two Topeak bike seats were found within a short window of time. They will both be farmed out via the list of craig to happy new owners. We hope. The pics shows them in the raw, they will be cleaned first of course.
This small black rucksack is seemingly configured for a person with a lot of tech toys and their attendent chargers, dongles and whatnot. While this might not apply to us it might come in handy at some point.
These two Maclaren pushchairs were found within a short time. First one was almost unused and was complete with accessoriess bag and such. The second had a chocolate stain on it, possible reason for discard?
Yet another Graco Duo Glider stroller in nice condition. After a quick clean to remove the dust this will be fit to meet the nice people who will contact us about it via the list of craig. Though it may have to wait as we have a couple in stock now.
This offspring flotation device is all shiny and new and does not really seem to have been used much. That is not a problem, it was tested out the same day and proved satisfactory at preventing submersion of offspring.
Yet another Chicco Highchair, this one is in some ways super fancy but has damage to the cover. It will eventually find a new home.
This Schwinn Prelude road bike is in fine shape and just needed air in the tyres to be perfectly ridable. All well and good.
This Ross Pocono mountain bike is pretty junky but after some oil and new gear cables is somewhat useful. We will see who ends up on it, a craigslister or a summer intern.
This later model Peg Perego Pliko pushchair (not sure if it is a P3?) is in OK shape except for being missing a useless piece of plastic and being pretty grimy inside. We may use this in place of our older model Pliko so it will be detailed, we suspect, followed by deployment in the service of offspring transportation.
Within a short space of time we found double and single Peg Perego Aria strollers. They all seem in fine shape, mostly just in need of a wash and such. Both of these will be sent to tantalise idle readers of the list of craig.
Update: Both sold within 24 hours of their initial exposure on the list of craig, These must be hot items as many people wanted them, we shall keep an eye out for more.
Somebody had thrown out more or less all the clothes needed for offpring from age one to 7. We picked through the huge pile and the pic below shows about a third of what we picked up. A lot of these items are really good stuff and will be deployed in the pursuit of protecting our offspring from the ever present threat of charges of indecent exposure.
This Misfit Rhino BMX is a little rusted in places and beat up in others but should clean up well enough to make some misfit juvenile very happy at some stage. Intermediate steps might include oil, adjustment and indexing on the list of craig.
Update: Mouse over the picture to see it in slightly shinier condition.
This Instep Elite jogging stroller is in fine shape except for the tyres, weirdly one of them is worn down to the fibre under the rubber. It seems tricky to wear out a jogger tyre like that, onne would think. New tyres from stock and this should be sent off to the list of criag to seek its fortune.
We found two Britax car seats within a short space of time, both recent enough to use and all very handy. One is pretty dirty due to the previous occupant being given free reign over foodstuff beyond their capabilities but that is easily remedied.
This Babytrend Sit 'n Stand LX stroller (oooooh, the luxury model?) is in fine shape and seems to be all present and correct. We have no need for it so it will be disposed of via the list of craig.
We found this bottle of Windex on top of a pile of rubbish on the street. Now it may not be the most exciting or valuable garbage find we have ever had but we, like many people we know, have windows and they sometimes need cleaning. Just what you need, sometimes when you actually need it. Shown sitting on Egbert.
This fancy looking Alita AUP250 pump was in perfect condition except the screw holding the impeller on had fallen off at some stage. This was probably the reason for discard. We put in a new stainless metric screw and tested it in a bucket of water and it worked rather well. We will dispose of this unless anybody elucidates their need for it.
These two small stainless steel food service trays were slightly dirty but after a scrub and a cycle in the dishwasher they positively sparkle. As you can see one is already pressed into service, it did not come with the potatoes inside.
This dual DVI XFX Ge 6800 card is used but is repacked in the original box. It will be tested and deployed at some stage. Contact us if you want it, it is an AGP slot mount.
This Sony Vaio PCG F350 came with the power supply. As the pic shows it sort of tries to boot. The machine itself is pretty old but may find a buyer on ebay.
The presence of the power supply also allowed us to test this Sony PCG XG9 we found a while ago. This is newer and ostensibly more useful to the world in general though it seems to have arty and abstract graphics issues.
Investigation of the found data to occcur at some point and then they will be ebayed off as is.
In a cardboard box with the XFX video card were these two Dell laptop power supplies. They will be used for testing future Dell laptops that happen to be found without their power supplies. Spiffy.
This random Trek Mountain Lion kids bike had a broken brake cable, this of course was quickly remedied. The air inserted into the tyres rendered it perfectly functional. The brake cable was presumably the reason for discard. This will either go to a new owner via the list of craig or a bike shop.
This random Roadmaster Mt. Fury mountain bike is really total junk but it is in such nice shape that we figure somebody with little or no eye for quality will want it. We would not go anywhere near Mount Fury on this bike, but then we would not take it on any roads, master of them or not, except to deliver it to a new owner.
This Raleigh Mermaid child's bike seems pretty crappy but the fact that it has mudguards and a Raleigh badge means that a new owner may be found for it amongst those who consider bicycles fashion accessories.
This is Magna Look'n Good is actually pretty innaproriately named. That is not important though because we can find people who might actually agree with the name of this bike and wish to acquire it.
This Graco Mosaic stroller is of a slightly newer generation of Gracos than we are used to. It had been pretty well used by a messy offspring but has held up well and will have another lifetime with some nice people who will introduce themselves to us via the list of craig.
This Graco Duo Glider is is near perfect condition and just needed a squirt with the hose to remove the dust. They are fairly functional devices, if a little unwieldy to push, but it will meet its new owner on the list of craig and we will all be happy.
This copper fondue related device is probably intended for chocolate fondues. We will see if we end up using it, we really need extra regular fondue for when we have a crowd. Inside are 4 sterno pots ready for us to use, even if we do not use the device itself.
This is Babytrend Double Jogging stroller is a used but good condition. A quick wash and air in the tyres rendered it ready for service with whoever ends up taking custody of it.
Like the Topeak bike seats we seem to have a steady supply and healthy demand for this particular model. These tend to actually get used more than the bike seats thogh.
W already have one of these special radiator fitting removal tools but we are bound to have friends that do not. Monika?
A spiffy Centurion LeMans RS road bike that had lots of dust all over it and no pedals. One issue was dealt with by means of an advanced cleaning methodology (hosepipe) and the other by delving into the spare pedals bin. Rides fine now.
Yet another Topeak bike seat, this one complete with the rack system. This will follow the numerous others to the list of craig. Good thing we seem to have both a reliable supply and a reliable market for these. The only problem with this is that the class of CLers interested in purchasing one of these are, as a demographic, clueless and annoying.
This random Kettler Scooter is nothing special but has some level of quality due to being Kettler. We have no shortage of random 'orrible offsprings of our acquantaince that could use it.
These baby bouncer things are often crappy but there maybe be a critical transsition period in the life of an 'orrible offspring where they can use this effectively. It functions as an inadvertant imprisonment and amusement device.
This fan is the sort of thing one might use for drying out floors in basements or generally circulating air in spaces. It works fine and has been lodged in a friend's custody for now. He seems particularly keen that we mention that he now has it, maybe being mentioned like this is fame enough for him?
This Raleigh M20 mountain-ish bike was missing a couple of pieces off the rear derailleur and the rear tyre. Spares from stock and it is reassembled and ready to go. It is still a piece of junk though.
A 2.8Ghz Shuttle PC with 2G RAM and no HD. It has a fancy nVidia video card in it and seems to sort of run knoppix. More investigation to follow.
Further investigation reveals that it works fine. It has on board video so if it gets deployed to a certain task the nVidia will become spare parts. As this text is being written it is getting a test install of Ubuntu on it.
This Schwinn Caliente bike is pretty junky and has some issues. We cleaned up a bunch of stuff and replaced some parts. The pic shows it halfway through this process, the front half of the bike is spiffy while the rear is still looks rusty crusty. When finished it will be an item coveted by numerous hipsters, we hope. But it will still be crap quality.
This fairly new push lawn mower was procured to order. The blade seems nice and tight, it cuts fine, it rolls, Monika?
This orange extension cable is about 80 feet long and has a missing ground pin on the plug. A new plug will be procured and installed. A handy thing.
This BabyTrend double jogging stroller needed air in the tyres and a quick rinse to get rid of the dust and it is as good as new and ready for sale. It does not even have the latch problems that frequently plague these models. No reason for discard apart from the flat tyre? Making an appearance on the list of craig soon.
