2-22-12: Mansions and Creepy Townies

Posted on February 28, 2012 by The Young Urban Unprofessional

I was moving into a new apartment with a friend from home (haven’t talked to in years but played hockey with growing up) located just outside of Boston. I had only seen pictures and read a description of the place. It sounded huge and state of the art and within my price range so I said yeah sure let’s do it. It ended up being the first floor and basement of a mansion located on a lake. Also it came fully furnished. It was really an unbelievable setup with multiple rooms for pool, darts, entertainment, sleeping, lounging, exercise, etc. Everything was made of high quality wood as well, rich mahogany as we referred to it in my dream. Then halfway through my dream my roommates changed (not officially but subtly to someone I rock climb with now). Moving out of my current place was easy due to my 100 item 30day life experiment. Except for my bed I was able to fit everything into one zipcar to drive it over to our new place.

The house was being rennovated from a rundown mansion and ours was the only floor that was finished, the rest of it was crumbling and falling apart, that’s why we got it so cheap. It was also on a lake and had a bit of a back yard which included a fire bit complete with a brick oven for pizzas. Absolutely incredible. Then there was this guy I met out on the street who also lived nearby. He put off a very “townie” vibe so he made me a bit uncomfortable. He wanted to come over but I forgot my key to the apartment. As luck would have it (or unfortunate fate) we got to my apartment and he had a key to our front door. Apparently this neighborhood has locks with universal keys. He said, “That’s just how things work around here.” I remember being kind of disturbed by this neighborhood norm and making a mental note to change the locks asap.

The Final Count of November’s 30-Day 100 Item Challenge

Posted on December 2, 2011 by The Young Urban Unprofessional

Today I reached my goal of 100 items after spending 30 days getting rid of 45% of my belongings. It was a pretty aggressive timeline and I’m really surprised that I was able to actually reach 100. The hardest part of this challenge was definitely the timeframe. I was able to rationalize a lot of my belongings and why I had them and what they meant to me but the major obstacle was how could I possibly get down to 100 items in 30 days while still having a life? The answer was: give things to friends/family or donate as much as you can as fast as you can, it was like pulling off a Band-Aid. I purged at first by category: clothing, sports clothing, sports gear, books, electronics, etc. Then I purged en masse, taking a look at all my belongings and figuring out what was really important. The easiest items to give away were pieces of clothing (not emotionally tied to what I wear). The hardest things to get rid of was my ukulele and harmonica, neither of which I have played more than a few times in the past year (however both of which I am emotionally tied to for various reasons). I am still trying to sell my ukulele because I want it to go to a nice home where it will be loved and if that takes more than 30 days then so be it J

I spent the entire month coming to terms with the fact that the number 100 was pretty arbitrary and gimmicky. Why 100 items? Why 1 month? I decided to do this challenge because since I left home 6 years ago, this is the first year that I’ve stayed in the same place for more than 12 months. Moving so often during college requires you to be nimble, agile, and minimal with what you own. I could usually manage one car-load of stuff to move from one place to the next. Now being almost two years out of college with disposable income and staying in the same apartment for a second year I saw myself accumulating lots of stuff. “This is how it starts, I’m settling down. Next I’ll get old, stop adventuring, and spend my weekends at home depot trying to remodel the bathroom .” That’s an exaggeration but I’ve been interested in a major purging project for a while. I basically picked the number 100 because I had read about it on the internet (hundreds of blogs online talk about doing their own 100 item challenges). I never expected that I’d actually get to that number. However, after making my final count of all the items that I own, I can safely say that I use (with high frequency) EVERYTHING that I own.

Now this challenge wasn’t without the caveats. I stated these at the beginning of my challenge and stuck to them. The point of doing these 30-day challenges is to improve the quality of my daily life, mostly by getting myself out of the daily grind and attitudes associated with being a young urban professional. Therefore, I decided that this challenge shouldn’t impact:

1.) Hygiene because that sucks for everyone, not just me. Knowing myself as well as I do, I’d likely pitch my deodorant or toothbrush in order to keep my snowshoes. This is exaggerated of course (or is it?) but it’s not a choice my friends/girlfriend/family/coworkers would want me to make. So I didn’t count soap, toothbrush, deodorant, and the like, mostly for the sake of others (and for things like my dentist bill).

2.) Safety because this challenge isn’t worth putting my life in danger. I do a lot of recreational sports, so I didn’t even give myself the option of getting rid of safety gear. I’ve had a few serious concussions so I don’t even mess around with that anymore, wear a helmet, always. For example, I left out my helmets for biking/hockey/climbing and medical kit for hiking. I also considered my trail maps a safety item. One could surely hike in NH without a map, but that’s pretty dumb so I didn’t even consider it as an option.

