Rewind

I’ve gradually been doing a bit of a cleanout of bits and pieces around the place and there was a box under my bed that if it was a file in a filing cabinet it would have been labelled ‘miscellaneous’. It was full of that stuff that you don’t quite know where else to put.

I went through the box outside because it was so full of dust and I’d just vacuumed. Aside from the photos I found the items shown above. This is how long that stuff’s been lying around.

The little tape was for my analogue answering machine which I haven’t had for ages – BIN.

The Sony Walkman I can’t quite get rid of even though I haven’t got many cassette tapes left. I carted a Walkman around when backpacking in the early 1990s but this was one that a workplace bought me as I was leaving London to do some more travelling in India before I came back to Australia after two years away.

I think up how much room in my backpack my music and books took up and how much room I could save now with existing technology. Perhaps room for more clothes or perhaps a smaller bag. I still hang my head in shame when on a train in Switzerland and an elderly lady had to help me lift my backpack up to the rack because it was too heavy for me to lift by myself.

The camera film is goodness knows how many years old and I’d like to use it but need to find out whether it’s even worth it. Anyone know? I do have an SLR film camera I can put it in and I even remember how to do that.

The TechED 2000 conference pouch was from one of the first conferences I ever went to. It was in Cairns and lots of my colleagues came along. Some of us had won some award money I think which helped pay our way. I don’t know how useful a very technical conference was to me at the time but I had a good time. Microsoft used to put on (and maybe they still do) great conference parties. This one was a Mad Max themed party which nearly didn’t go ahead because of excessive rain. But go ahead it did and we had a ball.

The box also had some photos of me in hospital while giving birth to my son which happened just over ten years ago. I burned some of them they were that graphic. I don’t even remember my friend taking them but no future generations needed to see them! I just wish I could remember if I’ve burned the negatives too. Oh well, if someone wants to go through them one day I either won’t be around or I won’t care. I also had some photos of my son’s father which I’ve given to him. There were even some reusable breastfeeding pads in there. What was I thinking when I kept those?

The next things on my list to clean out are the bathroom drawers and cabinets. I’m guessing I’ll find some makeup that I haven’t used for five years that can be binned.