Well, this is a slightly different model to the one we got a while ago. The previous one was given to friends but we have run out of friends in need of such so we will have to make new temporary friends via the list of craig to dispose of this one.
Most of a bike rack is present here in these parts, but not all of it. We suspect that bike shop owners of our acquaintance will be able to find a use for this pile of metal.
We got a bunch of parts in a transitional state, previously they were not bike parts but at some point they will be. We got another exercise bike from which we salvaged the crank and chain. Also a garage door opener yielded up its chain to us. It is good to stockpile these things while we can. No pic for now.
Also found was brand new front wheel and a road tyre for a mountain bike wheel. All very handy.
This folding bike is pretty crappo and heavy and primitive compared to the modern version but it was definitely worth picking up. If we can get it going somebody might want it but if not it has numerous parts on it that could be used on other bikes.
Given the high flow of random bikes passing through we decided to scavenge more key parts. One source of certain bike parts in perfect condition is Exercise Bikes. They yield parts of "New Old Stock" quality for two reasons, nobody ever uses these things and while they are being unused they sit inside in the basement as opposed to outside where they might rust. Pic shows some nice cranks we got, the chain was retrieved from this one also but not shown.
This kids' GT bike has seven gears and fancy linear pull brakes. It needed some attention regarding the front brake lever and saddle. The number of holes in the rear tube was also in excess of design parameters. Luckily, we know secret methods to remedy all of the above. Monika?
This Simo Bertini twin pushchair would seem to be the Maserati of pushchairs except that we think they are Norwegian rather than the obvious Italian. Whichever, they make quality gear and this is no exception. It needs a clean and then will be introduced to some new discerning owners at some point using the list of craig.
This Schwinn Hollywood girls' bike is from the mid 1940s we think. The previous owner had conveniently put two new tyres on it before tossing it into the scrap metal. It needed some seatpost attention and a clean and here it is for your viewing pleasure. It will probably find a home with some hipster, we will see.
This random Peg Perego Centro pushchair is in fine shape and needed nothing but a clean to be ready for offspring transportation deployment. Surplus to our requirements so off it goes to seek its fortune on the list of craig.
This Mongoose A40 bike has a few rusty screws etc and needed air in the tyres and the chain putting back on. Rides fine, junky but light and fancy looking, to some peoples' eyes. It will shortly be available on the list of craig for those very people.
Update: Sold to a nice chap who refused to test ride it but tested out the various subsystems in the static mode. Not our problem.
This is just the detachable seat part of an Emmaljunga. This would be the Volvo of pushchairs, we suspect. This model is pretty old but fully functional and in nice condition. There exists a small but discerning userbase for these things and hopefully we will make one of them happy at some stage. Egbert is visible behind it along with five (plus?) other items that have appeared on this page.
This classic English 3-speed Royal Scot Lightweight seems like it could be quite a viable bike after some air in the tyres. It obviously does not have the quality of Raleigh but seems pretty nice. Some hipster will love it.
Update: Sold off to a happy hipster.
This is a random large size Britax car seat with the adjustable element in the high back area. The cover is great but one of the straps has issues. It will either get new straps or donate its cover to the cause of rehabilitating another one, we will see.
Some guy was tossing this tree, rootball and all, onto the brush pile. It seemed like it might have a chance so we rescued it and brought it home. After dinner an earnest youth of our acquaintance implemented the planting procedure in our garden.
First a Dell 2.4Ghz PC with 512M RAM, XP installed and working, no apparent reason for discard. Lots of juvenile plus "mom" usage of the machine. Below is a randomly chosen IM session from the AIM chat logs, the names (and usernames) have been tinkered with to protect the terminally clueless.
cornsyyrup354: hi cathy look i think we have to talk, i no we have are
diffirences and stuff but i think we both miss are friendship and
we both want to be friends and of all the years we have been friends
and all the laughs we had i miss it and i am ok with u being friends
with alicia -not that u need my okay- but i am fine u can have friends.
i just was woundering if we can put this behind us and be bffl again
bc i no it would mean a lot to both of us, i am tired of fighting
and i thought it would last a day but i guess i was wrong-witrch
i am a lot- i am sorry abot what happened
[pic]
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[pic]
cornsyyrup354: plz call or wright or send or talk or reply soon
ladytattoooo: you just dono't get it do you??
ladytattoooo: i have told you so many times that i am not becoming friends with
you untill you fisically YOURSELF calls my mother and appoligizes this
could have been over with so long ago but you just can't seem to realize
your in the wrong and your NOT right and you need to do something for
someone else
ladytattoooo: the thing that pissed me off is that you never apologized to me
or my mother
ladytattoooo: you have appoligized to me but you still have my mom
ladytattoooo: get that through your head
cornsyyrup354: wait wait wait watdoes any of this have to do with ur mom?
cornsyyrup354: i am trying to say i am sorry
cornsyyrup354: but wats the point if u wont forgive me ..the best part
of being a best friend is that when u have a fight u never stop
being friends u just find yourself makeing up and huging
cornsyyrup354: u forgive and forget ..
ladytattoooo: YOU RUINED MY SURPRISE BIRTHDAY WITHOUT A SORRY TO ME OR MY MOTHER
cornsyyrup354: a bump on the rode wont stop u from driving
ladytattoooo: IT COSTED MY MOM 1,000 DOLLARS
ladytattoooo: DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH MONEY THAT IS?!?!?!
ladytattoooo: DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG I HVE WANTED A SURPRISE BIRTHDAY PARTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
cornsyyrup354: cathy..at lest u get a party for 1 and 2 u kenw about it, 3 yes i no
what $$is and 4 it did mean a lot to u and u had a good time - darryl
showed me the film - 5 i am glad 6 ...7
ladytattoooo: JUST SHUT UP!!! MY GODD YOU DON'T GET IT WHEN OUR "BEST FRIENDS"
YOUR SUPPOSED TO SAY SRRY RIGHT AWAY
cornsyyrup354: i did!
cornsyyrup354: the day after i left u a message
cornsyyrup354: the day at school i said to gg give this to her but dont read it
ladytattoooo: WELL YOU DIDN'T SAY IT TO MY MOM
cornsyyrup354: on wed i said darryl ask her - i never told darryl any thing -
cornsyyrup354: i put it on ur home phone! so u and ur mum can here it
ladytattoooo: AND YOU KNOW WHAT... THERE WAS NO FILM
cornsyyrup354: that is y i put it on ur home phone not ur cellz
ladytattoooo: but you didn't say sorry to her
cornsyyrup354: yes
cornsyyrup354: the film
ladytattoooo: shut up your wrong
cornsyyrup354: on darryls cellz
ladytattoooo: no your rong
ladytattoooo: you have to get this over with
cornsyyrup354: darryl has a tape on her cellz
ladytattoooo: call my mom and appoligize
ladytattoooo: thats all i have to say
cornsyyrup354: what do u want me to say
ladytattoooo: GOOD-BYE!!!!!!
ladytattoooo signed off at 8:11:41 PM.
(END)
Well, we are glad they got that sorted out. Any linguistics students out there want a Ph.D. topic?
The other machine was a Alienware thingy, missing HD and various hardware parts. It will certainly yield various parts for the fixing of computing machines in general, it will probably not run again in this form unless for short-term amusement purposes.
This Thinkpad T40 has a 1.5Ghz CPU, 512M RAM and no keys. It has a keyboard and typing still works but the keys were salvaged by the previous owner, or some such. Apart from that it cannot seem to make it past the BIOS when booting but we forsee no major issue there as it will probably be ebayed as is.
A plastic bag full of Lego pieces, fairly modern ones in general. This will be rinsed and tossed in whatever big bucket of Lego comes to hand first here.
All in one day we gathered up this nice selection of various devices for use with offspring in the seated position. We could have pictured and listed them seperately but the ensemble picture seems quite nice.
From the left:
This is a random Dell Pentium 4 2.6Ghz PC or so with memory, disk etc. The fan on the power supply is dead (possible reason for discard?) and the HD had all the personal files on it unlinked. Unlinked but still present.
This Compaq seems all nice and new and shiny on the outside but does not boot or show any sign of life. That is fine, maybe watch this space for more investigation or we will ebay the thing off entire as is. Maybe even both.
