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The Stuff Page: Things that ended up tossed but that seem like they have another life ahead of them.

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2006-06-03 Dell P3

1GHz Dell Pentium 3 PC with a nice 256M RAM chip and 10G HD plus DVD rom. We got this mainly for sending to certain avid teenaged tinkerers (you know who you are!). It does not seem to boot (hardware/power supply issue) and has linux installed on it. Whole or in parts it will still be sent off. Pic shows it pulled apart so that I could inspect the HD on another machine (yours Charlie) using knoppix.

Dell Pentium 3

Update: After reseating memory, CPU, HD and all motherboard connectors this PC now works fine. Canadian rebuild strikes again! Currently running knoppix on it watching Ultraviolet with xine as a test of the machine. Check out the screenshot of this here, Dr March is just cleaning up Mike's leech bite. Machine will now be sent complete with extra parts added in rather than as extra parts itself.

 

2006-05-27 Stainless thingies

Somebody had zip tied 3 bosch oil pumps together and plumbed their inputs and outputs together with very fancy stainless tube fittings such as those sold on this page . As we often purchase and use fittings just such as these we dismantled the assembly, tossed all the junk and the pumps and kept the fittings. Spiffy, the collection included stuff such as these in sizes such as 1/2 inch tube and 5/16 inch tube resp.:

fittingsfittings

The whole arrangement looked pretty new so I suspect the construction was rather speculative and did not work. And no Rob, these pumps would be no use for your your reclamation setup. For other things maybe some use. Pic of them hangining out between on a shelf

fittings
 

2006-05-27 Stainless Drum Dolly

A newish stainless steel 55 gallon drum dolly. These are not cheap, check out McMaster again here ,l item number 2608T14 near the bottom. I have no real use for it so it is up for grabs (Christine??) before I try and find somebody to pay for it. Or maybe I should expand my own oil reclamation activities?

drum dolly
 

2006-05-27 Scrap Brass Update

The brass we found was 135 lbs and scrap brass is now USD 1.70 per pound. Woohoo!

 

2006-05-27 Scrap Al

No, not the long lost imitator of Weird Al . Al as in the element, or alloys thereof. We finally caved in and picked up some scrap aluminium, mostly because we found a whole pile of good solid chunks of it. It is not as valuable as copper/brass etc but when you find chunks weighing 20 lbs it becomes worthwhile to collect

 

2006-05-27 Puter parts

Some memory and a 30G HD, blah blah. Memory will go to ebay as part of a job lot. The HD had the following salient points:

All in all a nice view into the life of a "normal" internet user. Very satisfying to see some nice cliches fulfilled. Here is a pic from the family Christmas Trip to Radio City Music Hall, at least from what I can gather. Do they let you take pics in there, maybe this pic is illegal also?

family pic at radio city
 

2006-05-26 Buckles and such

We found a fancy rucksack/carryon converter bag with lots of fittings on it. Bag was a little decrepit but the snap fittings etc were good so we cut them off. These will possibly be used in some form of custom offspring retention device, maybe as part of aforementioned homemade baby-bjorn project.

 

2006-05-24 Calphalon Update

The most recent 12inch calphalon frying pan we found has duly made its way back to us after having every part of itself simultneously replaced by the manufacturers under warranty. Nice.

 

2006-05-19 Printer

An Epson c84 printer, see here for example. Needed cleaning but seemingly works. Spiffy.

 

2006-05-19 Laptops

Two 500Mhz Pentium 3 laptops good for not much at all, ITC brand (who are they we ask, without caring to hear the answer). Donated to somebody who seems to value such things so fast that there is no pic, good turnaround.

 

2006-05-15 Tricycle

The existing tricycle that was deployed to amuse the offspring of guests was getting rusty, a testament to its permenant outdoor home. We found an new and inferior version today, inferior because it is plastic, but it will not rust I guess. It will just embrittle and fade. Either way it is on much better shape than the last one, o9ut with the old and in with the "new"

plastic tricycle
 

2006-04-30 iMac box

An iMac x86 shipping box. This will be sold to some mac user at some point. Bonus inclusion was all the docs and the OS 10.4.4 install/restore CD. Woohoo!

iMac box
 

2006-04-29 Scrap Brass

We found a sufficient quantity of brass sitting on one place to incent us to pick it up. Probably a 100 or so pounds of it. This will all duly be converted into meat and wine via the arcane alchemical process of driving it to a non-ferrous metal scrap dealer and taking the money they hand over to the meat and wine repositories. I am not sure what the exact scrap price of brass is but I know it is unseasonably high. No pic for now, you know what brass looks like.

 

2006-04-28 Pool Table

A local dive bar has been purchased for its booze license and the new owners have decided to toss the pool table. We happened by at the right time and found a home for it. It is real slate and pretty heavy though the furniture elements are somewhat beat up from being in a dive bar the last 20 years or so. Pic shows it loaded into the trailor for transport to its new home. Those of you sneering at my prior perceived trailor snobbery should shut up now.

pool table
 

2006-04-22 iBook

A late model toilet seat is seemingly pretty good condition. It chimes when the power button is pushed but does not get any further that we can see. Various pieces will be sold to Mac dudes anxious for spare parts.

toilet seat
 

2006-04-22 Helmet

Either a WWI/II British helmet or a WWI US helmet. Pretty ratty but cool. I think it has only a small value on ebay but a friend of mine likes such things so we will show it to him. Any ideas what that insignia means?

helmet
 

2006-04-22 Drill

An oldish drill that still seems to function but is way too crappy for our usage. Not that we are drill snobs you understand, but we have several far superior models already. A friend wishes to have it so that is all well and good. I just wish he would have told me last week when I had to the chance to pick up a basic milwaukee drill for 10 USD almost new.

drill
 

2006-04-22 Calphalon

Yet another juicy Calphalon 12inch omelet non-stick with the teflon worn off. We all know where this is going, it even looks almost exactly the same as the last one of this size.

calphalon 12inch
 

2006-04-18 Plonk

At an estate sale, having selected lots of juicy items, I found some bottles of fizzy hidden in the tool cupboard in the basement. I brought them up from the basement for the attention of the bereaved daughter. The juicy items I of course paid for and hence they do not appear here except in passing. After I pointed out the value of some items I did not want however, I was given a bottle of the fizzy plonk, free stuff. We shall sample it at an approriate time. Pic shows the plonk in front of two of the super bargains I got.

plonk
 

2006-04-17 Taps and Extractor

Two threading taps (1/2 course and 12mm 1.5) and large stud extractor. Quite possibly handy things to have so they go into the machine tools chest for future use.

taps and extractor
 

2006-04-17 Swirler

A swirler thingy for mixing or agitating things. It looks absolutely brand new and in fact the power cord that was right next to it was still sealed in its plastic bag. Upon first test it did not work but when I opened it up and gave it a hand assist start it ran fine. After that it started fine on its own. Special. It is an MS 450 Swirler by IKA, I guess.

swirler
 

2006-04-16 Hard Drive Fun

Aforementioned hard drive was found to have the following data:

 

2006-04-15 PC Parts

Some random PC parts, memory, HD, good sound card, graphics etc etc. These will be sent to approriate users of such, including certain industrious teenagers intent on turning every PC they touch into a miraculous chimera of functionality. You know who you are...

 

2006-04-15 Outdoor Chair Legrests

Four intriguing legrests for outdoor chairs. By great good fortune they even fit on our teak chairs. I do not really like them but we will see what shall become of them. Example shown here attached to one of our chairs.

footrest
 

2006-04-15 Jack

Jack not name, Jack job. All very fine. This thing works sort of but needs some work. It is however better than one of my other jacks (same source) so I may do that work and press it into service.

jack
 

2006-04-15 Books

A nice selection of books. There were a whole bunch of them but I cherry picked a little. Includes Allende: Daughter of Fortune, Sobel: Longitude and some Discworld stuff (not shown).

books
 

2006-04-13 Le Creuset Pot

One red Le Creuset pot with lid in very nice shape. The inside was a little dirty but it seems to have cleaned up OK. The enamel is in OK shape inside (as opposed to having been worn down to the iron) so this is all ready to be used now. Check it out on Amazon.

le creuset
 

2006-04-07 Keg

A 15.5. gallon stainless steel beer keg with Sankey connector on top. It was labelled Miller and was half full. We immediately conveyed this to our friendly neighbourhood brewpub so that I might incurr the brewmaster's gratitude. When I marveled at its good condition and the fact that it had been tossed into the general scrap metal some regulars at the bar pointed out that the fact that it was half full of Miller is enough to make any sane person throw it away. Indeed. No pic for now, you know what a keg looks like.

 

2006-03-28 Wheels

Two pretty nice Mavic bike wheels with Shimano 600 stuff on them. The tyres are fancy schmancy ones and brand new never ridden. These will go to a friend who has a possible need for such things.

bike wheels
 

2006-03-28 Mac Kdb

Present was iMac 233 Mhz or thereabouts but the only really useful parts was this keyboard. No sign of the mouse.

mac keyboard
 

2006-03-11 Coat Rack?

This morning, while we were rennovating the back porch, somebody said, "Wouldn't it be nice to put a coat rack there?". Ask and you shall receive. This is not a coat rack but it seems to be some kind of heavy duty convergent evolution equivalent of one. The only markings on it say "Hub Rak". I have some spare hubs for the car mentioned above in the basement but I am pretty sure I will not be keeping them on this thing. Pic shows it after a slight clean, it is heavy guage galvanized steel with some slight rust on the "pegs". Maybe we will regalvanize it next time we do a batch?

coat rack
 

2006-03-11 Car Seat

The offspring project has exhibited substantial growth in the longest dimension and has in fact outgrown the particular car seats claimed to be relevent to her age group. Hence we have been looking for nice example of the next size up. Voila, we found one today. The other car already has one (the denim covered britax previously seen on this page a while ago) but here is the new one installed into the car that needed one. It seems pretty much brand new and has good attachment straps.

car seat
 

2006-03-08 Snow Chains

A pair of pretty heavy and moderately old snow chains. They fit 7.50x16 and have some surface rust but seem in pretty good shape A test fit onto a convenient wheel went well. I have passed them onto a friend who may have need of these things. No pic, think piles of rusty looking chain and you will have the correct visual.

