200 Posts!

Angry Reader:  It's Monday, no travel post!?  No?  A lousy clip show post!?  No new, exciting, and parshally prooff-read content?  What a ripoff!  Oh well, might as well read the sappy emotional schlock and get it over with!  I'd also better click on the blue link text to read the articles referenced on this page, that is, if I care to.

Cory and Sara:  What a crazy time it's been.  It seems only yesterday we were sitting in our old living room 4000 miles away and thinking of a fun and creative way to share our moving experience with friends and family.  We never thought we would be daily bloggers putting out as much content as we have.  Seeing that 200 number approaching made me scroll back through the archives for buried treasures.

I remember when we first wrote about Sara's official job offer.  We wrote that when the feelings were still pretty fresh.  The clock had started the moving countdown, and there would be no going back.

Remember my sloppy I'll Play videos?  I hope you don't, because they were (and are!) pretty sloppy from those days.  Castlevania 3 probably wasn't the best game to start with video game videos and I fought, kicked, screamed, and save-stated my way through it.  One might have thought I'd gotten better by now...

We had to undergo our Great Jettison shortly after finding out about the move.  Of all the great success stories of that series, none was quite so exciting to me as that of the exercise bike in the basement.  Maybe when we move away the verdant shores of Ireland we will continue with the Jettison series...

When we first got the confirmation of our relocation, we weren't quite ready to make the announcement fully public.  The blog was up and running but was only shared with a few people while we tested out the functionality of a blog and made arrangements to announce our move.  When all of our professional arrangements were made, we were able to make the blog public and share the news with our social networks.

In May, we were still Jettisoning, Sara graduated, and getting lean with our worldly possessions.

The arrival of June saw us pack up the rest of the house, pile into our little car, and get on the road.  Oh, were we such wild-eyed dreamers with the whole world opening up before us.

July was pretty quiet, with our internet blackout keeping us from too much recreational internet use. We did make it to Ireland, and did our best to let our families know we were still alive.

In August, we got our home internet connection at last.  We began to write about our pastimes and the differences we noticed in our new country.

September set up the current format of the blog.  Monday as travel post day and Saturday as the video game day.  We were able to catch up on our knitting, home finding, and exploring posts.

Seems a bit early to reminisce about October and November, but what the hey.  We found some cool stuff, we griped about road signs, we did some brewing, finished the road trip posts, and let's not forget the live-tweet-holiday-event of the...minute.

Thank you friends new and old for reading and commenting on our blog.  Knowing that we have people who care about us and what is happening in our lives is very comforting to us in the big city so far from our homeland.  We are having a wonderful experience and meeting great people here in Ireland, but we never take the love and friendship of our family and friends around the world for granted and for that, we are ever grateful.

So here's to another two hundred posts.  More brewing!  More knitting!  More video games!  More travel!  More proof-reading-before-posting(!!)

Love,

Cory and Sara
The Narcissistic Expats

The Great Jettison: From Ashes...

Makin' Stuff out of Junk!

This dilapidated piece was a big rotting mess...on purpose.  The crooked boards and window screens (yes, window screens) was my compost box.  Constructed all of materials I found in the house when we moved in, it housed my very special controlled decomposition project.  

Food waste of almost all kinds went into that compost box to be broken down into useful topsoil booster for me.  During nice weather, we threw in fruit and vegetable peels and cores, coffee grounds (with filter!), eggshells, and most other plant-based food materials.  These rotted composted down over the course of months to form a nutrient-rich material perfect for energizing the soil in our garden.

I quite literally built the compost box back in the corner pictured here.  I never had any intention of taking it away from the house, so it was perfectly understandable that it had to be deconstructed and destroyed at moving time.  

Oh, well.  I hope I can restart my trash-to-treasure on the other side of the Atlantic.

The Great Jettison: A Man of My Own Heart

I met a really cool guy selling a digital camera.  The photo of the camera is below, but the camera is only a tag on the story of meeting the man who purchased it.

This person was interested in the camera to take some photos and share them with his son.  He came over to take a look, and I came out to the driveway to meet him.  He was riding a personalized (I would say custom, but that would imply that he had it done in a professional auto shop) gas-powered scooter.  The scooter had extra storage racks on both sides of the saddle.  These stored a variety of this man's personal effects.  There was a large basket on the back of the scooter that he used to store cans and bottles.  Apparently this man can keep his gas tank filled all the time only with money from returned cans and bottles found on the road.