This Dell P4 GX270 2.8Ghz PC was missing memory and disk but they are in general machines worth saving, if possible. We found some memory in stock from prior salvage, a disk from a decommisioned RAID array and a discarded G-wireless PCI card and installed them. Then, using an XP install CD from the trash (first sale doctrine) we put an OS on it and made it ready for a friend's father. Bonus points for multi-sourcing we feel! Spiffy, despite the scuff marks on the case.
These random wooden chairs are nothing special, but they are useful and pretty nice. We have no great need for them but somebody we know will be able to find a home for them.
This Raleigh Grand Prix bike was dropped off complete except for one set of brake pads and the pedals. One tyre was blown out and the other was sketchy so after two (cheap) new tyres and a couple of various new cables it is ready to be ridden. The pic shows it approaching ridability, strictly downhill would be possibly with it in this state, but not desirable.
This plastic play house and slide thingy is in perfect shape and was presuambly tossed because the offspring outgrew it. That is fine, there are always offspring somewhere ready to grow into it.
A member of the barstaff at our friendly local brewpub requested some random patio sitting equipment, so we picked this up. They are pretty nice and after a clean should be fine. Cheers.
This red no-name kids bike was found in almost new condition with horrible stickers all over it. We removed them and it is now tolerable and no-name-esque. The stabilizer wheels came seperately but exactly when called for.
This Magna Blowtorch bike is also pretty much new and unused, reason for discard may have been that the chain had come off. It is a horrific paint scheme and overall concept but it will go to some random offspring in need of a wheeled device to fall off.
This Babytrend double jogging stroller is in near new condition and has not discernable signs of use except a slight fading in certain places. That of course is not neccesarily a sign of use, just of having sat in the sun, but there you go. Reason for discard may have been chronic disuse but more likely the folding catches, which on this particular model become stiff and unworkable with time in a humid climate. A judiciously applied drop of oil on each side fixed that though, so it is destined for the list of craig.
This is a random Calphalon "sauce pan" that has lost the interior coating. We know what to do with it. Shown in repose upon Egbert.
This Bianchi Strada bike is a piece of crud for a Bianchi but with that name on it somebody will want it. It was missing wheels, saddle, pedals and brake pads, all of which we have in stock. This will be nicely detailed for sale to a hipster.
This Schwinn Varsity bike has a huge frame, which is apparently in demand in certain circles. We shall see if some long legged hipster snaps it up. It needed a new gear cable, new tyres, a few other random things and some tweaking and tuning. Overall it has cleaned up nicely and is pretty nice to ride.
This bike looks in a pretty sorry state and is missing the chainrings and possibly some other small pieces. Some of the parts on it are really nice though and it may be worth saving, we will see.
This coffee machine, though slightly too feature-laden for our taste, seems to work fine and be all present and correct. It will tentatively become the reserve Z pot.
This table turned up with no top and looking a little rusty and forlorn. It was pretty simple to clean it up and the new wooden top was made up of wood we salvaged last year from a different table top. This might become our outdoor cafe style table, depending on how it turns out. The picture show it in mock-up mode prior to actually committing to a final design.
A pretty classic Schwinn Varsity road bike in the strange light green colour, somewhat spiffy but in need of a fair bit of tuneup and attention.
This was in part trade for the Gary Fisher. Kind of counts?
We rescued a Gary Fisher hybrid bike from stagnant imminent discard a while ago, here it is:
It needed numerous new parts and fixing but with what we had in stock we did not have to buy much. This then makes a really nice ridable bike for our friend. In return he gave us the two bikes he had that were not really being used and destined for some form of future discard. Those are also here somewhere.
The first is a Centurion Le Mans mixte. It is pretty junky but is in nice shape, just needed a flat fix and some general tuning.
A murky brown Ross Eurotour bike in much neglected but not abused state. It may actually have never been ridden, certainly not discernably. The tyres are dried out and there is some surface rust but apart from that it is but a small amount of work from being a hipster's dream transportation device.
Update: Sold to a happy hipster within hours of being put on sale. In a slightly cleaned cleaned up state of course.
A random kiddie bike procured upon request for some friends. It had a genuine reason for discard, something along the lines of "we reversed over it with the SUV". This is a pretty common cause of death for strollers and bikes these days. Fortunately the damage was limited to the front wheel so we replaced that and voila, ready to ride (or fall off).
A random eMac 1.25 Ghz, 768M RAM, 40G HD, all in good shape, boots fine. The picture shows it undergoing upgrade to 10.4 for the purposes of use or trade or sale. The previous owner had some real estate related documents on it and some pictures that seemed to be documenting an insurance claim, otherwise uninteresting.
This is a pretty junky AMF Roadmaster bike but it is cleaning up nicely and will go to make some hipster happy in their newfound bike-trendiness. It needed air in the tyres and one spoke replaced. The reason for discard may have been the fatal error inducing install of some bracket on the seat mount, that is all cleaned away now and it is more or less ready for sale.
We are not sure exactly which roads this thing is supposed to be the master of, but we definitely do not wish to travel them. Update: Sold to a hipster and a basket installed on the front.
A friend had this spiffy little Schwinn Suburban for years in his garage, it was his childhood bike or some such. Given a choice between near/long term tossing and us he discarded it our way. We cleaned it up to it's present state and it will go to satisfy a hipster's urge. The proceeds will be (partly) spent on a keg of beer from our friendly local brewer for a party of some form.
Update: Sold and the proceeds earmarked for a keg of beer or some such.
This Fuji Suncrest was a little dirty and had two flat tyres when found. Either of those factors may have been the reason for discard but both were remedied in about five minutes leaving a pretty functional bike ready for the next owner. This person shall be introduced to us by the list of craig.
Update: Sold, after some dithering by flakey customers to a nice chap. Certain CLers are really a pain in the butt.
This Lotus Viking mountain bike was partly stripped and not very happy at all when we found it. A bunch of spare parts made it rideable and pretty nice but we will see what occurs with it.
B>Update: Sold to a nice Dutchman for use as a random round-town bike.
This is a nice Phillips 3 speed English bike in OK condition. It was made in 1959, the year before Raleigh bought the company. It had 4 missing spokes but that seems to be all the real problems. The Sturmey Archer hub was dry and wedged in neutral but upon refilling with oil and some mechanism working it was fine. The tyres and tubes are original (or at least very old) and in fine shape. The pic shows it after some cleaning, front wheel, cable sheaths and some small details yet to do.
The quality on the Phillips was slightly below Raleigh but this is an astounding piece of technology. It has lasted 50 years with very low maintainance and after some lube and air and such it is now a great pleasure to ride. Dear reader, how many items do you own that exhibit these properties?
A Hilift Jack with a slightly rusty mechanism. We are betting there is nothing really wrong with it and that a quick "canadian rebuild" will put it in order. These things have a habit of sticking unless you keep them slathered in oil so I bet the previous owner encountered that condition in the dim and distant past. Then they neglected it for a few years before tossing it. We will see when we inspect it more closely.
Update: Just need a bunch of oil and it now works fine.
A random suitcase that will be handy for giving away to somebody who needs one at some point.
This random Baby Jogger only had one wheel when we found it, but luckily the spares department was able to supply a full set in nice condition. The rear ones are larger than intended but that will be heralded as a feature for rolling smoothly over extreme jogging territory, or some such. Off to the list of craig with it.
Update: Sold on CL a day or so after listing.
This is a mostly stripped down Baby Jogger. It is missing all the accessories but usaable as is, hence will be sent to seek its fortune on the list of craig.
A random but pretty fine double jogging stroller, it may or may not be missing the hood. A sticky strip has come unstuck at the bottom but that will be glued back on at some point. Shown here after a quick wash.
A random iBook G4 that will be good for spares/parts etc. Pieces of it may end up on ebay.
A random Trek 800 ladies model bike that seems in OK shape. Some scavenger had just pulled wheels off it when we got to it but it seems in OK shape so we pulled a couple fo stock to rebuild it. Previous owner had put on a new front gear cable and wired it up wrong, probably the reason for discard.
A small cast iron radiator set up for steam heating. This will be made aavailable on the list of craig soon.
A random piece of limestone cut to be a large step, we think. This will be used to make some form of little bench in the garden at some point. It is quite nice.
An X41 thinkpad tablet machine in pretty rough shape. Somebody had beat it up but we took it for spares etc. HD was full of evidence of a drugs company sales rep who use match.com but not much else. The 60G super mini HD and the 1G RAM stick are pretty handy, everything is pretty much scrap thinkpad material.