 

2006-03-01 Cast Iron

A medium sized cast iron campfire cooking pot complete with lid, it has never been used and had surface powder rust on it. I cleaned all that off and cured it and voila, you see it before you. Seems fine for all sorts of cooking activities.

camp pot
 

2006-02-27 Media

We were given access to a newish iBook that was purchased on eBay. The iBook of course is not "stuff" for this page but the data left on it is fair game, i.e. it was unambiguously discarded and we got it for free. No cleanup had been done prior to shipping out the machine. As far as we can tell the story goes as follows:

Here is gets a little self-referential. Below is a picture of the machine (we think) that we found on the HD of the machine itself, probably taken for the purposes of eBaying said machine. Of course, the machine itself is not actually "stuff" by our definition, but the picture of it was free and hence appears here.

ibook picture
 

2006-02-26 Spanner

Small spanner double open end with sizes 7/16 and 3/8. Better than a kick in the butt as these are pretty useful sizes.

spanner
 

2006-02-26 Cast Iron Pan

A 12 inch (lip to lip) cast iron skillet that says "Made in USA" on the bottom but is not a named brand. In very good condition with a nice cure on it as shown in the pic. Available to the first person who informs me that they want it.

cast iron skillet
 

2006-02-18 Laser

A Helium Neon Gas Laser. Hmm, how useful. These things sell for quite a price on ebay sometimes so I think we will get rid of it, will fetch a few dollars and make somebody happy. We did not find the power supply (12V) for it so have not tried it but seems in OK shape.

laser
 

2006-02-17 Songbook

The New York Times Great Songs of Broadway. This will be for a friend who is more musically inclined than we are. Inclined towards actual production of music that is, and probably also consumption. These guys seem to want to sell you one.

songbook
 

2006-02-17 Ruler

A stainless steel ruler with centimetres and inches marked, useful in our household due to the mixture of mesurement needs, users and capabilities.

steel ruler
 

2006-02-17 Mac box

A shipping box for a recent 12inch powerbook complete with inserts and some pistacio shells. This will be sold to some rabid mac-head at some point. It is in very nice condition so it could be destined for the *mint* obsession crowd rather than the pragmatic "need a shipping box" crowd. Lovely.

mac box
 

2006-02-16 Update.

The Calphalon 4qt posted here 2004-12-10 and sent off as part of a warranty return batch has come back. We used it quite a lot prior to sending it off but the anodized finish had come off inside and we were always missing a lid. Note the before and after pics, before first

old pot

Instead of basic Calphalon Commercial they sent us Calphalon One, maybe they have discontinued the Commercial line? Pan is quite nice, lid is big improvement over some of the lids on the older Commercial line.

new pot
 

2006-01-27 PC parts

Pile of parts from a PC. On the HD we see the following:

Below is a banner that the owner of this machine seems to have followed up on. AFAIK it seems pretty tame stuff (we did not check out the site) but the cache dirs display evidence of having sampled this site. And no, for those of you asking the question already this is none of our congressman, senator or governer. Still waiting for that stuff to show up, watch this space.

banner
 

2006-01-24 Calphalon

Yet more calphalon, a 12 inch nonstick omelet and a 10 inch anodised omelet. Also a silicone heatproof handle cover shown in the pic sported by an unrelated pan. The big nonstick might be worn enough to be warrantied, or we might just use it. The anodised pan is dirty but in OK "well used" shape, nothing to warrant warranty replacement, so to speak. That may be sent to a friend who recently requested such things of us.

skillets
 

2006-01-22 Mac Monitor

A Mac studio CRT display, not the super huger size but a very nice monitor. This is being donated to winestore owner for his ensuing "conversion" over to Mac from Windows. He got a dual 1Ghz G4 donated (not from us) and I guess one must have all the right peripherals. Shown here being tested on an ubuntu machine lurking in the background that normally runs headless, the more astute amoung you may recognise that machine from its prior appearance on this page.

monitor
 

2006-01-22 Bike

A pretty new updated ladies bicycle. Updated in that it is a fairly traditional form and style but with fancy all new modern components. Tyres needed air and brakes adjusting and voila, a fine bike. Has that interesting super low first gear to remove need for multiple front chainrings.

bike
 

2006-01-18 Gateway all-in-one

OK, picked up a Gateway Profile 400Mhz with 128M RAM, like this one. Booted fine into Windows 98, seems to work. Booted knoppix DVD on it and it seems to have trouble, optical drive trouble. Tried different knoppix CD, no improvement.

Parts are standard laptop stuff so I grabbed a DVDrom from a toshiba laptop, stripped off the toshiba mounts and IDE connection shim, and put the gateway stuff on it. Plonked it in and knoppix booted OK. Upon showing my achievement to a colleague, he grabbed the corner of the still dismantled machine and it went dead. Hmmm. No light, no bios, nothing. At this point I personally declared success because I had fixed what was initially wrong with the thing, but I suspected a warped motherboard had now killed the machine. For some reason he dismantled further. Getting close to fundamentals he tried a last test boot and it worked, hence we remantled piece by piece test booting as we went. Eventually was fully working and all together, change knoppix CD yet again to avoid a big piece of bitrot we dicovered and it works great.

Phew. Now, on the HD was a pile of word docs (homework assigment type stuff) , some porn movies, some music, Napster, Kazaa etc etc. Usual stuff, here are the top 20 domains previous owner got cookies from:

    138 sextracker
     88 go
     83 hitbox
     51 yahoo
     28 aol
     27 advertising
     26 sportsline
     25 co
     24 msn
     22 nj
     22 att
     18 weather
     18 porncity
     17 cnn
     15 gator
     14 porntrack
     13 villanova
     13 lycos
     12 mediaplex
     12 fastclick

Nicely representative I would think. This machine will become some kind of installed art at the hands of the Z dudes or something as it is quite a handy form factor for that.

 

2006-01-14 Some memory

Some crappo PC100 memory. Big whooppee.

 

2006-01-14 Loads of Calphalon

A nice batch of the basic Calphalon commercial stuff. These are the style with the plated, slightly crude cast handles. Specifically:

Here are two of the pots pretending to be a happy set. These two will be sent off on Tuesday to be warrantied (loss of anodized finish inside...).

pans

And the rest of it in a junkpile-like ensemble. These will be dealt with in due course. The lids we keep as Calphalon send you new lids when ever you return stuff. Finally we now have enough lids!

pans
 

2006-01-14 Fancy bike

A super fancy Softride Windshear bike. It has loads of gears, fancy wheels, fancy bouncy saddle mount thing, and elbow bars. Missing one quick release skewer but otherwise in pretty fine shape. We may ride this for a while and then sell it or part it out. The mileage computer on the handlebars has 4000+ miles on the clock. No idea why it was discarded, though I talked to the discarder. I did not want to ask him why as he then might have reconsidered tossing it.

bike
 

2006-01-11 Update - 12inch Omelet skillet

One of two things happened to the 12inch omelet skillet from 2005-10-29, either I got it renewed with the Calphalon lifetime warranty, or I stripped off the remaining nonstick, you judge by the pic what happened:

skillet
 

2006-01-10 Mac Keyboard

After having given away our last Mac full keyboard last week we conveniently found an identical one. Some kind of cosmic conservation of junk law seems to be in operatyion here, must investigate further. It had some form of coffee stain in one corner (compare, the one we just gave away originally had coca cola spilt on it) but when tested it all works fine. Quick clean and it is good as new, see the pic:

mac keyboard
 

2006-01-07 Pancake griddle

Bottom of the range Caphalon pancake thingy similar to this. I have no real use for it but we will hang onto it as maybe one of you has a use for it??

pancake griddle
 

2006-01-07 3x P3

Three Pentium 3 PC machines. First one, a small form factor HP with Windows 98 installed. It is now all happily upgraded to an 800Mhz with 256M Ram and donated to a worthy recipient. On the HD:

ties

Next machine, a Dell 800MHz with a fresh clean install of Windows XP on it, seems to have never been used after the install. Handy Dandy. Needs more memory and a network card but otherwise is ready for something. No pic.

Last machine, a crappy Gateway 500Mhz with barely enough ram to boot it's Windows 98 install. More to come on this one?

 

2006-01-05 Mac Kbd

Yet another Mac keyboard, very good condition, bright green back, lots of sparkly little stars stuck all over it. Works fine, no pic as I have Mac keyboard fatigue.

 

2005-12-31 Wireless card

Compaq iPaq PCMCIA wireless card, new in wrapper. Useless to us I think so will be sold or traded. Looks fancy and shiny.

ipaq card
 

2005-12-31 Sat TV stuff

Everybody is ditching satellite TV round here, maybe for HD cable? The hardware is pretty useless but some poeple want this stuff so we picked up an assortment of junk.

sat TV stuff
 

2005-12-31 Puter parts

Wow. A guy disposing of his PC decided to shred pretty much the entire machine with a knife and physically break every part he could in order to protect his data from those evil hacker ID thieves he knew to be lurking. Kudos to him for the right idea but his execution as a bit OTT. We salvaged his 1Ghz CPU, 256M PC133 memory, firewire card and some other junk. I think he kept the HD, which was all he really had to do, but who knows what stray data was lost on the motherboard? Extra 800MHz cpu sneaked into this ensemble pic:

computer parts
 

2005-12-31 Laptop

Crapped out Compaq Pentium 2 Laptop that has broken screen. Not worth our time but somebody might want to fix/break it. We will see if anybody snaps it up on ebay.

laptop
 

2005-12-31 Carhart

A Carhart jacket. Modelled here by a transient guest, chainsaw purely optional, only used for modelling purposes. Don't try this at home. Nevertheless, jacket is pretty fine.

jacket
 

2005-12-30 Mac Keyboard

Yet another mac keyboard, quite a nice one with numpad and an interesting stain in one part. Works fine so was probably tossed because previous MacHead owner, being the supreme aesthete, did not like the stain, and upgraded to the newer version in purest white. Will come in handy at some point, sale trade or usage.

mac keyboard
 

2005-12-24 Compaq Pentium 3

Middling useful Pentium 3 Compaq. 733MHz, 13G HD, 256M memory. Was previously used by employee of J. P. Morgan but did not have much on the HD. Either this individual never really used the machine or the thing was cleaned up by management stuff. VPN stuff and all sorts of shared drive links still in place so I think this machine was used a telecommute box by somebody who never worked from home. Pic showing the thing booting into a very self referential situation there, this page seen in picture on left hand monitor.

P3
 

2005-12-24 Calphalon

Two calphalon items, both without lid. Why do people not throw their lids away with their high end pots and pans? How frustrating. This time a 2.5 qt sauce pan and a 3 qt shallow saute pan thing like this. We have one of the 2.5 qt already but the saute thingy is a welcome addition to the cookware shelves.

saute pan
 

2005-12-17 Drive duplicator

HDS 8000 drive duplicator, makes up to 7 clones at once from an IDE drive. Read the manual as pdf here. I am guessing this was tossed because it does not do SATA. Either way, it seems to work so far, great for fast sneakernet parallelization or just cloning drives for servers (I need the SATA version for the servers I have in mind). If I had a cybercafe I would probably use it. As I do not, it may be sent to ebay or craigslist.

drive cloning
 

2005-12-13 Update

Of the four DVD players found a while ago the following has so far been ascertained. All are pretty fancy and play many media typres, VCD, CD, mp3 CD etc etc. Further:

 

2005-12-10 USB Mouse

An ever desirable USB mouse. Seems to work fine, pic shows it being tested out on a random laptop but will probably find a home elsewhere.

usb mouse
 

2005-12-10 Old Apple

Some old Apple II something or other. The last one like this went very well on eBay hence we will see if there are any takers for this, whole or in part. Not yet tested.

apple II thing
 

2005-12-10 Calphalon Pan

A small calphalon pan, minus lid. It is in very nice condition, a few scratches in the Teflon. Still waiting on warranty experiments on the last one listed here so not sure what we will do on this one. Picture shows it being pressed into service boiling up receptables recently relieved of their payload of 6 week old baby food.

calphalon pan
 

2005-12-04 Rollator

A wheeled walker thingy. We actually picked this up a while ago but it slipped into the cracks in that clunky interface between real world and internet until now. While we do not currently have need of this particular assistive technology, we may in the future. But who knows, by then we might have gravitic-repulsor-micro-modules or some such nonsense. Mmmmm, maybe we should get rid of this then, perfect condition, made in Sweden, probably the Volvo of walkers, or the Saab? Might have to hit craigslist.

walker
 

2005-12-03 Dell LCD

Dude, I got a Dell 1905FP 1280x1024 LCD display. Perfect for you high tech puter users out there! See, see how 1337 I am with my fancy screen and other bling bling? Unfortunately, see picture, this has some vertical lines on the screen. That is rather intriguing. This thing was made in May 2005 and according to Dell it has a 4 year warranty, so we may have to follow that path and see where it leads. Failing that further investigations will be made.

dell lcd
 

2005-12-03 Bungee

A Gunk brand rubber bungee thingy, pretty short one but brand new still with its label on. Always a handy item when one has a big fat roofrack and a trailor.

bungee
 

2005-11-26 Fireguard

A nice simple fireguard in good shape. Not that we have a fire of course but somebody I know will want it. Hal?

fireguard
 

2005-11-26 DVD player

A Daewoo DVD player that deals with all of DVD, CD, MP3 CD, Kodak Picture disks. No VCD listed on there, strange. Anyway, looks like it might work though I have no need for it.

dvd player

Also 3 more similar very modern DVD players found. Does this mean people are tossing their DVD gear for PC based home media centre equipment? MythTV or the M$oft equivalent?