Best of all, he showed me a special tool he had made out of a long piece of metal and wire.  This tool, a large hook-shape, allowed him to pick up cans and bottles from the ground without getting off the scooter. Indeed, he boasted that sometimes he doesn't even have to come to a complete stop in order to grab the can and toss it in the rear basket.

This guy had it all figured out.  He collected free money on a much larger scale than I could ever hope to, and used it to keep his fuel-efficient wheels turning.  I don't know if they have returnable cans and bottles in Ireland (I will let you know!) but I'd like to start a system like this someday.

The Great Jettison: The Chair and (more awesome) the Surface

...Still angry no one took these.  Just look at the set below.  We did sell the desk set and the brown rug in the photo below.  I was hopeful that craigslist could help me sell the rolling chair and floor protector.

It was strange that these didn't sell even at rock-bottom prices on craigslist.  The computer chair was worn but worked well.  The clear plastic surface has some visible cracks, but still accomplished its task.

The chair was purchased at Goodwill when we first got the house.  The plastic rolling surface was found in a dumpster on the college town holiday of End-Of-Lease-Weekend.  We put the rug under the rolling surface to protect the wood floor from the little plastic spikes under the surface.

I was a little stubborn about selling these items.  I denied bringing them to the consignment store, holding on to the hope that they would sell individually.  Just no dice on that.  They sat until the very last minute in the house, and when we were finally forced to bring them in, the store took the chair but not the surface, which we had to smash and break up to fit in a dumpster.

Oh well.  Can't complain about it now, we're outta there!  We'll have to figure out a computer situation over in Ireland now.  It will probably be a second hand couch with a laptop on the lap, but we will keep writing.

The Great Jettison: Sweet Hobby, Man!

Another wonderful gift that we simply couldn't hold on to.  This was our wonderful Weber grill.  Cooking utensil for many a cookout.  It lived happily in the back yard, safe and covered, for the last four years.  

This grill has cooked meat, vegetables, and, most recently, housed the ceremonial fire burning all the vital documents I had scanned but didn't want to take the time to shred.  Look for the charred remains of insurance statements, doctor bills, student loan promissory notes, and other gems in the photo with lid off!

The buyer was very interested in the grill, even with the condition issues it was suffering.  This person had a great hobby, one of the coolest I've heard of since "documentary film collecting."  This person collected, restored and redistributed old Weber grills!

What a cool hobby!  He described the porcelain lining that is nearly indestructible, even when the coating is burning and peeling.  What I saw as a dirty old grill, he saw potential in a shiny restored gem.  Someday I hope to have an hobby as cool as those of the people I have met since my craigslist crusade.  Maybe I can show up as a nameless character on someone else's blog.

Well, I guess I need to find something to do with my time in Ireland!

The Great Jettison: Big Comfy Somethin'

This takes the grand championship for craigslist hits.  Maybe we priced it too low, but we were happy to have the quick sale and at-home pickup.

Besides, we had (that's had, mind you) another soft place to sit in our old love seat.  We got a lot of questions like "It looks great in the photo, what's wrong with it?"  The answer, of course, was "nothing."  We just are surprised by how much things on craigslist are marked up.  Used upholstered furniture should not be sold at premium prices, right?  Who knows what kind of shenanigans are going on in someone else's used couch.

Even though we were nice to it and kept it in a clean home, there is no telling what kind of risk a buyer is taking with an item like this.  What if we had bedbugs?  Roaches? Scabies?  Horrible rashes?  Athlete's foot?  Huge amounts of filth and garbage on the couch?  We didn't and don't, but it makes me shudder thinking about it.

Scabies aside, it was comfy and squishy for us during our entire occupancy in this home.

Moving out Thursday!

The Great Jettison: We'll take that, too!

How do they know?  Sometimes I have had people on Craigslist give me responses on multiple items.  A few of them have pointed this fact out to me and offered to buy more than one item.  Things like, "I noticed you also have the __________ for sale.  Can we make a deal?"  I am fine making deals, of course, but how do they know which items are mine?  I have my email hidden on the site, and am careful not to include any personal information in the post.

Is it because I copy and paste the same suffix to the end of every post?