This middling crappy mountain bike had two flat tyres upon pickup but after insertion of compressed air into same it seems fine. It is barely ridden though a few years old and pretty fine bike for pootling around town, it has mountain bike slicks on it. Going up onto the list of craig.
Update: Sold to a nice chap for use as a station bike, a good choice on his part we feel.
A random jogger in OK shape, nothing special but handy if you need one of these. This will be quickly destined for the list of craig. It needed air in the tyres and a quick clean, pic shows it rinsed before getting a light scrub.
Yet another Dell GX270 Pentium 4 PC machine, this one is pretty dirty inside and is also missing memory and HD. It is a 2.4Ghz and seems like it should be fine after a spot of cleanup and a few parts from the pile. It seems like this came from the same previous owner as the others but the dirt profile inside is very different.
Having examined the rather large inventory of Pentium 4 PC machines at our disposal we decided to offload a batch of complete but non-booting machines in exchange for cash. The two Dell machines you may recognise from the sketchy picture below but the Compaq and the Gateway probably did not make it onto this page when they were picked up. All are between 1.4 and 1.8 Mhz and kind of junky but perfectly useful for basic computing needs. Coincidentally (or not) they are all case designs that annoy us, hence maybe better to have somebody else do the serious fiddling.
This is probably an update entry and a new stuff entry.
We found three Dell Pentium 4 GX270 PC machines, all three were missing their memory and hard drives. We took two, a 3 Ghz and a 2.4Ghz model. We have access to some memory with which to resurrect these, and random hard drives are easy to come by. The pics show them baring their guts with new drives and an OS installed but awaiting their longer term memory (borrowed sticks were used for the install process). These will be sold or traded.
A bumper crop of computing machinary all in more or less the same state, missing HD but complete with RAM. This seems to indicate that somebody just closed down an office and was wise enough to secure their data before tossing out a whole bunch of perfectly good machines.
First up a Dell dual 3Ghz PC machine with no HD, 1G RAM and a super fancy graphics card. A test with knoppix indicate two happy little penguins and everything seems to work.
Next in line is a HP Pavillion dual 2.8Ghz, again plenty of RAM but missing the HD. Again tests fine but needs a quick clean out before it settles into what ever use we find for it.
Also present were 2 1.4Ghz Dell Pentium 4 machines, obviously less fancy and such but still pretty functional machines. The missing cover is out of shot, not actually missing. Pic is fuzzy but you get the idea:
Last an not least were two Dell Pentium 3 laptops, presumably from the same source but they both still had their hard drives but were missing the power supplies. Both booted XP and ran slowly due to all the anti-virus junk. We investigated the yellow trimmed one and once all the anti-virus stuff was taken off it ran surprisingly well for a 500Mhz with XP on it. Fortunately we sold them both off before we could play with them any more.
A random Macally USB keyboard, these are always handy to have if only to give away to friends in need.
This KitchenAid mixer was unfortunately missing the stainless steel bowl, we suspect that the scummy scrapmetal guys took that. On the plus side it works fine and even looks very fine now that is cleaned up, the pic shows it still all covered in special previous owner dust.
Update: Snapped up by a friend, they call him "the Donald.". Well, we do anyway.
A somewhat ornate cast iron radiator in nice condition. We have no need for this and none of our steam powerred friends are in needs of units so this will be sent to heat another home via the list of craig.
Update: Sold to a nice chap who introduced himself to us via the list of craig.
This Ross started out a while ago as a silver 10 speed Gran Tour II and ended up being converted to a painfully hip flip-flop singlespeed. Various parts were purchased in the process but the frame and some other stuff came from the original discarded Ross. The paint job is the tar-like bumpy undercoating for cars, probably this one.
This Dell was picked up a while ago but we only really got to grips with it today. It is a 2.4Ghz Pentium 4 PC, so plenty useful enough for most people.
After some parts shuffling (cdrom was working but slow) we attempted a clean OS install but it failed with a big fat bluescreen. It seemed like a memory failure so we used knoppix to conduct a memtest. That failed hugely so we pulled one memory card out and tried again, hence success! After the install we threw in a new piece of memory into the empty slot and failure again, oh no! Maybe the slot was bad? A few false starts and then close inspection revealed dust bunnies in the RAM slot. Shopvac action and all is fine. This presumably explains the reason for discard, previous owner put extra memory in some time after original purchase, in doing so crushed accumulated clumps of dust into the slot rendering the machine nebulously useless, hence to discard.
Update: Sold on the list of craig.
This was attached to the Gary Fisher bike. It is probably better to try and sell them seperately rather than together so we unscrewed it. After a quick wash this will be off to the list of craig, complete with the suitable rack under it.
This fine bike is Gary Fisher Big Sur, which is apparently something halfway fancy. It had been dropped in the scrap metal with the Topeak seat attached. The bucket loader had grabbed it by the front wheel and tossed it in the big can, ruining the front wheel. We rescued it, put on a new wheel (and tube) and will sell it on the list of craig forthwith. Reason for discard appeared to have been a flat front tyre, the tube was missing and the tyre was off the rim. It had a weird junky seat with it but we tossed this Trek seat on for the pic and will throw on a spare Gary Fisher seat later.
Update: Sold within 12 hours of being salvaged. In other news we have available one Gary Fisher front mountain bike hub.
Yet another Trail-a-bike, this one slightly more used, or at least older, than the last. This is also missing the little coupling hitch on the front but after a clean and some new (old) handlebar grips it is ready for the list of craig.
The traffic cone is nothing to do with the bike, it is just allowing it to pose in the rough orientation it is intended to be used in.
A 12 inch iBook G3 missing battery and power supply. Upon testing absolutely nothing occurs when attempting to boot. This will probbaly be parted out for ebay at some stage.
An IBM dual 3Ghz Pentium 4 in nice shape except missing memory and hard drive. Some memory from inventory allowed us to test it using knoppix and it seems fine. The addition of a HD will make this a fine element in a certain distributed computing task. Pic shows the scavenged memory installed.
A pretty fancy Fuji Saratoga touring bike with triple chainring, spare spokes mounted on the frame, and lots of lugs. It is really rather nice but we have no use for it. It is already on the list of craig but super special deep discount available to readers of this page if they should want it.
Update: Sold within 12 hours of initial pickup.
A Lodge cast iron griddle with ridges on one side and smooth on the other. We do not really need this so it may be available. Two pics, one showing each side.
This may already have been snapped up.
It started snowing again today so of course we are on the lookout for snow clearing tools. Most conveniently we found this Snapper Snowblower. With the choke on and a couple of pumps on the fuel bulb it started first time. It has half a tank of fuel. The reason for discard seems to be the fact that the drive belt to the snow chomper on the front seems to have stretched and does not engage properly anymore. A quick adjustment on the moving idler pulley that engages said drive and it works fine.
The previous owner seems to have kept it well serviced, the oil was clean, the plug is new and the joints had fresh grease on them. But maybe we will throw it away once we have finished the fuel in it...
An Xbox 360 in undamanged physical state but missing the special power and A/V stuff required to actually use it. We will borrow some cables to try this out and see what happens.
This stainless steel catering style table is brand new and seemingly never been assembled. That must be sufficient reason to discard it we suppose. Pic soon, maybe?
A selection of wireless phones and other mobile gadgetry, notably five Palm Treo devices. We picked these up for somebody who needs a new phone thinking we would get one of them working and indeed that proved to be the case. Two shown working in the pic that will accept the relevent sim card, various chargers and USB thingies present. Also a palm and lots of random adaptors and gear in the bag.
Some cheesy pics present on the phone from the previous owners, nothing too exciting though.
This Nishiki Cresta was partly stripped by the time we got to it, which is a shame as it is a really nice classic bike. We have the wheels for it and it came with bars etc, just lots of little parts were missing.
Update: Sold with the Fuji to a nice chap who was sent by the list of craig.
A small form factor Dell Pentium 4 PC, missing the HD. It has 2.7Ghz, 512M RAM, boots knoppix fine and runs very quietly. How nice.
Update: Refurbished and a huge hit on the list of craig. It seems these small machines are in quite some demand.
A small chair we acquired some time ago turns out to be moderatly nice and made of maple. It had a nasty thick coat of dark finish on it and was loose and rickety. After liberal applications of sandpaper, glue, clamps and varnish it looks like this. It does not fit to the maple desk but it is useful nevertherless for the offspring.