 

2005-11-26 Bike parts

A partial bike with some good parts and some parts without a bike. Pic shows the partial bike and a skewer that came on a wheel that was bent but had a very nice hybrid tyre on it. Gear cluster was intriguing also but damaged.

bike parts
bike parts
 

2005-11-25 Rotel Amplifier

A Rotel RX950AX, comes with some videos switching capabilities. Looks quite nice and if it works I may use it instead of my current Denon (also a piece of found electronics). Now I know why people strive to get such bargains on so called "Black Friday", this certainly looks fine and the price was right.

Rotel amp
 

2005-11-25 HP video thingy

A HP ex5000 video thingy that one might use to transduce between TCP/IP and TV video (composite). I guess you can shoot video from your desktop/laptop anywhere in the house to a TV with this. Seems pretty hokey to me, why not just dump the TV in the first place. Oh well, we will test it and get rid of it I guess. Presumably was from same former owner as the amp above.

hp IP -> Video
 

2005-11-25 Bike Parts

A rear wheels and saddle plus fancy seat pole, useful for a couple of the partial bikes we have kicking around. Too boring for a pic.

 

2005-11-19 Puters

Two Pentium 3 computers of super no-name brand but seemingly cast off from a town library. They are marked "DEAD" on the top but we shall see how accurate that statement is later. Watch this space.

puters

Been watching this space? Good. These were cyber-cafe style surfing machines at the library, from what I can gather. They had some pretty good management stuff on there that seemed to delete the browser cache quite frequently and also keep the machine clean in general. Not sure whether they were flushed every week or what. Kudos to the library. First machine, 800MHz Pentium 3, had dead power supply. Runs now with replacement power supply. Second machine was 500MHz Pentium 3, booted and ran fine. Both labelled "DEAD" but only one was, and even it has come back to life.

 

2005-11-19 One-step Stroller

A twin stroller in perfect condition, made in china by One-Step. Here it is after a quick wash. This is of no use to us so will be made available for others to acquire via the usual channels.

twin stroller
 

2005-11-15 Duct Tape

Well, this is a tricky one. I gave a short presentation about the things that go on on this page and backstage and the steering committee at the event in question decided I should be awarded a prize for my efforts, burgundy duct tape. They said that duct tape seemed highly appropriate for this particular effort. So, to recap the duct tape was free to me in terms of money but earned by pulling stuff out of the garbage, hence I judge it gets a place here.

duct tape
 

2005-11-05 USB Kbd

A super crappy compaq USB keyboard complete with a full set of idiot buttons on it. Picked up because USB keyboards can often find a home in front of a mac, not because we need idiot buttons.

usb keyboard
 

2005-11-05 Trek Bike

One Trek something or other bike, hybrid style. It had (gasp!) flat tyres but they pumped up fine and seem to hold air. Saddle was a bit ratty but we went back and pulled a better saddle of another bike that was toasted in other ways (bent forks). Reason for discard unknown (flat tyres maybe?). This bike is very nice to ride, an excellent compromise between road and mtn bike. In fact, in terms of general riding to actually get somewhere, better than any "mountain bike" and better than any "road bike". Fate of this thing is unknown, it will fetch up to 100 USD in the city but it is a very useful bike, so we may keep it.

trek bike
 

2005-11-05 Pentium 3

A slot 1 Pentium 3 with firewire, CD-RW and nice sound card but missing CPU and memory. Could go either way, split for parts or pressed into service with somebody who might use it. No pic for now. Below you may peruse some exerpts from the budget of a person that we shall call M (abbreviation used to protect the terminally stupid).

Monthly Expenses
Madge 800
Stu Loans 400
Water 50
GPU 200
PSE&G 200
Cable 80
Groceries 1,500
Amex 4,000
Cars 1,450
Cash 2,000
Mort. 5,833
Household 2,000
Landscaping 100
Other 1,000
Club 500
Total 20,113

The next bit has a units problem all round I think. Do not try and add up the second column and make it tally with what you spend unless you are prepared to allow errors on the scale that astronomers tolerate.

Months 11
Yearly total 221
Other
Insurance/Taxes 25
Vacation 5
Car Ins. 4
Life Insurance 2
Charity 2
School 4
Total 42
Total annualized 274
Monthly 23
Mortgage $ 1,000 $ 4.79 0.0575
Taxes $ -0
2nd Mortgage $ 250 $ 1.04 0.05
3rd Mortgage
Insurance $ -0 $ -0
Total 5.8
$ 1,250 12.5
Total Mortgage $ 18.33
Total int.220

I did not see the 101 iTunes they had bought in that budget, I wonder where that comes in. Also this M was cunning enough to earn a fair amount of wad per month (judging by outlays etc) but seemingly unconcerned about the possibility of ID theft from his old HD. I will spare you the moronic obsession with sports that M seemed to be infected with. It's not big and it's clever.

 

2005-10-30 Schwinn Bike

Schwinn Traveler racing style bike. This one is made in japan and slightly later and less desirable than the others, but it is in excellent shape and will be sold off to some urbanite in need of transportation. No reason for discard became apparent during the brief look over it just had. Air in tyres, oil on chain, a quick wipe and ready to go.

schwinn traveler
 

2005-10-30 Mac Keyboard

White mac professional keyboard, looks in very good condition, no sign of american champagne on it but it sends consfused signals through its usb cable as far as I can tell. Either way, we have enough usb keyboards right now so this one may be going to visit Mr and Mrs Ebay at some stage, working or not.

mac keyboard
 

2005-10-30 IBM P3s

Two socket style Pentium 3 IBM PCs in good shape, all complete etc. One with Windows 98 and one with Windows ME. I suspect reason for discard of the pair was that previous owner installed Windows ME on one of the two, saw how much of a complete dog it was, then tossed them both. They both orignally had Windows 98 on them. Brief summary:

These are now earmarked for good homes.

 

2005-10-29 Table nest

A nest of small side tables. Very modern. They seem OK and so will not be just used for their scrap aluminium value, we can find a home for them I think. The black finish is worn through in a few places but that just gives them "patina" as somebody I know would say.

table nest
 

2005-10-29 Random Puters

A HP celeron small case and a Dell Pentium 3 slot 1 PC. Nothing special, one might go for parts to the cyber cafe and the other to a friend. Watch this space for the HD investigation.

Dell Pentium 3
hp celeron
 

2005-10-29 Edging thingy

A bizarre lawn edging device. It looks completely preposterous but must be worth something to somebody, even if just to a collector of weird tools. You ge to cut a swath of grass 6 inches wide with one side or flip it over to use the pizza wheel on the edges.

lawn edger
 

2005-10-29 Calphalon 12inch

Calphalon 12inch omelet skillet, click here to see it on Amazon. The teflon is very beat up so one of two things is going to occur. Either Calphalon will send me a new one by virture of their warranty thingy or I will figure out how to strip off the remaining teflon and use the thing as an anodized aluminium pan.

omelet pan
 

2005-10-24 Cat Seat etc

An EvenFlo discovery baby seat with seat base and matching folding stroller thingy for instant mobile offspring deployment. It is in very good condition and surplus to requirements here so we will have to find a home for it somehow.

car seat
 

2005-10-23 Filing cabinet

A medium sized olive drab filing cabinet with a small combination lock box built in. Hidden at the bottom of a drawer was a cheque for 900 USD from many years ago, I bet that caused a ruckus at the time. This cabinet is already pressed into service as a storage device for mac laptops and parts of such, as you can see from the image:

filing cabinet
 

2005-10-21 Schwinn Bike

Schwinn Breeze bike in OK shape. The last one was snapped up quickly at an agreeable price to both parties by a young hipster chick so this one seems destined for a similar fate. Has original cool schwinn saddle and the backpedal brakes. Also special 70s sparkly glitter handgrips!

schwinn breeze bike
 

2005-10-18 Maclaren Double

Yet another Maclaren double pushchair. This one is newer and fancier than the last one but has one break in the hood aparatus. Still works OK though overall. We do not need it so off it goes to make us some cash someplace.

maclaren double stroller
 

2005-10-16 Portable Prison

For when the offspring is in the mobile phase of its lifecycle, we have acquired this handy dandy portable imprisonment device. Seems in OK shape, compare with previous one we found made of wood and sealed new in the plastic a while ago.

prison gate
 

2005-10-16 Comfy Chair

No, not the comfy chair! This is a very fine comfy chair considering it is a folding outdoor chair. Perfect condition with a light coating of sawdust. Sawdust must be why it was thrown out I guess.

comfy chair
 

2005-10-16 Child Seats

Two child seats the next size up, very forward looking. One a britax and one some no-name thing. Pics show then before cleaning, seem in fine shape the a pair.

seat
seat
 

2005-10-16 Car seat base

An EvenFlo baby car seat base. Seemingly new and will be sent to find it's destiny on ebay as we have no EvenFlo stuff.

seat base
 

2005-10-16 Car Seat Stroller Thingy

One car seat stroller base that accepts multiple types of car seat. Handy dandy indeed. Seems to work with what we have so may see service and then be sold off at some stage.

car seat stroller
 

2005-10-16 Baby Rucksack

Baby rucksack for slightly larger offspring. While wse do not in fact have one of these we postulate that the one we do have will eventually become such. Will be stored and used at appropriate point in lifecycle of offspring. Pic:

rucksack
 

2005-10-16 Baby Bath

One seemingly new baby bath. Our existing one is very squared and hence wastes a lot of water. It also seems to defy it's intended function in allowing the bathee to slip down and submerge. This is not really a great feature. This new bath uses much less water and has a nice non-slip butt retention device that actually works. Out with the old and in with the "new".

baby bath
 

2005-10-16 2x Peg Perego Strollers

Two Peg-Perego stroller/pushchair thingies. One has a couple of plastic pieces broken off, oh no we cry! Pic shows the other with it's super fancy cover thingy. Also came with the removable undertray thingies etc. I suspect that some of the parts from the broken stroller will find new life on another Peg-Perego so that it can go to see the great stroller marketplace that it ebay.

stroller
 

2005-10-15 P3s

A total of 3(ish) 1Ghz range Pentium 3 PC machines, two identical Gateways and one Dell. From these at least two working machines should be made. A bunch of parts were missing here and there hence requiring said amalgamation. No pic yet. Such HD investigation as I have done has been pretty barren on the multimedia front but lots of WordPerfect files to read. Subjects range from personal to real estate management. Want to read word perfect files in linux? Get libwpd, works great so far.

