FREECYCLE REVISITED

Audiobooks, I love them.  Much as I love reading, the eyes get tired easily.  I already spend a lot of time staring at computer/smartphone/tablet screen, I should use the eyes less whenever possible.  Listening to audiobooks is the answer.  I can do it while driving (it makes the driving less annoying, I hate driving), while walking, or even while sweeping the floor.  But not while running.  I rely on audiobooks, in the form of CDs, from public libraries but use a portable DVD player to listen to them.  I suppose I can try carrying the DVD player in a backpack but I prefer to run with as few things as possible.  It's too bulky anyway, even for walking.  I finally decided that I should get a real CD player.  I am sure I can buy one cheap, but why not give freecycling another try.  Surely someone out there only listen to music and such on iPod etc and has a CD player sitting around collecting dust.  I revisited my last post about freecycling (http://www.qaptainqwerty.com/2006/11/going-in-circles-with-freecycle.html ) and it was back in 2006.  Wow, about 6 years ago!

While I recalled that I belonged to two freecycling groups, I thought there is some rule about people should go to the group for their borough only, so I went to the Brooklyn group.  It slowly came back to me, one of the reason I didn't like the freecycle groups.  It's a lot of info to sift through!  One wrong click and you are back to the beginning, slowly paging through the many pages.  It's all Yahoo's fault.  Or maybe the posters' fault.  Messages should be bunched together if they are related.  So that Offer, Promised, Taken etc go together.  The way things are, you need to eyeball the messages a lot.  Or maybe I'm missing something.  At least I have Message Delivery set to Web Only, so that I have to specifically go to the groups to see the messages.  Having every single message sent to a mailbox will inundate the mailbox in no time as there is just too much activities.  Access the Message Delivery setting by clicking Edit Membership while logged in groups.yahoo.com

I didn't see any offer for a CD player and since I haven't visited the site for a while, I decided to offer something before I post a request.  Nobody responded to my offer of some replacement brush for a Colgate electric toothbrush that I bought by mistake at a Pathmark store-closing sale.  I did come across an offer for some running magazines.  I know someone who can use a recent copy of Runners' World!  I made the contact and it all worked out.  I have the magazine and gave the donor a running-themed sonobe.  Actually, it's her husband who runs, but I wrote a thank-you note on the sonobe addressing both of them.

I wandered over to the NYC group for freecycle and saw that people all over the city use it, including Brooklynites.  Before long, I found an offer for a CD player, as well as an offer for a reader of memory cards.  I also found two requests for things that I can offer, namely for an audiocassette player and a wireless router.  Two takes and two gives, I think I'm balanced.  As long as I don't take more than I give, I should be fine, right?

Reuse This!

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Not just on Earth Day, but every day. I do that. Drink coffee from a washable ceramic mug instead of a disposable cup. Wear clothes handed down by my nephews. Make origami out of street flyers. Much as I love to replace them with the latest and greatest, most of my computer equipments are five years old, or longer. Curbside recycling of paper and plastic is nice, but I don't only recycle the stuff used in the house. If I buy a bottle of drink while out, after consuming the content I would take it home, or recycle it at the nearest recycle bin.

I wish everything is easy to re-use, like clothes and paper. Case in point are these plastic pieces that come with the ink cartridges for my Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet. They protect the cartridges' drums, supposedly, during transit at least, but once unpackaged, what to do with them? They are about 30 cm (11 inches) long, unbendable although a bit flexible along its length. I just cannot think of any way to re-use them other than perhaps melting them and pouring the resulting slush into the shape of a puddle, to make a fake spilled drink. I do know burnt plastic smells horrible though so melting is not such a great idea. Perhaps HP can replace it with cardboard someday, like how styrofoam is used less in packaging these days.

Life, Out Of Touch

My iPod touch is dead. About a year into my ownership of the thing, the battery started to deplete rather faster than usual. If left on overnight, it would be totally dead the next morning. I think the normal thing would be for it to go into sleep mode and be usable the next day. Not so with this iTouch of mine. I made do with charging it often and brought the charger with me to work so that I would have something to use on the commute home. The strategy worked for a while, until the battery wouldn't charge any more. Connecting the Touch to the computer normally would also charge it as well as sync its content, but no such luck. My iPod touch really bit the dust.