A friend bought a house and this desk was left in the basement by the previous owners. It did not, of course, look like this at the time we came into possession of it. It had a thick layer of ugly stained varnish on it and the drawers were all falling apart at the backs. The liberal application of sandpaper, glue, varnish and such rendered it into this state. The centre drawer is not yet finished (in more ways than one) but will make it in there eventually. The desk is now deployed in service of the offspring.
A white KitchenAid mixer in used but perfectly working usable shape. Comes with two mixer blades, stainless bowl, pouring thingy. This is available to anybody who wants it.
Update: snapped up by some vegans.
A set of 3 Victorinox luggage pieces. We are quite sure the swiss army don't use these. Two large cases and a rolling suit bag. All three seem lightly used and in excellent condition. We have no idea what to do with these at present as we pretty much never travel with anything this large. We will see.
BMX bikes are really not bikes in the sense of being a useful conveyance and so we do not generally deal with them, but this Kawasaki seems quite new and complete, hence we may be able to hook it up with a new owner at some stage.
Update. While the bike seemed eminently fixable the previous owner had got sand in all the bearings and bent the rear wheel. Too much effort for us so we stripped some useful parts to help another bike live.
A selection of pots and pans. We left several cheaper (but technically usable) items behind and cherry-picked the good stuff. First a couple of Calphalon items that both have a very good reaason for warranty return and hence may end up being returned.
Next an Ikea collander, sort of useful. Not sure if we will keep this yet.
Also in this batch were a large Le Creuset lid, a steamer and some stainless steel bowls. The lid fits a nice cast iron pan that previously featured here so we may deploy it in that role. The bowls are available and the steamer has yet to be tested for fit and effectiveness.
Update: Several items found homes already with various friends. The Le Creuset lid fit one of our pans so it gets to find a home here.
A Vaio Pentium 4 laptop with a broken screen. It seems in good shape otherwise but we have no power supply for it. No worries, we were able to make a handy backup of the previous owners data and see what was there. Lots of pics of suburban club culture, a bunch of mp3s reflecting the same taste and almost nothing else. The browser cache was entirely what one might expect for the relevent demographic.
Some of the pics seem like they could appear here, except that the parties involved are only respectively douchie or hot to a moderate degree, nothing worthy of widespread publication on the interwebs. Sorry, no pics for you here.
Update: Turns out that the fine users of ebay seems to find this enticing. Smashing, entertainment and cash value in one easy to ship package.
Somebody took some nice cleaned up up cast iron pans from us a while ago and they got all excited and made pizza with them. Turned out pretty well, according to the reports, and here is the pic they sent of the results.
Seems like pizza might be a great way of building up the cure on pans that have a young cure on them.
A Stanley No 72 chamfer plane, in pretty good shape and still sharp. The pic shows it after a quick cleanup. If the crazy tool collectors of our acquaintance do not want this it will be sent to make its fortune on ebay, where apparently they are rather sought after.
This is the working guts from a parking meter. Who knows what it was doing in the scrap metal but it is a nice piece of machinery for generally playing with etc. It may find a home in the z-dudes' museum of computing.
We got this Schwinn Varsity road bike a while ago and it sat around until we cleaned it up. Lots of attention with the chromezall and some new bar tape and it is off to be sold to an eager hipster. Pic shows the new bar tape and the super cool Schwinn head badge.
A Mac G4 cube, missing the power supply. Pity, the power supply is worth more than the cube, testing will commence once we borrow a spare power supply. Also present the keyboards pictured, a 1st generation 450Mhz iMac and a mac flatscreen. A competing scavenger got the screen and those iMacs are too slow for us to bother with now.
Update The thing works fine though now but the IDE ribbon was pulled out of the HD. Was this a primitive attempt at data security by the previous owners we wonder? Probably was considering the tricky nature of the mounting. Contents of the HD:
Two small strip lights. One came a few days ago and is shown installed under some cabinets in the pic below. The other also works but is as yet hanging around and not illuminating anything.
Note the toaster appeared on this page in the past.
Two bikes, all very wibbly and spiffy. First a Kona Hahanna, whatever that is. It is not the best bike in the world but certainly not the worst. Somebody will want this. When found it was missing a seat and the two quick release skewers for the wheels, but otherwise in fine shape. A seat and skewers from the pile and it rides OK. Look for it on the list of craig or snag it before it gets there.
Also a Lotus Excelle, which seems to have been a halfway fancy road bike at some time. The bars were badly bent by some collision/crushing type event but we tossed another pair on. It is very tight and smooth to ride, needs bar tape then off to feed the rabid hipster market for drop bar bikes. There is a good chance that some hipster might want this to be a single speed, the frame has a certain elegance to it. We don't care as long as they hand over the cash.
Update: The new bar tape is on and the thing is ready for the list of craig, pic updated also.
A small Krate bike in middling condition. This may clean up nice and find a home, we are not sure. Bikes of this ilk seem to be recently trendy and commanding absurd prices so it is worth a try.
Update: Cleaned up and sent away to amuse the offspring of certain relatives.
Due to coffee pot issues in certain circles we frequent, we resolved to collect a stash of spare coffee pots. Shortly thereafter a friend dropped his and hence was able to take advantage of said (small) stash. Shown in his kitchen ready for deployment in wakeup duties.
A brass lamp in the form factor of a candle stick. The pic shows it stripped of most of the junk that came on it. We originally picked this up for the considerable scrap brass value but it seems like it might make an OK lamp to actually deploy somewhere, so we will put a new cable and fitting on it and find a shade for it. We have already used it as a candlestick.
A random bike minus the wheels and seat, we picked it up for the rear derailleur to fix the slightly stricken Fuji. Here then is the part installed and all happy. The rest went back into scrap metal as it was pretty junky and beat up.
A Dell 866 Mhz Pentium 3 laptop with 128M RAM and 20G HD. It lacks the horsepower to really run the XP installed on it but there was nothing physically wrong with it. Even the battery seems to hold a charge.
In the cdrom was a CD full of 500M of powerpoint stuff, all very important sounding business deals and such. On the machine were two users. One had a selection (on the order of hundreds) of cheesy soft-core porn in IE cache, the other had this image cached:
Errr, duh!
It turns out that the second user also had 5000+ mixed hard-core porn images in cache. Wow, a deceptive popup thingy actually turns out to be accurate! Nothing else on this machine but the porn and the powerpoint, not even regular surfing (that we could find). There were some RTFs with birthday invites and house construction info etc but they were standard issue for this demographic of computer user. Polarized porn and powerpoint 'puter.
Also found a small case Dell Pentium 4, partially stripped but useful for parts and the G-wireless PCI card that was in it.
We do not use these cards but we know people who do.
A Fuji Odessa mountain bike. This one is in OK shape except a broken derailleur hanger. That is a easy fix. It was also missing the front skewer as some guy had just taken it off rather than taking the whole bike. What a moron. We like these bikes as they make great city beater bikes, not fancy enough to be stolen, robust enough to use and reliable enough to just ride without ever doing maintainance again after the first tuneup.
A very nice All-Clad stainless pan. When found it had traces of sauce on the outside and some burnt food on the inside. We suppose that yes, it may actually be easier in some sense to toss a pan rather than clean it, but no, it is not the correct thing to do. And this pan was not difficult to clean, maybe 5 minutes scrubbing.
In the periphery of the pic you can see four items that previously appeared on this page.
Update: Pan snapped up by some friends along with a suitable lid that turned up a couple of weeks ago and did not merit a mention here on its own. Voila, a new home for a fine piece of cookware.
A Pentium 4 Dell 2.4Ghz PC with 250G HD and 256M of RAM. All seems present and correct with the machine including the data from the previous owners, a mother and daughter. Salient points:
A somewhat funky but pretty fine Maclaren pushchair in fine shape. The picture here tends to emphasize the random things that get in the way of the flash but it is nice and will be sent to a new owner by way of the list of craig. Shown sitting on a table that should have appeared on this page at some stage in the past.
It may shock you to see us installing windows for our own use, but yes we did. We have some replacement windows to put in various area of the house and these basement ones called for some 2x6 type stuff. We found some very nice 2x8 that we cut down and used to frame the hole for some of the windows. Spiffy, much better than buying the stuff, it was very solid old wood that is far denser than the modern stuff. Shown here framing out the window, no internal trim yet applied. Finished but unfinished, so to speak.