 

2005-10-15 Caulking Guns

After having borrowed the neighbour's caulking gun this week because mine suffered the total handle collapse syndrome that the cheapo ones tend to succumb to I of course found a couple today. One is the wrong size and the correct one has some minor deficiciencies. Never fear, we have the technology to rebuild him! We will make one good one from the two. Pic:

caulking guns
 

2005-10-08 Graco Strollers

Two Graco strollers/pushchairs, much fancier than the previous one. Hmm, maybe that one we found before will not be pressed into service overseas for us. We have given one away already and here is a picture of the one we kept:

graco strollers
 

2005-10-06 Dell Laptop?

Dell laptop, or some portion thereof. I picked it up on the offchance it had memory in it, but when I got home and looked it had none. In fact it had the following defects:

It sat by the back door trying to be thrown away for a week or more but at some point got thrown on ebay with all its many deficiencies declared and ended up making a respectable sum.

laptop
 

2005-10-04 BBQ

A small portable Coleman barbecue. This, though it seems to have been used only once, is a piece of junk. It was picked up to provide cooking facilities for a friend who is currently off with it as I type in the middle of a field with a bunch of silly people. He is planning on living of BBQed skirt steak for several days, from what I can gather. Ahhhh, the good life.

crappy bbq
 

2005-10-01 Sprinklers

Two lawn sprinklers, dusty and cobwebby in appearance, but seemingly in good order otherwise. We shall see, these are for a friend whose sprinkler lost a piece, he shall report back on his experiments in sprinkling.

sprinklers
 

2005-10-01 Pint Mug

A english country style pint mug with a souvenir from Paris metal thingy on it. What crazy person would buy such a P.O.S. we ask? Who can tell. It is now pressed into service due to our somewhat high rate of glass breakage.

cheesy pint mug
 

2005-09-30 Graco Stroller

Not very inspiring but functional Graco stroller. After a good washing with simple green etc and some re-arrangement it is ready for shipping off to another continent where it will provide transport for the offspring during its stay there.

graco stroller
 

2005-09-24 Yamaha Exhaust

Seemingly new exhaust system from some form of yamaha two wheeled powered transport device. I think this is going on ebay, we certainly have no use for it.

yamaha exhaust
 

2005-09-24 Plastic thingy

One of the Peg-perego strollers from last week was missing a small plastic fastener that holds the liner into the chair. Today we found a later version of the exact same stroller but it had been mangled by a bucket loader. I obtained the little plastic part to fix ours. Now good for ebay or barter....

 

2005-09-24 Marble top table

A faux marble top table with tastless cheap legs. Has a nice cool pattern on the top so has some camp aesthetic appeal. I suspect it has enough appeal to certain demographics in a certain large city nearby such that we will be able to sell it on. Shown here in the back yard:

table
 

2005-09-24 Golf Bag

This was a request, a cheap light golf bag. Some golf courses do not let you play without a bag even if you have no clubs (i.e. sharing with somebody) and hence do not need a bag. This then is for a poor student type of my acquaintance who needs this bag to get on courses with his golfing acquaintances.

golf bag
 

2005-09-24 Calphalon skillet

Calphalon commercial 10 inch frying pan with anodized finish, or omelet pan as they like to call it. So much more fancy with that name? Is in good shape and just needs a clean.

calphalon
 

2005-09-16 Two pushchair thingies

Two Peg-Perego brand strollers, one a twin Tender model and the other a single Milano model. Both appear completish and only need a clean and look over. These may well be traded or sent off to the great marketplace that is ebay.

peg perego strollers
 

2005-09-16 Optima Battery

An Optima Red top battery. For a price check see here . These batteries are superior in several ways to regualr car batteries and I refuse to use anything but optimas. It looks newish and the sold-on date strip has not been punched out. That means that even if it is dead I can use the 3-year warranty to get a new one. Woohoo! Pic shows it charging, accepting 35amps:

optima

Battery started out at 6.2V and currently is at 12.3V (with charger off of course). Will push a little more in and see if it stays n. Discharge test tomorrow maybe.

 

2005-09-16 Dell P4

A newish but low end Dell Pentium 4 PC. Specs: 1.7Ghz, 256M Ram, 40G HD, CDRW. It was rather dusty inside but worked fine and booted. Pic shows it open for ministrations from the shopvac and inspection. Note the special medical style wrapping I got on some VGA cables recently, I think they do that so I do not catch a virus from any machine I plug them into. Glad I have that!

dell P4

Reason for discard seems to be marriage, i.e. the two parties involved pooled their computer infrastructure into one machine when moving in together. I think that other machine is a Mac based on the google searches I saw in the cache.

Other things:

This HD is notable in terms of it's lack of porn and some other things. No trace of digital camera use even.

 

2005-09-10 Jerry Can

A more or less brand new Jerry can. It was by the waste oil displosal and full of used engine oil. I promptly emptied it into the oil thingy and took it home and cleaned it out. It even still had the price sticker on it. Downside of course is that it is a US style jerry can as opposed to NATO standard style, and is somewhat of a cheap knockoff also. Oh well, I bet based on this shiny picture one of you will want it...

jerry can
 

2005-09-10 Bertrand Russell

A nice little book by Bertand Russell. Could not leave that in the paper recycling, even though I think I already have this book.

book
 

2005-09-08 Dell P4

A dell early-ish Pentium 4 PC, specifically a Dimension 8100, missing some internals. Present and correct are power supply, DVD-CDRW, mobo, all chassis and cover parts. Missing memory, cpu (plus heat sink etc) and HD. This is up for grabs if anybody wants it. I have a similar machine here so we can test what is there if you like. Pic:

Dell chassis etc

Any takers; Doug, Bob?

 

2005-09-02 Dell LCD

A dell lcd monitor in seemingly good order. Missed out on the Pentium 4 Dell machine itself as we were too slow but we got the monitor without the power supply. Fresh power supply purchased in order to restore it to working condition, as evidenced here:

dell monitor
 

2005-08-28 Freaky Books

A small selection of books rescued from the terrible fate of recycling. Medieval french churches, breastfeeding and drugs/poisons seems like a well-rounded mixtue of topics for weekend reading.

books

Why do all the breastfeeding and similar books have such offensive covers? Is it due to the mindless exploited consumeristic idiocy that new parents seem to descend into? On a related note, rejected today was a book on pediatrics that seemed to indicate, at least by it's front cover, that all pediatrics is about horrendous deformation and fear-mongering. You would never guess from this book that human offspring just seem to thrive if you do any old reasonable thing to them. We point to most of the world, and the history of the world, as evidence of this conjecture.

 

2005-08-27 Scoooooter!

Y.A.S, yet another scooter. This is again for the colleague who fancies himself a scooterologist. Note, no connection with the atrocious german techno dude Scooter.

juv mtn bikes
 

2005-08-27 Schwinn Bike

A schwinn ladies bicycle. Its is nicely made and has some classically good components on it. We fear it is not worth much but it is definitely too nice to be tossed. Any takers out there should speak up, or it will be off to craigslist or some donation mechanism.

schwinn bike
 

2005-08-27 Keyboard

Random newish compaq keyboard, has a faintly interesting key action on it so it might be given a test in that perpetual search for nice keyboards. Every now and then the keyboard spillage death occurs and hence must have spares.

kbd
 

2005-08-27 Calculus Book

A 2nd Edition copy of Stewart's Calculus, ISBN=053413212X . Obviously the 2nd Ed is not worth a lot due to the vagaries of textbook model-year syndrome. Nice condition but a little written in. This is a canonical book. It was passed around at the pub tonight for everybody to recall old times with this stuff. It is a nice book, not sure what we will do with it.

calculus book
 

2005-08-27 Bikes for kids?

Two juvenile mountain bikes of moderate quality. One had a broken derailleur cable stop so we pulled one off another bike carcass that was sitting nearby and voila, 'twas fixed. These two will probably go to those of our acquaintance that have offspring about to become the requisite size for these things.

juv mtn bikes
 

2005-08-21 Dell P4

A Dell Pentium 4 2.66Ghz PC with 40G HD and 256M ram. Side and front covers missing. It did not boot first time but once we reseated the CPU and memory it booted Windows XP. Well, it tried. It took half an hour or so before the spyware had finished fighting with the anti-spyware etc etc. It still was not very usable even after that so we booted up knoppix to see what was going on. Found on the HD:

A bunch of the pictures were of local places we recognised, that was nice and fun. Took a copy of all the interesting stuff and then it will have ubuntu installed and be pressed into service as part of ragtag fugitive fleet for a certain highly parralellizable CPU-intensive task.

Here is a pretty random pic from the HD that nicely illustrates the previous owner's taste in beer and artistic compositional skills. This was shot on a Nikon E4300 apparently.

beer?
 

2005-08-17 iMac

While sitting at a traffic light an iMac 500Mhz was spotted with a half Gig of Ram. Seems to be all present and correct. Readily apparent that previous owner was a smoker (literally that is, the translucent casing is brown in places, not a standard apple colour). Upon investigation we discover 600 iTunes and 800 mp3s. How jolly. The well represented artists in the iTunes dir were:

    301 Compilations
     24 Monade
     22 David Bowie
     21 Dr. Octagon
     18 GZA
     18 Ghostface Killah
     18 Boards Of Canada
     17 Brian Wilson
     15 Elliott Smith
     14 Junior Boys
     14 Beach Boys
     13 Built To Spill
     12 Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky
     12 Cocteau Twins
     12 Brigitte Fontaine

Pretty fine, some form of coolness in there.

 

2005-08-17 Pentium 3

A random Pentium 3 600MHz with memory missing. As I happen to have found two 128M PC100 dimms in an otherwise stripped chassis the other day this is not a problem. Possible donation to worthy cause. Investigation of HD shows it was a child's machine with lots of play software. They obviously had net and caught something nasty as there was a Windows 98 install floppy in the drive when it came into our hands.

 

2005-08-06 Wibbly Trailor

A trailor. This is really for the neighbour but he asked me to pick it up and bring it home for him as his vehicles currently do not have tow hitches. Due to the fact that we only have NATO pintle tow hitches I just hooked up my trailor and put his inside that. I would not have bothered for myself as I obviously already have a trailor and it makes this one look like a shopping cart; yes yes yes, I am trailor snob. The thing seems to be just fine, wheels run etc. Needs some electrical attention and a quick cleanup.

trailor
 

2005-08-06 Update!

One of the previously mentioned redundant cast iron pans was bartered for a very nice bottle of wine. That went nicely with our hangar steak this evening.

 

2005-08-06 Tools

A big fat pipe reamer/deburrer in OK shape, a little rusty but fine nevertheless. No pic yet.

