No one believes me, but...

Clean Sweep - The Taking of the A******* Atoll is coming soon. For those unfamiliar with the hit TV show Clean Sweep, let me explain. People sign up to have the show come in and help them get a room, rooms or their house organized and cleaned up. We have a lot of clutter and crap, yes, but you should see some of these people's living areas. I mean they use their bedroom, dining rooms, living rooms, everywhere they would normally reside as the area to store stuff. Our stuff is basically stuffed into the basement. We refuse to allow our dining and living rooms to be cluttered because we host so many things during the year. And we refuse to have our upper floor (bedrooms) packed up around us.

So, admirable effort aside, we have boxes that have not been opened in almost four years (it will be four years in this house as of August) and some from before that which we had in storage since they would not fit into the old apartment. Now, a lot of books are in there that we want out in the open when we eventually move to a place that can hold some book shelves; some we will donate to schools here and abroad. I have mounds of computer equipment that is outdated and collecting dust. The General, a friend and UNIX mentor will take a load of it off my hands to use to teach technology on the island he lives on (sorry, not in the sunny part of the world, in the St. Lawrence). I am a paper pack rat so there are hundreds of magazines that I have been trying to get to. I buy and try to read about 10-20 a month depending on the interesting article that catches my eye. Yes, I know, but I do get through quite a bit of them quickly (i.e. Maximum PC, PC World, Mac World, Linux Journal, etc.).

So, how am I going to accomplish this monumental feat? F**K if I know. DW and Famine have been threatening me for years with doing a "While You Were Out" and clearing it all before I got home one day. I threatened to divorce her so those plans have been changed. I have two weeks vacation from last year that HR (evil bastards) tell me I MUST take by the end of June. So, at least one week will be spent, morning to night, cleaning up the crap in this house. I am trying to get a read on what week that would be but I will not have a lot of choice soon seeing that the year is flying by (what the hell is that?) and I now only have two months to get these two weeks in. I do have that poker tournament coming up so I may work around that so I am already off as I go forward in the tourney and working on the house when I am not playing.

Regardless, the moment some real sun hits these parts (still waiting for those elusive 20s) we will be having the mother of all garage sales on our street. Everything from books and mags, to possibly some clothes, dining ware, electronics, maybe some music and movies, computers, furniture, and considering we will probably not end up in a place with a 19 foot living room, DW's beloved 65-incher may be up for grabs too.

First things first though, I have to clean up and find it all. Wish me luck. Peace.