The Volvo of strollers, for those in the know, an Emmaljunga in pretty fine shape. This is all present and correct and this model has a niche following in our area so we will introduce it to its niche via the list of craig. All very nice.
Incidentally if you are in the market for a pushchair this is a pretty nice machine if you have the space for it. It is very high quality with various adjustments and has modular replaceable tops. The old style chic it exhibits might be seen as a plus or a minus, depending who you are.
A Fuji cruiser bike in very nice condition. This is almost found to order as a possibly buyer for the Huffy wanted something a little different and this might be it. Has a leather saddle, 5 or so gears, chrome mudgards etc etc. All very nice, only needed air in the tyres.
A random Schwinn kids bike, stunt nuts all round, works fine, just needed air in the tyres.
A Nishiki road bike in nice shape that has been converted from drop bars and had a cushy seat put on. The rear wheel looked like it has been driven over by a minivan, but we tossed on a new one from stock. Curiously the idle flexing of the damaged rear wheels snapped it back into shape afterwards, certainly good enough to ride on. Further investigation required.
A nice bike to ride.
A crappo Murray Redwing mountain bike that had some issues. We replaced the gear shift and fixed a flat and put new hand grips on. It still has issues, being a Murray, but is now a usable bike. It will either go to meet an owner on the list of craig or be saved for summer intern transportation.
A Mongoose Stormer mountain bike type thing. With full gears, brakes etc. It needed air in the tyres and one or two things being adjusted, otherwise looks almost new.
Just don't tell people you use it daily.
This random little side table cabinet thing seems ideal to store the ongoing booklist by the bed and hold anomalous drinks and lights and things. It is not the highest quality but certainly is better the the items it replaces (came with the house). Note that several of the books in shot and the lamp have previously appeared on this page, and if not then they should have.
A Mothercare pushchair modelled on the Maclaren umbrella design. It is in fine shape and actually might work better than the Maclaren. This may be deployed in the near future for a while before we sell it off.
A Lentek Mosquito Trap, see here for specs etc. Some scummy bottom feeder had cut the cable off this before we got to it for the 2 cents worth of copper. Other than that the thing looks unused with absolutely no reason for discard, even comes with the optional extra bug baggie. The pic shows it hiding out in the bushes, as you can see the previous owners were not considerate enough to include the propane tank, unlike those of the previous mosquito trap.
Two super cushy and pretty nice sun-lounger cushions. They have some stuff on them that may have fallen off trees but should clean up nicely. We are guessing that their apparent need of a clean is the reason for discard.
A Instep single jogging stroller in OK shape, previous owners had some strange zip-tie bodge instead of using the supplied seat adjustment. We tossed that away and shall send it to the list of craig after a quick clean. The handlbar grip is missing on one side but otherwise it seems fine. Shown displaying the fine reflective safety strips for nighttime use.
A Ikea kids' bed that can be deployed in a variety of height configurations, again check out the specs here. The one we found come with the optional extra tent sky thing. All very fine, but in its flat-packed state does not make for an interesting picture.
Next, a Trek 820 juvenile model. It had a rusty chain, which was soon remedied. Otherwise rides fine, has a few dings in the paint and no apparent reason for discard, presumably the juvenile that rode it is slightly less juvenile now, they grew out of it. Pic soon.
A Huffy Savannah. When we picked it up it had flat tyres and some flecks of rust on the chrome parts but no real reason for discard. It was also pretty dusty and likely had been passed over by those with a less appreciative eye prior to our arrival. Huffys are generally crap but when cleaned up this now looks like a cross between a sensible round-town hybrid and a hipster city bike. Amazingly it rides really nicely. Seeking new owner.
The cleanup procedure consisted of some strategic application of metal polish for the rust flecks and a squirt with the hosepipe. Wow, tricky stuff.
A Bialetti stovetop latte maker. We got one of these before and it is a fine device for certain types of coffee. This new one has the cool cow pattern on it but is missing the dingle that goes on the top. Well, we just pulled the dingle off the old one and pressed this new one into service. The previous owners seem to have used it approximately once and tossed it, I guess they just do not get it.
A mixture of books, mostly gathered by certain folks tagging along with us. First no idea why they picked up this partial Shakespeare, but at least it comes with a handy set of instructions. We would never have thought of anything so sensible.
Also an assortment of the usual suspects, Harry Potter and The Nanny Diaries etc. All very canonical, for certain canons.
A few Compaq Pentium 4 machines in various states of having been scavenged. We grabbed one nice machine and a disk to look at. Salient points:
A Kettler pedal powered car thingy to amuse offspring by making them power their own locomotion. The chain is off (easy fix) and one of the wheels may have some issues but we will see about that.
A Schwinn Cross-Fit hybrid bike. It is a fair few years old but has not been ridden to any significant degree. No real reason for discard. A puff of air in the tyres and a quick squirt with the hose leaves it all happy and ready for a new home, possibly via the list of craig. Unless that is one of you avid readers wants it at the special discount rate?
Update: Sold to a friend at a special discount rate.
A Cannondale H400 is pretty fine shape except one or two items. The rear wheel was off and the tyre and tube were missing, hence the reason for discard is probably foreign object penetration of said rubber devices. A puncture, in layman's terms. New tyre and tube from stock and it rides fine. Front tyre needed a puff of air also, presumably even if they had not had the puncture in the rear they would have tossed it anyway due to the front being slightly low. Who can tell?
The change visible on the table behind and to the right of the growler was in the little Cannondale pouch.
A delicious selection of cast iron cookware. First off a 12 inch skillet. This is for Jeff, for those who know him. Pic shows it cleaned up and cured, in fact it has already been used to cook parsnips and suchlike.
Next up a nice little cast iron pot with lid. It is in very good condition but needs a quick brush and cure. This is available.
The rest are pictured here getting a light rinse in a rainstorm. They will be dried and stored until somebody wants them. They are not as crazily rusted as the light portrays them in this picture.
An ice scraper thingy. At least that is what we think it is, it has a distinctly spade-like essence but has a flat blade with a crude edge on it. It is pretty much new and if you are lazy enough to not get your driveway cleared before the evening then this is what you need. Probably being taken by a friend.
An Instep brand bike trailer suitable for hauling two horrible offspring. This is in near new perfect condition but is missing the hitch part that bolts to the bike. Fortunately that can be obtained from the manufacturer for the quite reasonable sum of 8.99.
A Baby Trend jogging stroller in OK shape. It needs air in the tyres, a quick wash and a starring appearance on the list of craig.
Update: Sold via the list of craig.
A random Cosco car seat, nothing particularly special, but we seem to be encountering sufficient people who need one such as this so we squirreled it away for stock.
A single speed Sears bike, not the highest quality and a little beat up but this will clean up fine. That rear mudguard will straighten out also. Hipster special.
Also, this bike was acquired a while ago and was spruced up today for a chance encounter sale. Flogged off for some cash and a sixpack of beer.
The bike shop that was closing has tossed out more stuff, this time a load of tools and more spares. Here are some pics shown after initial sorting, first a large box full of inner tubes, some handlebars (davek) and bottle cages.
Some large number of BMX chains, we suspect these may be donated to an artist type or some such.
A bunch of derailleur and other associated parts.
A metric buttload of bike cables, handy as our current mode of fixing a broken cable is to pull one off a bike that is past fixing in other ways.
Finally a huge pile of bike tools, mostly Park Tools brand. Some pics of them sorted maybe later.
Today a guest entry from far flung parts, a green folding toolbox. Our correspondant was in need of such a device so checked out the prices in the hardware store. These being too high he proceded to the local used items outlets with no satisfactory outcome. Shortly afterwards this nice green model appeared in some local refuse. No apparant reason for discard. The chair under also.
A meat grinder attachment for a Kitchen-Aid mixer. This is in fine shape apart from being missing one small part. This has been offered to, and claimed by a friend with such a kitchen device.
A child safety seat identical to one we already have. This is convenient as a friend had just requested such, specifially the one we already have, and we had pledged ours. Now we give them the fresh one and keep ours as a spare.
A bike shop, going out of business, decided to toss a bunch of stuff. Some of it is only faintly interesting but there are some pretty handy things present also. A box full of BMX parts, some of which are scap alu, and some special bike tools:
Next was a large pile of new bike tyres being tossed. Some will be happy on ebay and others will be handy for fixing bikes for usage or sale. Super spiffy haul.