3.) Other People because this challenge was my idea and wasn’t meant in any way to negatively affect those around me. Therefore there were a few items that I share with my roommates that I didn’t count because getting rid of them would have resulted in getting beat up, harassed, or unofficially evicted. For example, we share my bike pump (without it we wouldn’t have one), some tools for around the apt (again I have some unique tools), a couch (can’t really get rid of that), kitchenware (I’m not even sure what’s actually mine anymore), and the worm compost (that I built in my first month’s challenge but share with my roommates).

I didn’t count food as an item because it’s always in flux, never really existing as an item in my life for very long (except for those few things in the fridge you forget about for 2 months, yikes). So the above three caveats would definitely drive me above the arbitrary 100 item limit, but at the beginning I decided that it was in my best interest (as well as those around me) that I stick to them. Therefore my 100 items listed below are the items that I personally own, personally use, and would personally carry with me if I were to pick up and move or travel.

Here’s the list of my final 100 items:

Socks – Cotton

Socks – Wool

Underwear – Cotton

Underwear – Techwick

Pants – Blue Jeans

Pants – Khaki

Pants – Corduroy

Belt – Black

Belt – Brown

Shorts – Khaki Cargo

Shorts – Jorts

Tshirt – Dysarts

Tshirt – Spartan Beast

Tshirt – Chamonix

Tshirt – VICE Fest

Tshirt – College Baseball

Longsleeve – Blue

Polo – Blue

Button Down – Blue/Black

Button Down – Green Flannel

Button Down – REI

Button Down – White/Brown

Button Down – Red/White

Button Down – Blue/White

Button Down – Black

Blazer – Brown

Suit – Grey

Dress Shoes – Brown

Sneakers – LL Bean

Sandals

Hiking Boots – LL Bean

Running Shoes

Running Shorts

Tech Shirt – Ragnar 2010

Tech Shirt – Ragnar 2011

Tech Base Layer Upper

Tech Base Layer Lower

Expedition Base Layer Upper

Expedition Base Layer Lower

Shell Pants

Tech Baseball Hat

Micro Fleece 1/4 Zip

Rain Jacket

Marmot 3-in-1 Winter Jacket

Polyester Liner Gloves

Goretex Winter Gloves

Mountaineering Boots

Gaiters

Crampons

Microspikes

Snowshoes

Osprey Backpack – 24Liters

Osprey Backpack – 40Liters

Osprey Backpack – 70Liters

Backpack Cover – 40Liters

Ski Pulk (haul sled)

Sunglasses – Athletic

Sunglasses – Aviators

Messenger Bag

Sleeping Bag – 0F

Sleeping Bag – 35F

Sleeping Bag Liner – +20F

Expedition Down Parka

Winter Hat – Fleece

Winter Hat – Expedition

Nalgene

Insulated Thermos

Camelback – 3Liters

Rock Climbing Shoes

Rock Climbing Harness

Head Lamp

Camping Bowl

Camping Stove

Knife

Hobo Tool

Sleeping Pad

3-Season Tent

Trekking Poles

Hammock

Baseball Glove

Hockey Skates

Hockey Gloves

Hockey Stick (and puck)

Bike Shorts

Road Bike – Beater

Road Bike – Racer

iPod Touch

Waterproof Camera

Smartphone

MacBook

External Hardrive

Electric Guitar

Tube Amplifier

Acoustic Guitar

Acoustic Guitar Lamp

Reference Books

Bed/Bedframe/Pillow/Blanket

Wallet

Watch

I found that 14/100 of my items are strictly used for winter (crampons, puffy jacket, etc) so for 8-ish months out of the year I have only 86 items. I also found that 57/100 of my items are related to sports/outdoor activities. Therefore, when taking out sports stuff, I’d own only 43 items. Through this challenge it became evident that I was largely unwilling to give up on my outdoor life thus reaffirming its importance in my life. I have 31 items of regular clothing, 50 items of outdoor adventuring stuff, 7 items of strictly sporting goods, 5 electronic items, 4 musical items, and 3 in the “other” category.

It was a pretty intense challenge trying to juggle all of the baggage that goes along with owning “stuff”. My emotions, the emotions of others, having to be practical, trying to stay comfortable and many other factors were very real and very hard to deal with. All in all I’m glad I did the challenge and I feel like I have more clarity on what “things” are important in my life. Generally, these “things” give me mobility and the ability to adventure. I think from now on I’ll do something like this once a year where I take an inventory of everything I own just to make sure that things aren’t getting out of hand. The last thing I want to do is to let the things I own hold me back from seeing what’s really important.