"Local pickup only, please respond by email if you are interested or would like to come over and take a look.  Be sure to include the word 'craigslist' in your email so it gets through my email filter."

Who knows, but I do know that someone saw that I had the above white Broyhill chairs and the sea green table below for sale at the same time.  All of these pieces were purchased cheaply shortly after our wedding. The table was another funky color, but we painted it the green color to match a few other pieces of furniture we had purchased with funky colors.

The green table, unfortunately, had already been promised to another buyer, who Sara was meeting at a place in town.  This particular buyer wasn't like any other I have met.  Truly this family was one of my own heart.  Follow the jump for the touching story.  

The Great Jettison: Ethan Who?

At this point in the game, the best stuff to get rid of is the biggest stuff.  In our house, we don't get much bigger than the Ethan Allen table and chairs.  We purchased the set shortly after our wedding at a flea market in Sioux City.  We really liked the quality of the table and the price wasn't too bad for us at the time.  It was missing a leaf in the middle and had a broken Lazy Susan.

We bought it and dragged it across Iowa to our first apartment, where we promptly learned that we don't know how to take care of a finished table.  In the photos one can see the white smudges where the waxy finish was damaged by a hot beverage set right on the wood.  How were we to know?

Later in the life of the table, the glue in the spindles of the chairs started to let go.  Not having the tools to drill or ream out the old glue, I kept attempting to glue and pin them back together.  Ultimately, I had to admit defeat.  We were faced with the choices of getting the table professionally fixed up OR selling it for a deal and keeping the retro table and chairs we were given by our very generous neighbors.

Follow the jump to find out what we chose AND what else we sold... Wait, that gave it away!

The Great Jettison: The Cassette Tapes

The tapes.  Darling..Dearest...Dead...

As any of my family or college roommates can attest, the tapes are a significant part of my life and the life of anyone I live with.  Tapes were great for a few things that are, for better or for worse, largely gone today.

Follow the jump for more magnetic CrO3 action!

No One Wanted These, Either?

So, you all saw this earlier this Spring, right?  In it, we saw some great material that just wasn't generating much buzz on the Craigslist Interweb.  Why didn't people jump at it?  Hard to say, must just be the old wrong place/wrong time song and dance.

Here's another sad story of a misfit toy that didn't find a new owner.  I can't imagine just why.  These basketball card collector's magazines from the early 1990's should have been a must have for any collection. They were found, forlorn, in the book pile at the church rummage in Davenport on "dollar-a-bag" day.  These were kept in good condition for all the years, and I thought they were beautiful, as you'll see after the break.

When moving time came, I couldn't justify keeping all the hard copies, so I scanned all the good images in the mags and put them up for sale.  Twice, I got an email of interest (from the same person) and twice I was stood up after setting up a pickup time.  That was in my early days of Craigslist-ing and still trusting of interweb humans in general.  After these two stand-ups, I decided to keep the magazines with my comic books, space be darned!  Luckily, I still had the images, and now I share them with you.

Comment below if you would have coughed up 5 bucks for a collection like this... not that I'm selling them, though.

See a sample of the work here-

Pat Ewing!?  What NBA JAM player could
turn down that flat-top!?

Follow the jump for the 50 other images taken from the magazine.  BOOM-SHAKALAKA!

The Great Jettison: Rugs

Just two of the MANY rugs we have sold.  

How many area rugs does a home with wood floors and a nasty painted basement floor need?  As many as can be obtained.  It just so happens that we had exactly that many.

This rug kept our toes warm in the cold bedroom through the winter.

Let's go from the boring to the awesome.  Above:  Boring (but nice quality...) This rug also has a rather boring sale story.  Someone just saw it, liked it, came over, and gave us the cash for it.  You didn't think that everything I sold on Craigslist has a cutesy story, did you?

After the break:  Awesome.

The Great Jettison: One Wheel-Harrowing Tale

You can't pull a Cory on Cory!

This ugly thing, like many ugly things, has great practical use and value.  Also like many ugly things, I got it for free while curb fishing one fine day.  If I remember correctly, this wheelbarrow came full of other useful things for me like some unfinished wood molding with lots of nails still in it (tomato stakes and firewood) and an old-fashioned flint-and-steel Bunsen Burner lighter...yeah... so...

I brought it home and it worked great for us!  I hauled a lot of yard waste and junk around with this baby in the year or two I owned it.  When moving time came upon us, up it went to Craigslist.  How much did I ask for it?  How much did I get for it?  What is with the title of this post?