A 700Mhz iMac with 128M RAM, complete and in working condition. Possible reason for discard was the missing spacebar on the (slightly grubby) keyboard. It boots OK and yields an interesting insight into the life of the previous owner. Salient points include:
6 Andrea Griminelli
13 Compilations
16 George Winston 
Some random bike parts useful for fixing stuff. Some of the random ones are not so exciting (assorted pedals and such) but we did get a pair of pretty fancy wheels, Mavic rims, that were basically new old stock, seemingly never used. These are now deployed on a nice Trek we found a while ago to give a pretty nice bike. Davek, last chance before it gets sold....
Dell Pentium 4 laptop, 1.6Ghz, 256M RAM. It had a bad optical drive and bad HD but otherwise works fine. Available or will be bartered/sold for parts.
A screwpull type wine opener mounted in a "convenient" tower. We have the real Screwpull without the tower and we far prefer it to this, but somebody we know may like this for their basement bar or some other party location. Apply to us if you want it.
This is a the bottom half of a Wagner number 5 skillet set. The lid half is like a very shallow skillet and it fits neatly into the strangly shaped handle. The discarder of this unfortunately forgot to leave us the lid. Not sure what this is destined for but at the very least it will make a nice skillet for somebody when cleaned up.
A random Kawasaki mountain bike in a pretty sorry state. It was missing the front wheel, one brake pad and various cable parts. The forks were facing backwards and the cluster was not actually screwed on, it all fell off when we removed the rear wheel. All that was left of the pedals were the spindles. So, two shiny new wheels from stock, an adjustment of π radians to the steering, a tuneup for the brakes, new pedals (scavenged from a junk BMX) and it works fine. Hal?
Update: Traded to a friend for some pesto and beer and such like. All very sociable.
A Joovy Caboose Sit-n-stand stoller with seat attachment. It is in perfect, nearly new condition except the hand grip padding coming off. This is all very handy but not something we use so it is going on the list of craig forthwith.
Update:Sold to a nice lady with two offspring.
A natty little cast iron radiator set up for steam. This style sort of matches our house but as we are replete with radiators at present we shall be exposing this to other people in need of heating devices via the list of craig.
Update: Sold to a nice chap who had a leaky radiator.
Some handy dandy bike parts selected for their possible usefulness on imminent projects, davek.
A splitting maul of moderate weight with a fibreglass handle. It was a little rusty and blunt when we found it but that was soon fixed by applications of abrasive techniques of various types. Cleaned up and given to a friend. Hopefully they will use it to split lots of firewood and have nice fires in the winter, around which we can congregate and set light to booze etc.
A pretty substantial set of plastic boxes for storing one's offspring's amusement devices. One of the the blue towers was broken so we left that but a friend has taken the rest of it. All well and good.
A pretty old but sturdy Hobart meat slicer. This is the old vertical blade model (as opposed to the angled models) but it still works and looks pretty handy. We will cast around for a home for this, ultimately the list of craig may get a peek into the action. Note the stainless cart it is shown sitting on appeared on this page some time ago.
A small cast iron skillet, having been obtained some time ago, was requested by a friend. It was then exposed to the cleaning and curing process and was made ready for transit to their home cooking environment. Prior to said cleansing process it was significantly crusty and rusty.
Some small amount of bluestone for a friend to make a small area for a fire thingy. No big deal.
A nice green Schwinn Breeze bike. It has flat (but new) tyres, perfect chrome mudguards, fine seat, good paint. Some rust in various places but all that will come off nicely. The gear cable is a little shy of its proper connected state but that should fix up easily. Some hipster is hunting for this bike with cash in hand, not literally as hipsters don't carry cash, but nevertheless they will come back four days later with that money. It should also provide entertainment for us riding it around until it is sold, these bikes can be quite relaxing to ride for a while.
The special romantic photographic effects are just what an iPhone does in this particular light.
Yet another Topeak bike seat for kids. We have sold a few of these recently and this one is in near perfect condition so it should sell well also.
A Trail-a-bike device for pretending that your offspring are contributing to the general familial propulsion effort. This is in perfect shape except for being missing the attachment point. It will probably go on the list of craig neverthlessas said attachments are available seperately from reputable outlets. Shown below in the folded position.
A corner of Egbert is just about visible in the top of the picture. Some horrible offspring seems to have drawn on his leg.
Update: Bought by a very pleasant and with-it couple who had even already got the missing attachment device. What a refreshing change.
A super fancy Kelty rucksack for carrying one's offspring. This is in really nice shape and is a pretty fine example of its type. Cleaned and ready for the list of craig.
Two single jogging strollers, same brand, different conditions. The blue one is near perfect, pretty much never been used and good to go. The little rubbers hairs have not even worn off the tyres. The purple one had some brake issues and rusty poppers but cleaned up nicely enough for the list of craig, at a discouinted price iof course relative to the blue one.
Update: Blue one sold quickly. Purple still waiting for a home.
This was picked up a few weeks ago but for some reason got neglected in issues of documentation. A mosquito killer thingy complete with full cannister of gas. It starts right up and seems to run so all is well there. We have no idea what the reason for discard was on this, it is in excellent condition modulo some dust etc. We gave it to a friend who likes such things, but only after we deployed it for a party at a different friend's house (yes, you may infer that we have more than one friend!). The only thing it might need is a the little attractant smelly thing, it being a consumable. Pic shows it in dismantled state for transport.
Yet another clown bike. This one is smaller than the previous one and will be used in the lab as a procrastination device or job candidate filter. Pic soon.
A bike trailer suitable for dragging a brace of offspring around. Seems in OK shape and seems to amuse offspring mightily when deployed. Despite its great entertainment value we will be letting it entertain somebody else's offspring via the list of craig.
A map filing cabinet in pretty fine shape and all ready to file maps in. A pity we have none worth filing. This will hit the list of craig in an attempt to find a new owner.
Update: Sold on the list of craig within a day or so, a nice lady wanted it for her offsprings' art. Hmmmm.
A Baby Trend double Jogger that seems brand new and never used. The brakes were not set up even and it did not need a wash. This will be sent to meet its purchasers on the list of craig.
Further, a single Baby Trend Jogger double in similar condition. It needed air in the tyres and may actually have been used once or twice. This also will be sold.
Further, a Graco random newish stroller. All present and correct and barely needs a clean before going to the list of craig. Quite a haul of indistinguishable-from-new strollers today.
Update: The two singles sold within a few days, the double will have to wait for the next crest of the IVF twins wave, so next month maybe.
A brace of Dell Pentium 4 PC machines. First one a 2.66Ghz, 75G HD, missing the memory. On the HD was a completely fresh install of XP waiting for first boot config etc.
Next a Pentium 4 Dell, very similar but better motherboard ( more ram slots and better graphics setup). Some Notes:
254 CMJ New Music Monthly
135 Chris Whitley
132 Various Artists
114 Compilations
106 Aesop Rock
101 Jazz Artists
100 25 Jazz Greats
97 The Beatles
95 Neko Case
84 Led Zeppelin
80 David Bowie
75 The Roots
75 Cocteau Twins
74 Sea Songs
70 Jill Scott
69 The Beastie Boys
66 Irish Artists
66 Edith Piaf
66 Bruce Springsteen
66 80's Artists
63 PJ Harvey
63 Paste
62 Indigo Girls
61 Badly Drawn Boy
60 Beck
57 Jack Johnson
55 Prince
54 Gipsy Kings
50 Dave Matthews Band
50 Country Artists
49 Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
47 Blues Artists
46 Peter Gabriel
46 Fleetwood Mac
44 We Love New York
44 Virgin Recommends
44 Iron And Wine
A Babytrend double jogger in near perfect condition. It needed air in the tyres and a further application of compressed air to blow the dust off. It does not even have the sticky folding mechanism that is so common on these models, though we oiled it up anyway so as to be ready for several years service after we sell it to the nice people shortly to be introduced to us by the list of craig. It seems it had never been set up correctly as the brake quick release was in the open position and was not closable without cable adjustment. Fixed now.
Further, a Babyjogger double in fine shape. This one is more of a pain to fold but has aluminium wheels and frame etc. The air was still in the tyres so it just needed a wash to be ready for its new owner. Horror film style pic here for now, check back soon for a better one?
Update from the future: Obviously we never fixed the picture
A green Schwinn bike that, once cleaned up, looks respectable enough for a hipster. This was pulled from curbside by a friend who will be wined and dined at our expense once we sell this. See, reuse of garbage is a social catalyst as well as the correct thing to do.