Musical Instruments

Posted on November 18, 2011 by The Young Urban Unprofessional

Here’s a quick update on my item count. I have yet to do my electronics and kitchen stuff, but so far I’ve counted up 176 initial items and I have been able to purge about 56% of my belongings. So that’s 99 items. So far it hasn’t been too painful but I’ve really had to take a close look at the things I own, why I own them, and what purpose they serve (pragmatic vs sentimental). I could probably still reduce clothing some clothing items to drive that number down. I would without a doubt give up clothing in order to keep many of my hobby and sports items.

Today I took a look at my musical instrument collection. I had 10 total musical instruments. I’ve played guitar since I was 13 so it’s been a big part of my life. I started with formal jazz lessons for 4-ish years and played with a handful of bands throughout high school. I play much less now that I’m working for the man and doing so many outdoor activities. I don’t leave myself much time to sit in my apartment and play music like I did in high school and college. Here’s an image of my musical instruments:

From left to right:

The red guitar with the unattached electronics is a project I’ve been working on where I’m turning it into a lamp. It was the first guitar I ever had, originally a black Ibanez. I refinished it after my first year in college and played around with new pickups and whatnot, got my feet wet in the nuts of bolts of guitars. Now it’s not in really great shape for playability but I found a site online that sells guitar lamps and they look AWESOME. So I’m going to try and install a dimmer switch in place of the pickup switch in order to dim the light bulb that I’ll put on top. It’s an exciting project so I think I’m going to stick with it and count it toward my 100 items.

On top of the amp I have a Cry Baby Wah pedal that I hardly use. It sounds pretty sweet but ultimately it’s not about how much wah you use, it’s about how well you play guitar. It’s all about the cowbell anyway, so the wah is like ehh whatever. It doesn’t add much to my bottom line of just jamming and learning new songs so I’m going to try and sell it on craigslist or to a local used instruments dealer.

Hanging from the wall is my pride and joy. I built this guitar a few years ago. The body came blank but in the traditional Stratocaster shape. So I did the 3-color sunburst which worked out great. I was nervous about experimenting with such a paint job but I read up on it online and it worked out better than I expected. The neck came in one piece (ebony fretboard with a maple neck). The tuning pegs are actually from my priest back home in Maine. A few years ago someone ran over his 12 string with their minivan so I acquired the pieces. Now his guitar lives on in the form of blues and rock and roll. I put bluesy pickups in as well as a Gotoh-Wilkinson bridge which is a pretty high end bridge, found it on Craigslist for super cheap, score! Basically a similar guitar online would cost over $2k but I paid just over $600 for materials and it took me about 5 months to finish (granted I was also an undergrad and graduate student at the same time, definitely could have finished it faster given different circumstances). Win!

To complement my sexy home-made franken-strat, I eventually bought a tube amp made by Bugera. I got a smokin deal on it from Craigslist, close to 70% off it’s retail value. It sounds incredible so it’s staying of course. An electric guitar wouldn’t be much use without the amp. I’m not counting my guitar cable as an item because it’s really part of the whole system. Both the amp and the guitar would be useless without it, just as my computer’s power chord is part of the system needed to make it work.

The tuner I’ll get rid of because I have a smartphone app for that now. I’ll also get rid of the capo because I never use it. There’s also a Harmonica that Sarah gave me a while back because I’ve always been interested in learning. However I don’t think I’ve even picked it up once so I gave it back to her. I think if I go on any kind of extended travel or backpacking trip I’ll take the time to learn it because it’s such a great instrument for travel. As for now though, just really don’t see myself taking the time to sit down and learn it.

The ukulele is still kind of a sore spot for me. I bought it with Sarah and my buddy Vinny when we were on Oahu. It’s made in Honolulu, it sounds great, I got a great deal on it, and it’s a sentimental piece of my trip to Hawaii. However, I have really only played it a few times in the 1.5 years that I’ve had it. I still can only play the one song that I learned right after I first bought it; White Sandy Beach by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_YfyKahP-0 It’s a great instrument and my experience in Hawaii was THE BEST, but I really have neglected using the ukulele and learning new songs. So this leads me to think that I probably shouldn’t have bought it in the first place. Did I really want to play the ukulele or did I just want something to put on display that would remind me and others of Hawaii? I’ll have to wrestle with this one before I’m really willing to sell it. It’s worth about $150 so if I decide to sell it, I’ll wait as long as I need to in order to get a fair price. We’ll see how it goes.

