You know what? I've found I like giving things away.

[Tab]

I first mainly did it when I had to downsize from a large 6,000 sqft house (where I had my office as well) and gave a lot of the equipment to a local nonprofit school.

I need to start downsizing again and am again giving it away to schools and helpful charities. Even though I can sell this stuff, and could certainly use the money, I just prefer to give it to places that can't otherwise afford it. My piano, pretty much the last thing in the world I'd get rid of, I'm donating to my son's (prior - he graduated) high school. Some of this stuff you can't just buy anymore, but I remember being thrilled when I found the secret piano hidden in my high school. I want to give someone else this thrill.

I'm not suggesting everyone do this, but sometimes you get to a point in your life where you have to reduce your footprint, and rather than just put this stuff on eBay, I'd rather give to the community. If, at some point in your life, you have the opportunity to pay it forward, I just can say it can be very internally rewarding.

May you all know peace.

- Tab

[lamp_shade]

1. I understand... and I think you're wonderful for doing it that way.

[roscoeroscoe]

2. Oddly enough!

Right now my wife n I are downsizing too. We're going from roomy Army housing to a little apartment with an awesome view. Had to have it... Now we have to leave go of stuff.

Good thoughts!

[Piasladic]

4. the secret piano

This is what made middle school manageable for me. Thank you so much.

[retrowire]

5. The secret piano

This is what made church manageable for me. I'd sneak away during wednesday night classes to just play it the whole time. I felt I had a more spiritual experience from the piano than I did from the youth pastor telling us to shame our gay friends.

[TeamPooka]

9. In my middle school it was kept backstage in our combination gym/audtorium. I was like

"what we have a piano hidden back here?"
No one was using it so I got permission to start a "music club" so students could use it.

[retrowire]

10. That's awesome! I just played alone. It was the best. nt

[Squinch]

6. K&R... Nice!

[murielm99]

7. We are doing this gradually.

We will have to do it when we move to a smaller house, so it is good to start now.

We gave away some electronics. I gave some furniture to single mom. Doing this gradually has helped us send things to the right places and people.

[Marty McGraw]

8. Did you at least

Do the Republican Hearted thing, and demand a Tax Write off for the donation(s)?

[SmittynMo]

11. Pay it forward?

Not to brag, but recently the following happened.

I recently found I was in a situation where I had 34K of frequent flier miles from many years ago. They had to be used by the end of January and I could not use them.

I then found out I can give the miles away to someone else for a nominal charge(tax). I searched many family members with no success. (Who wants to travel on short notice and in the winter). My wife said just let them expire. I said no, and kept looking. I finally found the perfect person(s) to give the miles to.

Years ago, after losing my job, my parents had to be put into a nursing home. The lady that helped me at social services was by far one of the coolest people I have ever met. To make a long story short, she made the transition effortless, and I found that her husband needed an IT person for his college. He eventually employed me. I worked there for 3 years, and we became very tight. We still do lunches now and then. He and his wife don't make shit for salaries, and live with his parent to make ends meet. Recently he lost his left leg at the knee (Knee cancer). I never knew that even existed. It has been a big uphill battle. So I called him, told him of the situation, and found that he and his wife could fly round trip to San Diego free. He hasn't seen his brother in 12 years who lives there. They gladly accepted my offer, which still to this date, makes me feel very good.

They jump on the plane next week. T -6 days to go. It should be about 78 when they arrive.

Paying it forward is really worth the hype.

[Arugula Latte]

18. That is awesome!

Just for future reference, there are also charities that accept miles and use them for great things like flying kids to get certain medical services or getting them to their make-a-wish dream place (like Disneyworld/land).

[Spitfire of ATJ]

12. I've got an old laptop with 16 megs of ram running Windows 95....

I may give it away to a museum.

[Tab]

13. Good luck with that

although I appreciate the spirit. Probably a lot of under-funded museums run Win/95-16meg themselves.

I tried to give away one of the original Go tablets -the first handheld tablets in what was then called a zero-billion dollar industry - a prototype for developers and you've probably never seen one - to the computer musuem but they already had one and weren't interested. Maybe a non-profit could use your's though, or a public service office just looking to provide terminals to clients, if only to get onto the Internet.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

14. There was one thing worth saving off of it....

Windows Macro Recorder.

It works on all versions of Windows. Really handy if you have repetitive tasks like sending a bunch of customer info from a data file to a printer. Cubical employees cheated with that beauty so it was dropped in later versions.

[Tab]

15. There's no reason it can't be rewritten

using the Windows journalism feature. If I thought there was any money in it, I'd go for it, but I just envision a host of compatibility problems to deal with.

I've been on Microsoft since the beginning - developing a bit on DOSv1, but it wasn't until DOSv3 that they got something really usuable. I was a beta tester on v4, which I recall as being a loss, then beta on v5 which was a hit and a mainstay. Although they got into DOS 6 and 7, at the same time they were bringing out Windows 3 (I think coincidentally with v5), then 3.1 which added color, then Windows for Workgroups (3.11). Ultimately we moved into WIndows 95 which was decent, and also a mainstay, then XP came out - different but good - then Vista which didn't do shit but annoy people (and lets not forget the "multimedia edition" or whatever it was called with Bob the Staple, and just a failure overall. Windows 7 was good; I use it to this day. Windows 8 was pretty much a loss. Now it's Windows 10. I'm in no hurry for 10 at the moment.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

16. I think XP should be still be supported by Microsoft for older machines....

There's a lot of money to be made convincing people their computer is obsolete.

http://vimeo.com/14388358

[Tab]

17. It's a long-standing debate

At one point they need to push the userbase forward. At the same time they need to recognize that many of their users still run XP.

There are, IMO, three reasons for this:

- People for whom XP works just fine, and the others require investments in machines and time for something that's adequately servicing their needs.

- Companies that made a single investment years ago and aren't able to revise that investment. Case in point: my local hardware store runs a eMachine (remember those?) And I'm sure they have software that might not have been updated, and why should they change if what they're using is doing the job? When it comes to registers and inventory and stuff, that junk doesn't upgrade lightly in the face of new software that might disrupt the business.

- "Embedded" systems., true or not (there's a specific definition for embedded) like ATMs that just can't be arbitrarily updated to, say Windows 8 or 10.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

19. My local Pizza Hut was still using COBOL and the little receipt printer was all yellowed.

[Tab]

21. About in line with their dough

but I get the point

[pintobean]

20. I just gave away a futon bunk bed to a flood victim.

It had been our daughter's. We had done the same with her baby crib during the flood of '93.

I just can't imagine loosing everything like that.