The natural thing to do is shop around and buy a new one. I still can afford one, but there are two problems. One is that I was hoping that Apple would finally give the Touch a still camera. Many times I had the Touch with me and wanted to take a photo but didn't have a camera. My cell phone has a camera but getting photos out of it is such a hassle. A Touch with camera would be handy to have and not a hassle at all with syncing.

The other reason, a loftier one, is that as a self-proclaimed environmentalist, I should not be so quick to buy new things and immediately discard things as they become defective. Better to make use of existing things and repair the broken stuff. With that in mind, I took my second-generation, 10-gig iPod out of retirement and use it for what it's best at - music and podcasts. There are no useful apps like the American Heritage Dictionary or fun game like Trivia Pursuit, but it helps me keep up with This American Life and other podcasts. I even added The Brothers Karamazov audiobook, free from http://librivox.org , to the old iPod. I get an extra point, too, for re-using the 2G iPod in that it can only sync via FireWire 400, which is not available on my Mac Pro so that I have to also get the PowerBook G4 out of mothball whenever I need to sync the old iPod.

I do miss the dictionary on the Touch as it helped me many times when I play crossword puzzles. It is time to make more use of the Abest Chinese PDA. I bought it years ago primarily to use as an electronic Chinese dictionary but it also has the Oxford English dictionary. The lack of backlighting is painful, but again I just need to learn to make do. I even thought about getting the Handspring Deluxe out of retirement to use its address book, calendar, and notes.

One iTouch function I cannot replace is its photo storage. It was nice while it lasted to carry around my entire photo collection. A short while before the Touch expired, it could no longer store all the photos, music, and apps, so I had to cut back to just the last twelve months of photos.

I plan to make do with the old iPod, the Abest PDA, maybe even the old Handspring PDA, for a few more weeks. In the mean time, I plan a visit to Brooklyn's First Apple Authorized Repair Shop, the Mac Support Store, in the Gowanus area, to get the battery replaced. However long that takes I don't mind. Once the Touch is all good again, then I'll be able to carry around twelve months of photos again, and more.

Reuse

Is it not true that sometimes the news is always bad? That when good news happen nobody reports it? I am going to change that view now.

With the recent arrival of Lunar New Year, I had cousins on my side and wife's side visited on different days of the long weekend. They are all receptive in taking used toys and such and I was happy to pass along some of my worldly possessions that have outlived their usefulness. Some I have fond memories of but it was time to part with them. It is still good news to part with them by passing them on to someone who can use them.

• A Woody doll from Toys Story, complete with pull-string and cowboy hat. I bought it back when I was still working in Jersey City near the Newport Mall. Back then my son still liked Toys Story. He watched the Toys Story 2 so many times the VHS tape showed sign of breaking up when viewed.
• My son's kiddie bike. Altogether he had 3 bikes, one when he was really little, with no chain. Uncle Robert got him a better one and he used it for a while until the chain broke and I couldn't find the time to fix it. Finally, we got him one appropriate for his age and size. I had high hopes that he would learn how to ride with just two wheels but it never happened. I will try to get his cousin to resume riding bike first, then perhaps out of being competitive my son will take to the bike. This past weekend the latest bike, now too small for my son, went Cousin N. BTW, the other 2 bikes also found good homes years ago when I got rid of them.
• Various Thomas the Tank Engine toys set and books, plus other train-related toys. Like most boys, J loved trains. I don't recall being so crazy about trains, perhaps because I never saw one, whether in person or on TV, when I was young. Long ago when my son still fitted in a stroller, we visited the MTA Train Museum. We left with my son's first train set, a set of wooden tracks and a few train cars, connected via magnets at the ends. I still remember my son fell asleep as we made our way from the museum to the Pacific Street station of the B train - maybe it was the W train, who knows. It was a hot summer day and I enjoyed a can of Coke bought from a pizza store while my son slept. Aaaaah, those stolen moment when the child slept and the parent had a break.

These days my son is into green toy soldiers along with battle sets (tanks, helicopter, etc) and Bakugan. And of course computer games. Who knows how long it will last, just cherish the moment.