Yes, I’m in the midst of going through years of “internet” crap (I really have two boxes of keyboards? Really? [yep]). In our town, we have a pretty good electronics recycling program, and I am filling boxes of stuff ready for when they open in April.

Hence the Spring cleaning – keyboards and beyond – I have a crapload of stuff that I don’t need…and why do I still have it??

For example: Much of the boxes’ contents I’m going through dates back to 1997, so some observations – per gathering of crap over the last 20 years.

• I have way too many cables. Just log off Amazon Prime and check around the house! USB. HDMI. RJ-15. RJ-45. Computer power cords (with the sorta trapezoid three-prong female end). Cords R Us!
• I has surprised at how much telephone equipment – cords, adapters, splitters and so on I had stashed around the office. But I did begin the whole intertube journey via twisted copper and modems (screech!!!!), so I guess it sorta makes sense. But why do I have a phone line extension cord from my bank? (See picture.) Different times.
• Found an old Cue cat in the debris. Remember Cue cat? Some do. It’s a keeper.
• The lack of standards on connectors (or wealth of options) – or cables – is a constant source of frustration. Just computer to video screen: VGA, DIV-X, HDMI, Display Port. And this is getting messy in the mobile world, as well – I’ll be happy when most everything is USB-C or whatever. Pick one. Any one.
• Routers…so many routers. It seems that each router I purchase lasts fewer days than the one that it replaced. On the other hand, I buy (metal) Netgear switches and they just last and last – maybe the older ones are not as “zippy,” but it’s for a LAN. They are fast (enuf) and, well, don’t die. Yay!
• I still hoard some stuff: When I roll off an old computer, I’ll often save the fan and – sometimes – other stuff that might die on a future or older computer: ribbon cables, stand-alone NICs. But never power supplies, RAM or other chips. The “but never” stuff in the previous sentence is part of the electronics that I had collected, but are now in the recycling box.
• Hard drives: I either hang on to them or totally, physically destroy. I’m not paranoid about leaking my info, but I know enough that hard drives should, shall we say, not be offered to the public. NOTE: The ones I destroy (drilling, breaking plattens) go to recycling.

Bottom Line – I finally got around to sorting through the piles/boxes of stuff in my office. Organized (to some degree) the stuff I wanted to keep; boxed the “heave-ho” stuff. My office is suddenly spacious. Success!