 

2005-08-06 Hot Hose

A nice industrial garden hose. This is especially welcome due to the fact that our existing hose had developed some leaks about half way down about two weeks ago. Previously mentioned hip young dude had tried to fix it with tape of various types but the thing was dying the death of a thousand progressive little tiny holes. The new one had the male end squashed by a car, hence its reason for discard I suspect. I put a new male end on it. It is longer than the old one, far better quality and less kinky. Two out of three is not bad... Shown here with undercar mud cleaning squirter wand attached. Other wand in background is also a recent find.

garden
 

2005-07-30 Tool Boxes

A tool chest and tool box in rather good shape. Some assorted junk inside but unhappily not a full set of tools. Oh well.

tool chests
 

2005-07-30 Pan Lid

Also a smallish anodised aluminium pan lid in the style of Calphalon Professional (but not actually that make). Pan was present but was crap and had lots of burnt crud on the bottom. The lid fits on a couple of our receptables and pans, so all is well.

 

2005-07-30 Cast Iron Cookware

Three non-matching cast iron pans. Pic shows the large Griswold and the Wagner after cleaning and recuring. These will be added to the collection, replacing inferior models. The extras generated by this influx will be split between friends with good cause to need these and maybe an ebay auction for a nice matching set at some stage.

cast iron
 

2005-07-25 P3

Also a Pentium 3 (socket 462) machine with no memory and no CPU. It does however have lots of dust and crud in it, probably, I hypothesize, its reason for discard. Machine may be resurrected with parts or turned into parts at some stage. HD, DVDrom, CDR and other items all look handy dandy. No pic yet.

 

2005-07-25 Keg

One funky german keg from the DAB brewery. It has a galvanised steel jacket around a stainless beer capsule at the core. I assume this is to give rigidity and bashproofing at lower cost than an all stainless version. This will be sent to the the local friendly brewer for examination.

keg
 

2005-07-25 Bike (mostly)

One Giant bike that has been well used but is in very good shape and all complete except for the wheels. It has a nice largish frame, often a problem these days. Will hang that some place until some wheels turn up, in fact I already have one spare wheel I can use for it.

giant bike
 

2005-07-18 P3

One Pentium 3 800MHz machine, boots XP just fine and displays the contents of the formers owners' lives for all to see. Most entertaining. No time for detailed analysis though as this machine was cleaned up and donated to a hip and trendy young dude of our acquaintance. Because he lives in hip and trendy Pankow we assisted him in doing a silly case mod as well as the Windows 2000/ubuntu setup. Who knows, he may be able to turn this into liquid assets based on its hipness and trendiness? I am sure if you put this in a store in SoHo NYC you could fetch a pretty penny.

silly p3
 

2005-07-15 Wheelbarrow

One almost new but crappo wheelbarrow. Not sure if it will be returned to source yet.

wheelbarrow
 

2005-07-15 Oil Can

Old oil can that used to be used at filling stations. Will fetch a few dollars on ebay maybe, or adorn some friend's garage.

oil can
 

2005-07-15 Marin Bike

A Marin Mountain bike that was somewhat expensive at some stage. It has 24 gears and disk brakes and front suspension. It is very light. It is missing the two quick release wheel skewer thingies and the derailleur mount is broken. This mount unbolts so I suspect it's probability of successful repair will be high. I further suspect that the derailleur mount broke as the previous owners threw it away, and they did not throw it away because it was broken.

marin bike
 

2005-07-15 Feuerzangenbowle

A brand-new-in-the-box never used Feuerzangenbowle kit. We, of course, already have the required materials for this fine drink and they are superior. But we shall see what we will do with this one. I am pretty sure the market for these is slim, even on german ebay.

feuerzangenbowle
 

2005-07-15 Books and puter parts

Some assorted books and computer parts, as usual. Some 256M ram sticks, always handy for reviving Pentium 2/3 era machines, and a USB card. Also a complete Chronicles of Narnia set and some Roald Dahl, super.

assorted
 

2005-07-09 Puters

A selection of assorted PC devices, specifically 2x Pentium 2 and 1x Pentium 3. The Pentium 3 will be reconditioned to send off to somebody in need, the Pentium 2 machines will be off to somebody even needier or the cybercafe. The assortment of parts sitting around nearby include a Brooktree TV capture cards and a firewire card plus 2 CD burners. Dell Pentium 2 shown in pic:

dell PII
 

2005-07-09 Pushchair

A single Maclaren pushchair that, apart from having rather worn rear wheels, will do nicely for the impending offspring. Same make and model as the previous one, just half of such. We may replace those wheels at some stage, shown here after a quick clean with simple green:

maclaren pushchair
 

2005-07-09 Alice frame

One Alice type backpack frame. It is in near perfect shape (say supergrade to those who know that that means) and will doubtless be used in some project at some stage in the future. Jerry can carrier, mobile hotspot, homemade industrial strength baby-bjorn, whatever.

backpack frame
 

2005-07-06 Apple IIC

An Apple IIc with most of its original packages and in full working order, as evidenced by the picture. This one may have to go and visit Mr and Mrs Ebay as I certainly have no use for this stuff, modern apples give me enough trouble. Ever tried scp-ing 100k plus files to a G5 Xserve? Ooops.

apple IIc
 

2005-06-25 Trash Pump

A Honda trash pump. The motor is pretty beat up and might run but I am more interested in the pump part. That, mounted to a PTO would enable me to kidnap entire swimming pools in short order. How useful.

trash pump
 

2005-06-25 Sediment Bowls

Two matching sediment bowls from some random petrol engine application. They may be pressed into service as shot glasses at some stage, I am not sure. Pic:

sediment bowls
 

2005-06-25 Pushchair

A twin pushchair of the Maclaren brand. We have no real use for this at present but luckily they seem to go well on ebay.

pushchair
 

2005-06-25 Kids' Bikes

Two kids bikes in pretty fine shape. They are both off now to a friend so that his two conveniently sized offspring can upgrade into these bikes from their previous. Weirdness, botn cranks were pretty loose but were easy to tighten. Was this the reason they were tossed we ask?

kids bikes
 

2005-06-25 Generator

5KW generator that had a sheared crankshaft. A friend is going to try and use just the generator part by mounting it on his truck for PTO sourced 110V AC. Looks in fine condition, better than the photo seems to indicate:

generator
 

2005-06-22 Sign

A no parking sign sitting in amongst a lot of scrap metal. We have no use for this but I gather certain other groups of people like these. Will save it until such a time as it's potential use or user becomes apparent to me. Failing that the chunky sheet aluminium is great for repairing certain vehicles.

sign
 

2005-06-17 USB Enclosure

A USB2 enclosure with a 48x cd burner in it, complete with the required funky power supply and a blank CD in the drawer. It is a masterpiece of bad design from the point of view of both form and function, but it does seem to work. Pic:

cd burner
 

2005-06-17 PC Case

One somewhat recent funky custom-case PC missing everything but the motherboard, CPU and fans. I took it for the special fan that I intend use extending the life on my freshly waranty-returned 320G HD, but the case will be donated to cyber cafe type people.

 

2005-06-16 Mac boxes

Three mac display boxes with polystyrene inserts. These will be hoarded until some suitable chance comes along to offload them to some mac head in exchange for their hard earned cash. Side note: are there any mac heads who actually do work? I think mostly they spend their days animating desktop thingies and loving one button clickiness.

mac display boxes
 

2005-06-02 Bench Grinder

A jolly fine bench grinder, 110V AC with good stone and brush on it. The guards around the wheels are very chunky and the whole thing comes from an era when things were built well. Was given to me by a colleague who was clearing out the garage and was going to toss it. Check out his pic of it:

bench grinder
 

2005-05-31 Thermometer

One Dakon temperature probe that was attached to the side of a largish stainless mixing tub. Tub had been trashed by heavy implements already so I just took the probe. Range 40F to 140F. Seems to work fine.

temp probe
 

2005-05-25 Dell followup

Some follow up on the Dell PC. The hard drive was a 20G with 16G of crud on it. Some examples of what we found:

All in all a most instructive hard drive. It really gives insight into what normal people do with their machines.

 

2005-05-11 Dell P3

A Dell Pentium 3 PC with Windows XP on it. Fully functional, such that XP can ever be termed functional, boots right up and logs right in. It might well be the case that an exploration of the "My Documents" chaos will appear here as followup. Meantime, a snapshot of the outside. Dude, I've got a Dell.

Dell Pentium 3
 

2005-05-07 Stainless Shelf

A nice commercial grade stainless steel shelf. It has a couple of dings but they will hammer out. The edges are nicely welded and finished. Now we just need a place to put it.

stainless shelf
 

2005-05-07 Roller Table

A skate roller table of about 7 or 8 foot length. Not immediately useful but I am sure we can come with either a happy recipient or a use for it. It has been suggested that we use it as a creeper. It does run somewhat well down the driveway but that path leads to the dark side.....

roller table
 

2005-04-16 Wireless Print Server

Yet another wireless print server thingy. Off to the great Ebay marketplace for this as we have no use for it, the previous one went down pretty well so we have high hopes for this:

wireless print server
 

2005-04-16 Wireless Mouse

A logitech wireless mouse. Luckily it came in a box of junk with lots of fresh batteries so we were able to test it immediately and it is now in use fulltime in its new home. Happy stuff. Shown here with a random Belkin 802.11b card that came with it, that will be sold on to some Mac user at some stage.

wireless mouse
 

2005-04-16 Scooter trike?

A preposterous scooter thingy that seems quite dangerous if the rider is over a certain mass. If the rider mass is too great the steering mechanism seems to become a quite unstable equilibrium and dump said rider face first into the tarmac. We do not think this is purely a generation gap or skill thing as the lighter members of the test team were able to maintain some straight line travel. Lighter in terms of mass, not skin colour. In fact darker skin colour seemed to be better based on our small sample size of two.

scooter
 

2005-04-16 Network Gear

Lots of stuff today, first a pile of networking gear including nice ethernet cables, a 10/100 8-port switch and some other assorted stuff. Pics shows some of it:

network stuff
 

2005-04-16 Junk Assortment

A pile of assorted junk including some tools, PC memory, AC adaptors, valid credit cards, driving license, silver cigarette case and other rubbish. Not sure what we will do with all this but the shears make great credit card choppers, lots of leverage. We may laugh at people for throwing this stuff away but we are not so unkind as to let their stupidity enable ID theft.

AC stuff
Junk
 

2005-04-16 Books

Two books, a photographers guide thingy and an O'Reilly pocket guide to Oracle crud. I think the photo book will form some nice present for some teenage family member and the O'Reilly guide for some colleague who has to deal with the horrors of Oracle against their will.

Oracle Guide
Photo Book
 

2005-04-10 Mystery Cookware

Cast iron tray thingy for cooking some thing that we are not quite sure about. Eggs maybe? Suggestions please. Maybe you will even win the thing if you come up with a plausible enough answer? Shown here:

cast_iron_stuff_tray.jpg
 

2005-04-10 Muffin Tins

Cast iron muffin thingies. We have no immediate use for these so one went to a neighbour and a couple more to a friend on permanent loan. Pic of the two we cleaned up for the colleague:

muffin tins
 

2005-03-22 iMac

iMac 400MHz, in full working order with OS-9 installed (is that an oxymoron?). Pic possible to appear but you know what these things look like by now.