The Great Jettison: Two visits in one day!

These chairs are were great for us.  We obtained them shortly after getting married in 2007.  Since then, they have had served not only as sturdy, movable chairs, but also a stepladder.  For painting, it seems from the photo.  

We had these chairs in the apartment and the house.  They even outlasted the chairs with our Ethan Allen wood dining table, and that's, like, real furniture.

In the "Price to Sell" mindset, we listed them for only 5 dollars on a Friday night, and had hits on them right away.  Early Saturday morning, we sold them to a nice young gentleman who was furnishing a new apartment (lots of people like that around here) and was also into furniture painting/finishing.

Little did he know, he'd be back to the house...later that day...with friends...

The Great Jettison: Back Breaking Tools, Unleashed!

The tools below are what a poor cheap man can afford to use on his home.  Power tools?  Nah!  "But what about that electric trimmer*?"  One might say in one's most snooty and pretentious voice.

"AHA!  I bought it for cheap, couldn't figure out how to restring it and never used it!"  I would say to you, o snooty one!

The snow shovel?  Used that baby A LOT.  Turns out a double wide driveway is nice for having friends and family over, but not so fun to dig out with after a big snow pile.  I spent many an hour listening to Car Talk and Retronauts re-run podcasts (rodcasts?) while hefting out mound after heavy mound.

*Follow the jump to see the electric trimmer...

It's Mayor's Cleanup Week!

In a rare change of form, we're posting in real time!  We couldn't help it after today.

Twice a year in our city, the government holds the sacred event that is Mayor's Cleanup Week.  During this week, you can set out ANYTHING (well, not anything, but a lot of things...) for pickup... for free.

One side of the pile.

 Here I am with about two thirds of the total haul.  There is more not in this photo that couldn't fit in our little patch of right-of-way, AND people had already taken our lawn mower, a stepladder, and a few other things.

Yes, people can take your stuff before the city does.  In fact, the city counts on it!  Every other MCUW we've had since living here, I have been a curb trawler, patrolling the refuse and detritus of the good citizens of this city looking for a score.  I have come out ahead in just about every one of them.  This time was supposed to be different.  I swore I would not fall to temptation and pick up things.  "ONLY GET RID OF THINGS!" I told myself.

Did I stick to the plan...?

The Great Jettison: Hittin' the Snooze Button!

"Is this made of real wood or particle board?"  Asked an interested buyer.  Since getting rid of all this furniture, I have seen a lot of both real wood and particle board stuff.

This cute little number?  Real as hell!

The Great Jettison: I DON'T Feel Bad, Thank You!

This thing came with the house...

...And apparently was quite a sought-after item.  What you see there is a wooden box that has literally lived in the same spot in our garage since we bought the house.  There is sat, empty, bereft, in its seedy little corner.  We just used it to pile up our returnable cans before returning them.  In fact, to take this photo, we had to remove a pile of nasty cans and bottles.  We didn't even keep cans in the box, just piling up on top.  Great thinking, us!

As Darwin said, "...From so humble a beginning..." This box became the subject of a (very) minor bidding war...

The Great Jettison: How Do Ya Spell That, Again?

What a beauty!  Relaxing on the deck, cold n' sweaty drink in hand, soaking up the sunshine.  Sound familiar? These activities take place in the American outdoor furniture classic:  The Adirondack Chair

Pictures can be deceiving, but I was honest with this sale, I promise...

The Great Jettison: Part 9

Old Technology Sold for a Profit?  Hold on to Your Butts!

Like we learned in Jurassic Park (1993)...

...They said Earth Girls are Easy, but this Sattler
chick is a total cold, uh, fish!

   

If by life we mean kick-butt sales!  The above cassette player served me well, from a Dubuque Goodwill store to my high school bedroom to my college dorm to my first two adulthood homes.  Good thing I was able to sell it for more than I bought it after all that use...

The Great Jettison: Part 8

The Asian Guy at the Liquor Store

I seriously doubt the person mentioned in this story was a member of the Yakuza (Japanese Mafia), but if he is, I have a long list of questions for him.

The aforementioned Asian Guy at the Liquor Store was merely a pawn in the great game we all play on Craigslist every day.  See the following excerpt from my personal journal...