Random kiddy trike in perfect shape and all too ready to go into the breach that is offspring entertainment.
A Golf bag, possibly of use to some friends of ours. We shall see next time they come over for Kasseler, maybe they will want this.
A random plastic chair that happens to match those of friends of ours, hence it was acquired and dispatched off to their house. The fact that said friends we along for the ride helped of course.
A veritable array of Britax kid seats for usage in newfangled automobiles. Those in the know will know what there is to know about Britax, i.e. they are pretty good. One has damaged insert, that will have the cover scavenged. A couple more are sort of too old, we may pull covers of them likewise. So far 3 have cleaned up to near perfect condition, ready for the list of craig or other usage. Note, not all of them are shown in this pic, the bench under the back row previously appeared on this page and is now rehabilitated enough to put into regular usage. No name yet.
An offspring containment bouncer thingy. Comes with built in amusement plastic things. This again for aforementioned friend.
Some random Sit-n-stand stroller in OK shape. It is actually also a regular dual seated stroller so all very flexible etc. Destined for the list of craig we feel.
A random Huffy kids bike in pretty fine condition. The chain guard had embrittled so we broke that off and threw it away. Awaiting an appropriatly sized kid to come and draw blood on it.
A plastic garbage can full of tools. Including sockets, ratchets, spanners (Craftsman), spark tester, hole saws, screwdrivers, marking bob, some files, brace, old stanley level, and all sorts of extra goodies.
Apart from all the loose hand tools there was also a Craftsman power sander, the pic is pretty self explanatory. Works fine.
Well, somebody actually wanted to buy the Sting Ray and it was most convenient to meet nearby for handover. The journey there being mostly downhill it was actually feasible to ride the thing there. The new owner was very shaky on the bike (natural, bearing in mind its preposterous geometry) so we left her practising and took the money and ran.
A Maclaren Techno XT single pushchair in excellent condition but with sand in the crevices. Found nearby were winter covers for another Maclaren, probably a double.
A Maclaren Vogue single pushchair in good shape but dusty. It will be subjected to cleaning procedures and sold off via the list of craig.
An Instep jogger in OK condition. Entirely unremarkable and it will hopefully find a new home in a routine manner via the list of craig.
Also a Safety First pushchair in fancy modern form factor. It has some issues folding but we expect to be able to fix that. Otherwise in pristine condition. No pic yet.
An entirely typical pack and play, also the extra accessories for another including hood, hammock thingy and changing table. The list of craig for the lot of it, unless you happen to need them dear reader?
A piece of maple butcher block about 3 ft by 4 ft by 2 inches thick. It is very nice, no cracks etc. The finish on it is pretty thick and nasty but that will have protected the wood nicely. Previously was configured as a single legged table. It this were 4ft by 10 ft we would use it as a dining table but alas no. It may become a coffee table or some addition to a kitchen. We will see.....
Two luxury Peg Perego High chairs in fine shape. They both have the fake leather cover on them, both need a clean but are otherwise ready for deployment under some messy offspring's butt. Fine examples of their type, note that Martinelli is just rebadged Peg Perego for these purposes.
A Britax car seat for year old offspring and up. It has a luxury cover and is in good shape modulo the clean it requires. This may be used for a while and then sold, barterd or whatever. This has the less annoying buckling arrangement.
A Peg Perego Venezia pushchair in dark blue and nice shape. It is all very spiffy and in fact was sold before it got a chance to appear here or on the list of craig, luckily we grabbed a pic of it at some stage.
A Peg Perego Milano, similarly in nice shape and dark blue.This one has the full insulated winter cover and hood, all very nice. It has on adjustor button that is problematic, we will work on that. Going on the list of craig if no readers of this page snap it up.
A random cheapo jogger that needed a couple of tweaks and some oil. All is well with it now , brakes adjusted, tyres pumped up and it is on the list of craig waiting for a new owner.
A pretty fancy modern Snap-and-go, it is constrained in its usefulnes in that it only take Graco infant seats but somebody will want it on the list of craig for some amount of money. Egbert visible again through the leaves!
A hydraulic lifting table very similar to this one apart from the diamond-plate top. It was covered in a fine dust and the let-down valve was disconnected. A quick clean and a new bolt later it seems in fine shape and works, the rubber mat that goes on top is not present in the pic, it is being cleaned elsewhere.
A SanDisk 256M CF card. While this size is not as useful as it might once have been, it has the entertainment value of the pictures on it. We have gained a disposable CF card and the elevation of our artistic souls though pics such as this:
I think you have to agree that whatever the (de)merits of this particular image, it is superior to a picture of the CF card itself. Unless maybe we edited the card into this pic...... Hint: check the exif headers, or just save it to your Mac desktop and look.
An Emmaljunga pushchair/pram thing. This is a Swedish super fancy offspring portability mechnism which allows you to swap the top part from pram to pushchair arrangement and has full recline and loads of stuff even on the regular pushchair mode. Rolls nicely, looks great. Probably the bext price for this will come from selling it on the list of craig to some crazy scando dog owner, but we will see.
This random Nishiki has been floating around quite some time, we have no idea where we got it from but we definitely got it from some discard arrangement, hence it is elligable here. Anyway, an acquaintance wants a real beater bike for city usage and this may well be it. Missing front derailleur but some scavenged tyres and a flat fix make it into an unexpectedly pleasant ride.
Update: Bike now has a front derailleur installed and is now seeing regular use as city beater. Fine stuff, with friends like us who needs the craigslist?
First, another bike off that pile shown the other day is a Trek 800. Upon acquisition it looked a bit sorry, the tyres were off the rims and the tubes hanging out. However; once they were popped back on and given a puff of compressed air they seemed fine. In fact in this pic it seems pretty damn shiny! Seems like the previous owner was just plain stupid, or some such. This has been given a squirt with the hose, a wipe with an oily rag and is now proudly advertised of the list of craig. Pic shows it posing with the ever-present recently acquired chair. This chair has appeared so much here that maybe we ought to give it a name? Suggestions? We propose Egbert.
This is a Roadmaster Mt. Fury (??) in almost brand new condition. Such a pity that is a complete piece of junk that should never have been manufactured in the first place. One wheel nut was missing from the front wheel but we soon found a replacement kicking around for that. Again, this will be sold pronto, if there is any bike we wish to get rid of this is it. Well this and the idiotic Schwinn from a few days ago.
An offspring amusement tube in brand new perfect condition. You might well ask how an offspring amusement tube works in its designated capacity, but empirically we find that the offspring in question have an excellent innate knowledge of how to make it work.
A pretty shiny Graco Pack and Play, all present and correct and in perfect condition. We may use this for offspring containment purposes as it is so spiffy. Then maybe later sell it on the list of craig.
A Sears Craftsman jigsaw. This has the steerable blade thing and a nice fence. When found it had the plug cut off but it was the work of but a moment to wire one on for testing purposes. Voila, it worked. Already claimed by tk we think.
A pretty fancy folding golf bag trolley that we think might be useful for a friend. That or scrap aluminium. Rotate your vision -π/2 for the pic:
An Instep Safari TT double jogger in fine usable shape. Comes with 5 point harness, seat liners (not shown in pic), folds easily, peek-a-boo window, locking front wheel swivel etc etc. Some sun damage, a couple of screws loose and air required in the pneumatic road contact devices. No real reason for discard. Available or destined for the list of craig.
Some rags to hang on the offspring as they grow, mostly just for legal reasons as we see no reason to demand they wear clothes. Note they are draped over the chair recently featured here, said chair has entered arduous service in the outdoor zone quite sucessfully.
A Peg Perego Venezia pushchair that seems to be in very nice condition and has loads of features. A quick cleanup and it is good for the list of craig or other outlets.
A pretty nice single jogger, InStep brand, 5k model. It has a digital odometer/speedometer and is in near perfect condition with hood and all that stuff. This will be sold off as we do not need it.
A Graco Duo glider stroller in nice shape. These are a reliable commodity around here so it will be turned into ale and victuals via the intermediate step of cash from a person introduced to us via the list of craig.
A little patio fireplace thingy. This has some potential usefulness to us so we may well try it out in the bottom of the garden in the late night patio area.
The first one examined from that large pile of bikes is a Trek 820, it has been used, needed some air in the tyres and a clean but seems fine. It will be a great the list of craig station bike sale, of maybe for JP? JPR not JPL.
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