 

2005-03-22 Mini Bike

Stupid miniature bike thingy that was in need of a chain. We hence procured a chain and proceded to ride the thing around to try to figure out the purpose for which it was built. We have so far failed in this quest? Everybody please, why does this thing exist?? Shown below being ridden by 7 month pregnant woman, but I fail to accept that this is its intended purpose.

small bike
 

2005-02-26 iMac

One 400MHz iMac missing HD and memory, What a shame. It is the disgusting blueberry colour though so I am not very predisposed towards this thing to start with. May form part of a job lots of mac junk for sombody

iMac
 

2005-02-26 Small Pan

One small all-clad , sans lid, from the LTD range of pans. In OK condition, needed cleaning. Now a happy member of our kitchen.

pan
 

2005-02-26 Dell PC

One small form factor Dell PC, missing a hard drive. I had a special request for crappo machines plus parts from an acquantaince the other week so this will be great for that. It is a Pentium 3, socket style, but is super low end. After putting in a new (old) cdrom knoppix booted ok, all the various hardware checks out. This and a pile of parts will be handed over at some stage.

small dell
 

2005-02-26 Cast Iron Cookware

A set of three Wagner cast iron skillets, newish ones unfortunatly. Also a made-in-USA deep skillet of indeterminate manufacturer. The Wagners are available if anybody wants them, but the deep skillet , I guess "chicken fryer" is it's technical designation, is cleaned and cured and ready to cook. It went to visit Mr Hitachi Grinder in the basement and then had a vinegar steam bath before being heated with some oil.

chicken fryer
 

2005-02-15 Mac Keyboard

Yet another full mac keyboard. This one does not appear to have had the coca cola rinse treatment but has some dirt in it. Will be useful for something, even if only ebay amusement purposes.

keyboard
 

2005-02-12 Paper Shear

A paper shear in excellent condition. Looks to be of very high quality but very simple, from a time when such things were important. 1950s Cold War American engineering.

paper shear
 

2005-02-12 Knives

Two Hoffritz Knives and sharpening stone. How convenient. They are not the best in the world but will be handy at some stage. They are even not very blunt. Question: Were they just used in a grisly murder before being thrown away?

knives
 

2005-02-12 HP Printer

One HP Scanjet 4100Cse scanner, new in the box, never been unwrapped. The box was still mostly sealed with original tape. Fine stuff. Not worth a lot except as a cheap scanner but when you need a cheap scanner you need a cheap scanner.

scanner
 

2005-02-12 Food tray

A restaurant style stainless steel food tray, we have one already but now we have two. This is slightly thinner material than the other (booooo, hisss!).

stainless food
 

2005-02-12 Candle sticks

A pair of random pewter candle sticks, Made in India. Of no particular value or usefullness apart from the fact that we often get power cuts and have nothing to hold our candles in. We suspect they were thrown away because the candle burned out, we seem to meet to quite a few people with that mindset.

candlesticks
 

2005-02-12 Books

Two random books. We left the huge pile of Grishams and just came away with these.

books
 

2005-02-07 Garden Furniture

Seemingly 3/4 of a set of garden furniture in very good condition. Our previous set is getting some saggy butt holes in the load bearing areas so these will be pressed into service when Gin and Tonic season hits.

garden chairs
 

2005-02-07 Cast iron skillet

Yet another cast iron skillet, this one a somewhat old wagner 10.5 inch. Probably to be traded for something as we already have one this size. Pictured after a good wirebrushing, acid treatment and recuring.

cast iron
 

2005-01-29 USB Keyboards

Four USB keyboards, three of which were Mac knockoff style. These are very handy when selling off surplus iMacs, for example. And only this morning we were remarking on our current deficit in this type of item. How fortuitous. Three shown here in the pic:

usb keyboards
 

2005-01-29 Pipe Tools

Somebody tossed their pipe-fitting kit. I left the pipe threader (too primitive and rusty) and made off with the nice Ridgid Chain wrench, seen here before cleanup:

chain wrench

In addition I picked up their pipe vise, after a swift cleanup they both worked fine, vise seen here:

pipe vise
 

2005-01-20 Cast iron pan

Yet another cast iron pan, corrugated base even. This one has made its way to the house next door after testing and curing. No pic, but you know what it look like after the last one, see below.

 

2005-01-15 iMacs

A large selection of iMacs, cast off from some very well know TV show production crew. HDs wiped (kudos to them) but many (variously) functional machines present, one example shown booted and running:

iMac 500
 

2005-01-12 Scales

A Seca medical/bathroom style scale that seems to work and is fairly nice. This will henceforth be employed for ebay shipping weight determination and for assessing the mass of people as we did not, prior to this point, have such a device.

scale
 

2005-01-10 Mac Keyboard

One nice white Mac keyboard. Previous owner stated that spillage of noxious acidic corn sugar laden liquid had terminated functionality of said device.

keyboard

Quick cleanup and it worked fine, the one it replaced being genuine Apple (but without the numpad keys) it went to see Mr Ebay and returned useful cash.

 

2004-12-31 Kegs

Four stainless steel 40 pint soda kegs. I am not sure what you can do to make these things really useful (i.e. how you can use them for beer) but we shall see. Pic of one of them here about to celebrate new year:

keg

Fine stuff.

 

2004-12-30 Mac Box

A very silly looking iBook 500Mhz box complete with styrofoam inserts and cardboard. There is no iBook inside of course but the idiocy of Mac users guarantees a return for the small investment of picking it up and carrying it home.

ibook box
 

2004-12-30 Dell P4 Parts

Dell Pentium 4 1.8GHz PC stripped except for case, power supply, CPU, heatsink. As we were roving happily sans transport and tools at the time we just took the cpu and heatsink. Update: CPU is now deployed to fix a friend's machine that had somehow developed a bad CPU. Heatsink is a paperweight.

 

2004-12-24 Mac CDs

Two sets of Mac OS 10.3.3 install plus software restore plus extra software CDs for iBook G4s. These are unopened and in super condition, pic shows one ready for its appearance on ebay, there are usually a few .

OS X

Dell 20 inch CRT. Gentleman discarding it admitted he got a flatscreen for xmas. I suspect there will be substantial pickings next week.

 

2004-12-18 P3

A Micron 733MHz with 128M RAM and a 20G disk. Full working order except that that the memory was in slot number 2. After moving it to slot number 0 the thing booted. Added ethernet (to avoid use of crappy on board ethernet) and modem for export, re-installed and updated and everybody is happy. I hate windows. This will find a home with some grateful punte.

micron 733
 

2004-12-18 Mountain Bike

A "Rock Grinder" mountain bike. One pedal has broken frame, must have been that grinding on rocks. Otherwise everything is present and correct. We rode it around a bit before putting it in storage for sale next year.

bike
 

2004-12-18 Cast iron pan

A cast iron pan with corrugated base. Pic shows it with our partially cooked roast lamb in it after a good clean and high temperature re-curing. It did not come with the lamb of course, we bought that and put it in after cleaning.

ribbed cast iron
 

2004-12-10 Fruity

A stupid ersatz slot machine that is very annoying. This may be donated to a household we wish to annoy.

slots
 

2004-12-10 Calphalon Pan

While we are not really on the subject here is Calphalon 4 quart sauce pan that we picked up a while ago. Somebody had burnt some food on the bottom, so we cleaned it off and Bob's your uncle, a rather nice addition to the kitchen.

calphalon
 

2004-11-28 Old Mac

The latest in what seems to be a veritable tsunami of Mac junk, a 233MHz G3 mac tower that had been upgraded to 466MHz G4 with 768M RAM and a 60G HD plus burner. These upgrade parts are fascinating to play with for about 10 minutes, then we get rid of them to rabid mac-heads.

 

2004-11-24 iMac

One seemingly good-order iMac 400MHz. We currently have two of exactly this model, one running OS X and one running Ubuntu PPC, so will not be hanging on to this. Missing all the bottom of the case. We got it working but not worth selling like this, will part it out. Pic shows it with the nice USB optical mouse we got also. Keyboard did not come with.

imac and mouse
 

2004-11-24 P3

One Pentium 3 800Mhz PC, to be investigated more closely at a later date.

 

2004-11-19 Bike

A racing style bike made by panasonic. Does not turn off when I use my tv-b-gone on it, unlike their TVs. Pic of it before chain oiling etc:

bike
 

2004-11-18 Scooooooter

One juvenile scooter. A friend is building some form of monster scooter and will get this for the parts.

purple scooter
 

2004-11-18 Old Mac

One mac clone with Sonnet 400Mhz upgrade card, SCSI CD burner and fast SCSI HD, boots OK into OS 9 but what use is that? I have run OS X on crappier macs than this but do not intend to do that on this one. Parts or some other disposal. Memory on top came from even crappier genuine mac that was nearby.

sonnet mac clone
 

2004-10-30 Motor Update

Motor turns out to have burnt winding. Severe bummer that one, but I guess I will keep looking. It is alleged to be fixable but I bet for more than I will pay.

 

2004-10-30 Gateway P3

One Gateway Slot 1 Pentium 3 500MHz with no HD and no memory. Off to the cybercafe with that one.

 

2004-10-30 Duct Tape

One roll of very good duct tape just sitting there in the middle of the street. Crazy.

 

2004-10-28 Old Mac

One PowerMac G3 P.O.S. Its two virtues are that it might be entertaining to install linux on this thing and that these things seem to go on ebay for 100 USD or more. We shall see.

powermac g3
 

2004-10-28 Dell Pentium 2

One Dell Pentium 2 450MHz PC with not much on the HD. Now has been refreshed and turned around to become a surfing machine for somebody in need.

 

2004-10-28 3-phase motor

One largish 3-phase motor, I think about 2-3hp, shown next to a wine bottle for scale . I think it has bad bearing but not sure yet. This is of course is the ideal starting point for a single to three phase converter and something I have been seeking for the past short while, since I found that 3-phase drill press in fact. Seek and ye shall find!

motor

Update: One burnt field means this is scrap. The search continues.

 

2004-10-23 Two P2s

Two Pentium 2 machines. One a Compaq P.O.S 400MHz PC with Firewire, the other a Dell 300 MHz. Both yielded immensely entertaining data examination of the HDs. One guy used Napster then Kazaa for his family media needs but Limewire for his porn needs. Very interesting, some of the porn filenames were veritable keyword aggregators.

Second guy had a few hundred mp3s and some wierd porn images hidden in strange cache-like places. Seemed to be using a lot of ftp sites with such software as CuteFTP. Took a copy of all this and archived. Also, the lady of the household was in the habit of replying to spammers and (seperatly) committing very sensitive financial and identity related infomation to email. When she went into hospital to expunge their new offspring from her body she required that she be able to use her laptop with headphones to be able to watch DVDs and listen to music during labor. Classy.

Talking point: If I pull mp3s off a discarded hard drive and save them is it legal? First sale doctrine ? I certainly extract and re-use Windows license keys in the spirit of this principle.

The Compaq is now part of a cyber cafe and the Dell is reconditioned and ready for delivery to somebody who needs it.

 

2004-10-21 Bin

One galvanized rubbish bin. Actually there were three but I only took one as I have a few already. How strange is it to find an almost new rubbish bin in the rubbish, rather than rubbish in the rubbish bin? Pic of it on the lawn (currently the part of our property that most needs a bin):

rubbish
 

2004-10-15 Puter Parts

One 8G HD and a bunch of quite good video cards. Who knows what I will find on the HD and where the videos cards will end up?

 

2004-10-02 Tools and stuff

Managed to save the contents of a garage before they went into a dumpster. First items, a selection of vise grips and clamps useful for welding:

clamps

These also came with lots of welding rod and some power cords and stuff. Next item, two sheet metal brakes, one 3 foot or so and the other 6 inch. Quality is not fabulous but will do just fine for things like making stainless steels fuel tanks and such. Longer one is shown here with table scroll saw that was also in need of a home. Scroll saw may find its way to ebay or some other good home. I have very little use for one of those.

brake and saw

Two craftsman sanders, crappy-ish but should work OK when I need such sanders. One is belt sander and the other is a larger random orbital type.

sanders

Yet more tree branch loppers also, these ones very big and chunky but taiwanese iffy quality. These may be traded for a nice bottle of wine. No pic for now.

 

2004-09-26 Trap

Its a trap! One for small mammals, yummy. Tested it with some cantelupe as bait and we caught a squirrel. Released it again (squirrel not the cantelupe).

trap
 

2004-09-26 Bike

A classic 3-speed bike in OK shape. Has been pressed into service as student transport to and from the railway station.

 

2004-09-25 Micron P3

A Micron Slot 1 Pentium 3 was missing its outer case so I just stripped it for some nice parts, ensemble below (plus some imposters). Memory is def worth something, will help save some other machine

pc parts
 

2004-09-25 Hi-fi

Large pile of HiFi stuff today. Starting with a Hafler DH-200 Power amp. Nice condition all round. One just finished on ebay for 150 so this one may find its way there soon.

haflerr power-amp

Dyna Stereo Pre-amp in good condition all round. Again one just went on ebay for 200 or so, hence this one may have to follow it.

dyna pre-amp

A pile of NAD HiFi component parts. Not worth much each but pretty nice. They will find a home some place, either as somebody's garage stereo or even an ebay sale.

NAD hifi
 

2004-09-25 Dell P3

A Dell 733Mhz Pentium 3 low end PC. Does not boot but had 40G hard drive that seems to both function and have a working install of Windows on it (such that Windows can ever be said to be working). Will either be fixed up or failing that chopped for parts (machine not HD).

Dell Pentium 3
 

2004-09-25 Cordless Drill

A Dewalt crappy 12V cordless. After charging appears to work in drill mode but not in screw mode, clutch thingy has broken. These things are so crap that it is not really worth keeping it even if it does work, but who knows. It can always go back.

dewalt drill
 

2004-09-24 Wooden Chest

One wooden chest made of poplar. Nice but somewhat crude, I suspect it was a project of somebody's years ago. Maybe the original maker just died and his widow/offspring just dumped it? It had some form of finish on it with a dark stain but we have stripped it back and refinished it as seen below(it is not as dark as pic suggests). Neighbour came by to covet this during the restoration process.

chest
 

2004-09-24 Monitor

Random monitor, to be exported to a needy househol with brrod eager for surfing. Nuff said.

monitor
 

2004-09-24 Athlon

Junky Athlon 500MHz. Previous owner was apparently a young female who insisted on lots of pink and annoying animated flowers. That and the spyware made this machine very slow with its Windows 98 install. Fresh install of Windows 2000 runs fine. She used Napster at some stage in the past and had a stupendous collection of crappy/sappy music. I listened to it during the re-install process. Possibly the worst audio track I have ever heard was:

WTC - new york city (night).mp3

Others strongly represented tracks amongst the rest were the Coyote Ugly and Moulin Rouge sound tracks.

 

2004-09-18 Wood Plane

One Stanley No7 plane. Of no immediate use to me but complete and in need of a cleanup. Presumably will be snapped up by a crazy tool collectors of our acquaintance.

Stanley No 7 Plane
 

2004-09-18 Plumb Bobs

Three plumb bobs. Seemingly useless you may cry but not if you have a mildly insane neighbour who collects them.

plumb bobs
 

2004-09-18 Percussion Oriented Tools

An assortment of thing to hit and things to hit with. What seems to be a slate splitting hammer and some other stuff. Again, only a couple of items of usee to me here but I know people who collect such things.

hammers
 

2004-09-18 Outdoor Chair

One portable drinking chair with spaces for two beers. One pop rivet on the back had given out but is already fixed and ready for service. Indoor usage pictured below:

drinking chair
 

2004-09-18 E-machine P3

A seemingly complete e-machine 500MHz Pentium 3 that does not appear to boot. One of the very few old machines I have found that really will not boot. No worries, the memory is useful, and the hard drive was a fruitful source of amusement.

Pentium 3

Previous owner had a small collection of mp3s seemingly acquired from semi-legal download sites. The following is telling:

wold0126<54>My Music% find . -type f | grep mp3 | sort | tail 
./Unknown/Untitled - 02-17-03/13 - Track 13.mp3
./Unknown/Untitled - 08-01-02/01 - Track 1.mp3
./Unknown/Untitled - 08-01-02/02 - Track 2.mp3
./Unknown/Untitled - 08-01-02/03 - Track 3.mp3
./Unknown/Untitled - 08-01-02/04 - Track 4.mp3
./Unknown/Untitled - 08-01-02/06 - Track 6.mp3
./Unknown/Untitled - 08-01-02/07 - Track 7.mp3
./Unknown/Untitled - 08-09-02/13 - Data Track.mp3
./Unknown/Untitled - 10-14-02/02 - Data Track.mp3
./Unknown/Untitled - 10-14-02 (1)/05 - Track 5.mp3

They are even missing their ID3 tags so I would have to listen to all that stuff to see what is there. The few I have so far got through were the likes of Tatu and Christina Agui-whatsit . Not promising. The word docs had some nice stuff in them and had more useful names. Former owner also seems to have had a proclivity for online gaming and dating services.

 

2004-09-13 3-phase drill press

I guess this counts. Relative of a friend of a friend picked up a Rockwell Delta drill press that was being chucked. It found its way to me. It is 3-phase, hence some fiddling will have to take place on the power supply front but seem very nice. Big, heavy, old, see for yourself:

Delta drill press

Amusingly somebody had jacked a regular 110V household plug on the end of the cord in some (presumably) vain attempt to use it.

 

2004-09-11 Update: Compressor

For those with curious nature here is an updated picture on the Emglo Compressor. It was dismantled and had a paint job with POR-15 on the tanks and some general attention. The pressure switch needed cleaning to make it function correctly. It now seems to work fine.

emglo compressor
 

2004-09-11 Trolley

Flatbed trolley. A little rusty, works fine, suitable for large welders, gearboxes etc. I may give it a coat of POR and touch up some joints with the welder (not necc in that order) but in the meantime here it is after having the wheel bearings greased:

trolley
 

2004-09-11 Garden Seat

Garden seat with cast iron ends and wood slats for the seat and back. To get it into Heidi for transport home we broke off all the wood slats and cropped off all the bolts. Nice. Plan for this might be galvanize the cast iron ends and put new teak slats on with stainless hardware. Rubber feet will make it the indoor/outdoor bench. Pic of the ends resting in the garden (not my pic!):

seat
 

2004-09-11 Bolt Croppers

Pair of bolt croppers, about 18 inches in length, OK quality, fully adjustable, nick in one jaw, slight rust. We used them on the way home to help clean up the next item. Pic of them cleaned up and oiled here:

bolt croppers
 

2004-09-10 Puters

One Pentium 2 400MHz Gateway. Seems damaged physically on the motherboard and is missing a cdrom.

One Pentium 3 Slot 1 style, missing memory, half the case and hard drive. Hmmmm, maybe I see a chimera coming on.

 

2004-09-04 Vise

Smallish, and potentially completely useless, swivel vise mentioned above:

vise
 

2004-09-04 Mosquito Deleto

A new-in-box Coleman Mosquito Deleto 2100 device. Looks all special, its destiny is not yet decided but could end up joining some similar ones , Pic of ours here:

mosquito device
 

2004-09-04 Frame Saw

Interesting old frame saw that should provide entertainment for those collectors of old tools. It works, it was used to chop an old workbench in half for no particular reason, well maybe to facilitate extraction of the two vises bolted to it. Pic:

saw
 

2004-08-26 Update: Loppers

The loppers from Tuesday, pictured below, have been used heavily over two days of clearing trees. They earnt us two bottles of fine wine so far and promises of more to come. For being so useful they got a quick canadian rebuild and coat of high visibility paint on certain parts.

loppers
 

2004-08-25 Fuel

Was a long way from home and hence out of free fuel, was forced to actually buy fuel! The horror. Put in 10 gallons only. Went to pay and noticed that the fuel stop had a food area, almost a cafe. I asked about their deep fryer oil and they showed me a 55 gallon drum of the best looking oil I have ever seen. It was not luck that I had three 5 gallon buckets with me.

They did not seem to understand that it was against their interest to give me that oil. Oh well.

 

2004-08-24 Puter Dumpster

A realtor type office seemed to have emptied itself, including lots of computing related items, into a dumpster. We made off with numerous items, inclucing but not limited to.

One Gateway Pentium 2 266MHz with no memory but a hard drive full of realtor stuff. Most entertaining. No porn though.

One Gateway Pentium 2 233Mhz yet to be investigated.

One unidentified Athlon type thing with lots of memery but no HD. DVD rom and CD-R still there all happy.

One Belkin KVM switch, two TV capture cards and assorted 168 pin memory.

Several Windows and Office install CDs. Great, just what we need.

Pair of ethernet crimpers and lots of cable ready to be crimped. These are probably the most useful thing in the dumpster even if they did draw blood. Pic:

ethernet crimpers

Linksys wireless print server adaptor, not the sort of thing we would use but you never know we might find a use for it. More likely a customer for it. Pic:

wireless thingy

Pair of pruning loppers. They seem to fully functional. They are not computer related but they sneaked in at the end here anyway.

 

2004-08-22 Fuel

Ten gallons of oil from a well known, if slightly touristy, bar. I will never be eating there as their oil was pretty brown and burnt. Slackers. Oil filtered quickly though and is all ready to go.

 

2004-08-10 Compaq Presario

What a grandiose name for such a piece of junk, one crappy Compaq Presario type thing with a ~350MHz Celeron, Windows 98, 8G HD and some weird and barely useful amount of memory. It has a CD writer which could always come in handy. More to the point it had Kazaa Lite installed with an extensive collection of "media", for want of a better word. In particular 1030 MP3s from such luminaries as:

     49 Metallica
     45 Aerosmith
     23 U2
     22 Rolling Stones
     22 Kid Rock
     17 Led Zepplin
     16 Rage Against The Machine
     15 Linkin Park
     15 Elvis Presley
     13 Red Hot Chili Peppers
     12 Dave Matthews Band
     11 Van Halen
     11 Steve Miller
     11 Offspring
     11 Guns N' Roses
     11 Bush
     11 Audioslave

Also there were some Seinfeld episodes and the obligatory sprinkling of porn. I bet if the owner is reading this he is really hoping I do not reveal his name and address further down this page. Oh yes and I now have a bunch of his passwords and his horrible homework assignments written in Word. Blech.

 

2004-08-07 Shredder

Yet another shredder, this one had a slight jam behind the power switch that the paper trips on the way in. Cleared with a pair of needle nose pliers (not even any dismantling with this one) and all ready for its new home. This one is not cross cut but goes very fast. Pic:

shredder
 

2004-08-07 Outdoor Chairs

Nice pair of folding aluminium outdoor chairs with drinks trays on the side. They look little used, and in fact the fabric is not faded, just dusty. I am sure they will be employed at some riotous event in the woods someplace. Pic of one of them:

chairs
 

2004-08-07 Fresnel Lens

One large canal boat lamp that has a steel (as opposed to brass) body. It had a hack job electric conversion and body was very rusted hence I think it is not worth saving but the nice fresnel lens has cleaned up nicely. This may have to form some type of post-industrial artsy table lamp, to go with our galvanized pipe coffee table. Pic of it mostly cleaned:

fresnel lens
 

2004-08-06 Veg Oil

Got 5 gallons of oil from the butcher that was nice and clear, filters well. Bought meat for the BBQ, they gave me the fuel for the truck, what a deal. Pic of the cardboard wrapper from the oil bottle for reference purposes.

oil wrapper
 

2004-08-06 Chainsaw

Long hiatus there while I was off and about. Back to business with a small Craftsman 358 chainsaw that had a broken pull cord. Cord is now fixed and some attempts will be made to run the thing. Not a very useful thing though, too small, disposable chainsaw if you will as I am sure that one good session cutting oak would kill it off.

chainsaw
 

2004-07-17 Fuel

Found a restaurant with a small dumpster full of waste oil. Was maybe 6 feet by 2.5 feet and had a foot of oil in it. I make that about 400 litres, or around 100 gallons of fuel. I got 20 gallons first time hence have lots to look forward to. Quality was good, nice and thin and clear.

 

2004-07-15 Mac Hardware

Found a pile of 5 old Mac laptops and a Newton, but decided not to take them as they were so super old and useless.

 

2004-07-15 Fuel

10 more gallons of oil from the drum I found earlier. There are maybe 5-10 more in there but it is getting more murky as I get further down.

 

2004-07-14 Craftsman Table Saw

One Craftsman table saw. It is very heavy and has pretty high speed. It was missing the belt when we picked it up but the temporary use of a genuine mercedes alternator belt demonstrated the functionality of the unit. Missing a fence unfortunately and the legs need tightening up. Pic of it showing evidence of testing around

table saw

As I did not until now have a table saw this one gets to find a home in the basement, at least until a better free one comes along.

 

2004-07-13 Veg Oil

Lastly I took some buckets to that drum of cooking oil and got 10 gallons. Half is now filtered and ready to go, the rest soon to follow. Will get the remaining 15 gallons tomorrow. Need more plastic buckets......

 

2004-07-13 Shredder

Well, got another shredder today, must be about the fourth this year. It is not a cross cut version and is missing its basket and lower flap but has a credit card slot. It is an Aurora AS1002MSB. When I first tested it I got nothing but I dismantled it and removed some stuck plastic and paper crud and it works fine now in forward and reverse. Pic below of it tastfully poised on my next (but not yet fully assembled) cork trivet:

shredder
 

2004-07-13 Scanner Thingy

Some kind of PS2 scanning pen inventory dongle device, maybe from a store. There was a whole pile of Pitney Bowes kit nearby but it had been half stripped. Pic below:

scanner dongle
 

2004-07-13 Mercedes Educational AV

Weirder still is the Mercedes microfilm and audio educational device plus many cassettes for it. To be explored later on, watch this space.

 

2004-07-13 Mac Upgrades

Also there was what I think was a Mac Clone from some years ago. HDs were all present and SCSI-2, I left them being impatient. I took what I think is the CPU board in case it is sellable, pic below.

cpu
 

2004-07-13 Compaq

A Compaq Pentium 3 mostly stripped. I took the 10/100 ethernet card and the HD. HD is 6.4G Western Digital 26400 and functions fine, has a total of 20366 files on it. Looks like a functioning WinNT install with FAT32 file system. Former owner was a Morpheus user, but I cannot see much in the way of downloaded crud. Pretty tame HD really this, some files pertaining to appliances and household stuff.

 

2004-07-12 Fuel

Hmmm, have located a 55 gallon drum with old cooking oil in it. Obviously I have to leave the drum and take the oil, hence I need to go back with several buckets. May also have to accost the owners of the drum, but only after I have this batch from it. It seems to have about 25 gallons in it and quite clear looking.

 

2004-07-11 Pipe Vise

One somewhat rusty clamp-on pipe vise. I did not have one prior to this so it is worth cleaning up I think. Photo makes it look worse than it is......

pipe vise
 

2004-07-11 Compressor

One portable wheelbarrow style compressor made by Emglo. Are they owned by Dewalt now? Previous owner informed me it worked as I lifted it from his minivan into my trailor. One wonders if that made him feel sheepish. It has been left out in the rain a bit but a quick coat of POR-15 might have to occur.

It works intermittently, current suspect is the presure switch thingy, which should be easy to clean or fix or replace. Here it is in unflattering surroundings woken from peaceful sleep in the trailer:

compressor
 

2004-07-06 Stainless Food Service

Five assorted small stainless steel food service containers, complete with refried bean remants and maggots. They look to be just dirty but otherwise in very good shape. You can never have enough commercial quality kitchen gear, or so I hear. If you do ever have enough then there is always ebay..........

Here is a pic of them in varying states of cleanliness. Angle grinder with stainless wire brush is my friend.

304 stainless
 

2004-07-05 Veg Oil

Five gallons of cooking oil. It had already seperated into about half-half creamy goop and oil. I decanted the oil off the top and filtered it, looks very clean and ready to go. I am sure I could use the goop as well but will just take that back as am not in the mood, too humid. Added to the 5 gallons from the city the other day this lot should take care of my fuel for the week.

 

2004-07-05 Shelf Units

Two nice 304 stainless modular shelf elements made by Metropolitan Wire Corporation. Both are 60 inches long and the depths are 14 and 24 inches, check them out here for a price quote , $286.70 and $386.70 respectively. Now all I need is some legs for them. Available here its seems for slightly less money. I have seen these legs floating around before, I will have to pick some up at some stage. Meanwhile here are the shelves after some form of cleaning:

shelves
 

2004-07-05 Athlon

One HP 6360 with Athlon 367MHz CPU and 10GB disk. It was missing its memory but upon being supplied some it booted fine. Lots of family pictures, tax docs for every year since 1998 and all sorts of other goodies on with working copy of Windows 98 (great, honest!). Extensive addressbook present (good for social engineering purposes?) and other assorted personal items. Too much data to wade through now, will store away and save for a rainy day. Here are the faqs and specs for this from HP, nice that the first item on the list is spyware. Errr, I run NetBSD and my machine is slowing down, do I have spyware......?

One sketchy screen dump of me rifling through the "My Documents" folder using Knoppix, much more stuff scattered all through the disk.

My Documents
 

2004-06-28 Motor Mounts

One pair of new-old-stock industrial electric motor mounts, in the original plastic bag with screws etc. These could be handy. Not even any rust on them despite the fact they are cast iron and unpainted.

 

2004-06-26 Micron 1Ghz

One Micron 1GHz desktop in complete working order with a working install of windows 2000. Comes with 10G HD, 126M of RAM, slot loader CD drive and Zipdrive (oh joy). Surprisingly clean install, in terms of spyware and data from previous owner. We of course now have his ISP and work logins and passwords.

micron
 

2004-06-23 Mongoose Bike

Aforementioned seatless bike now has a seat. A rather dated peugeot racing bike graciously donated its seat. A quick squirt in each tyre from the compressor and a wipe all over with a WD40 soaked rag made the bike look rather shiny. And we all know that shinyness is what counts, n'est pas? I rode it round the garden a few times during SFW to do proof of concept work. Now that thing is officially looking for an owner. I do not want it. Pic of it in it's "canadian-rebuild" glory:

mongoose
 

2004-06-23 Mac CDrom

One apple 24x laptop cdrom drive. I suspect it to be broken but we shall see. Also found an iMac recovery CD. I suspect some macHeads have been cleaning out.

cdrom
 

2004-06-23 Garden Shears

One pair of garden shears, in somewhat better condition that the ones I used the other day on the long bits round the front lawn. A second pair were examined but had loose handles. Long conversation with Costa-Rican guys about volcanos.

 

2004-06-23 DIMM

One Gateway 32M PC100 memory dimm. Not much use but I will throw it in the next elligable PC that I overhaul. Image (I suspect) not of 32M dimm but found from GS for part number:

memory
 

2004-06-21 Push Lawn Mower

One push lawn mower in slightly rusty but working condition, identical to previous push lawn mower

 

2004-06-21 P3 parts

One Pentium 3 chassis and motherboard with 46G IBM HD. Hard drive proves to have flippy floppy heads, machine yet to be tested. Big Blue quality shines through again, I had one of these exact drives go bad a couple of years ago. Picture shows sample from GIS:

ibm HD
 

2004-06-21 Bar Bottle Wells

Two stainless steel bottle troughs from a bar, slightly dirty. One is just over 3 feet, the other is 2 feet long and both cleaned up nicely for the pic:

troughs
 

2004-06-19 Mountain Bikes

Two mountain bikes, one with disc brakes and missing only an inner tube. Fixed and sold within 2 days. The other missing a seat and otherwise complete except some minor tyre issues, saved for stock, probably just awaiting addition of a seat at a later date. It looks like some 14 year-olds rode these just long enough to make them no longer shiny, then left them out in the rain until they were thrown away.

 

2004-06-19 Apple Laserwriter

One Apple Laserwriter 8500 for up to A3 paper in good condition except for the fuser. Pic of similar from GIS :

printer

It even came with a with duplex tray which is shown below ready for ebay. Some of the other good parts may get used also.

printer stuff
 

2004-06-17 Dell Pentium 4

One Dell Pentium 4 PC case and motherboard, no CPU, memory etc.

 

2004-06-12 Hard Drives

Maxtor 91531U3 15GB hard drive. 15482 files found, of which I extracted 6617. These included such entertaining gems as

My Documents/Goals2001.doc
My Documents/ProposedCommissionSchedule.doc
Recent/Wire Transfer.doc
Recent/Resume.doc

Library picture of similar drive from GIS. The drive functions fine.

maxtor

Seagate Medalist 4321 4.3GB hard drive. 14682 files found of which I extracted 4888. The extensive porn collection included such delicacies as:

My Documents/My Pictures/pics/HILARY.gif
My Documents/My Pictures/pics/INTERN.bmp
My Documents/My Pictures/pics/FloppyTitsAnimated.gif
My Documents/movies/movies/2xfist11.mpeg
My Documents/movies/movies/monkeyp.mpe
My Documents/movies/movies/nipple_twist.avi
My Documents/movies/movies/smoking.avi
My Documents/movies/movies/poopin~1.avi

This drive also functions fine despite being pretty old. 2/2 today. These drives will go towards fixing up Pentium 2/3 machines for people.

 

2004-06-09 Radar Detector

One radar detector. As yet untested but this could mean I get to drive home faster! Yeah right. Is it more important to get there eventually or get there fast? Answers on a postcard to /dev/null.

 
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