The Acoustic guitar on the right was my first and only acoustic guitar, a Simon & Patrick. To this day it is still my favorite sounding acoustic I’ve played (that means all guitars under $4000 because I’ve played some REALLY nice guitars that are quite out of my price range so they don’t count). HOWEVER, last winter the humidity wreaked havoc on it. There’s a 5″ horizontal split in the wood on the front of the guitar. Also, the bridge split all the way down the saddle. I was in a new apartment and neglected to humidify the guitar, so in the extremely dry new apartment it cracked. I had it fixed by a luthier but only slightly. The luthier said it might last another winter but it’s definitely on it’s way out and not worth repairing if it happens again. This is leading me to think of selling it or donating it. I think spending some time without an acoustic guitar could be good for me. I’ve had this one for almost 10 years so if I find that I really can’t live without one then I’ll save up some money for one I’ve had my eye on. So this month might be a good excuse to move on considering it’s inevitability. It still makes me sad though :(

The dulcimer (shown below, not above), I built in a guitar-making class at the Museum School of Fine Arts while I was in college. I don’t really play it at all but it looks great and I built it with my own two hands. So I donated it to my parents for them to hang on the wall as an art piece in the kitchen. We found a good spot for it and it looks great.

My hand-made dulcimer on the wall in my parents' kitchen. Looks good if I do say so myself.

Here’s the breakdown of my musical stuff. It’s the least amount of items of any of my categories so far but they’re definitely among the most important.

Music Stuff	# Before	# Purged	# Final
Electric Guitar Lamp Project	1	0	1
Electric Guitar – Custom Built Strat Style	1	0	1
Acoustic Guitar – Simon & Patrick	1	0	1
Amplifier – Bugera Tube Amp	1	0	1
Dulcimer	1	1	0
Capo	1	1	0
Guitar Tuner	1	1	0
Harmonica	1	1	0
Ukulele	1	1	0
Wah Pedal	1	1	0
Total	10	6	4

Sports Gear Inventory

Posted on November 14, 2011 by The Young Urban Unprofessional

My sports gear is as much a part of who I am as anything else I own. I spend almost every weekend doing some kind of outdoor adventure which lends itself to having a variety of different pieces of gear for each activity. From my inventory, that’s exactly 51 different pieces of sports gear. Some are used only in the summer (road bike), some are used only in spring/summer/fall (3 season tent), and some are strictly for winter (snowshoes, 0F sleeping bag, mountaineering boots, crampons, etc etc). In order to (safely) do many of my activities I need lots of “stuff”. Being outdoors is inherently “stuff” intensive. However, it can definitely get out of hand. That’s why I can’t be left unsupervised in an REI, I’ll end up coming out with something that I don’t need or can’t afford. There is lot’s of room for multifunctional pieces of gear that can span many seasons and activities.

I read a good Henry David Thoreau quote recently that said said “Beware all enterprises that require new clothes.” That’s definitely what I used to do before I started getting serious about the outdoors; I did winter hikes in normal day-day winter boots (not water proof), cold weather camping with a 35F sleeping bag (not a great idea), hikes in the rain with “weather-proof” jackets (weatherproof does not = waterproof), road biking without bike shorts (sore ass), etc. So over the years I’ve acquired the proper gear that I needed to safely and (sometimes) comfortably go on adventures. However, I’ve acquired so much that I don’t really have time to use it all. I definitely fall into the category of, jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none thing. I don’t really want to be a master of just one sport because I enjoy doing so many things so I’m okay with a little bit (or a lot) of variety. Here’s a glimpse of all of sports gear sprawled out on my bed:

Tennis racquet, snowshoes, tent, sleeping bags, three backpacks (different sizes for different trips), sled, trekking poles, road bike, and the list goes on.

“Why buy two pieces of gear when one will do?” (Yvon Chouinard). I found that out of all the gear that I have, I pretty much have one of everything which is a comforting thought. One major thing that has helped with this challenge is the idea of multifunctionality. This notion was reinforced when I read, “Let My People Go Surfing” by Yvon Chouinard. I was totally drinking the Patagonia coolaid for about a month after reading this book but the concept of multifunctionality still holds true. I see these in my base layers that are “stylish” enough to wear to work as well as my 3-in-1 jacket that I can use in the fall, winter, and spring. Before I went out and bought a climbing helmet I used to use my ice hockey helmet with my half-visor. I figured it was rugged enough to protect me in the event of some falling ice and it provided full eye protection with the half shield. Great functionality although a little odd out on the mountain.

The items I had in excess I simply either gave away or paired down to one of that item; winter hats, broken hockey sticks, leaky thermos, replacement bike shoe cleats, replacement bike pedals, baseball bat, and swim cap. These are all items I either gave away to friends or sent off to Good Will. The one exception to the “one item thing” are my two road bikes. They serve two very different purposes and one of them rarely even enters Boston. I keep one chained up at the train station near work so I can bike instead of spending money on the (often late) shuttle bus. This is kind of a beat-around bike that I spent around $150 on. The other bike is a nice Trek 2200 that I acquired with my graduation money to do extended bike trips. I’ve used it quite a bit throughout Boston and NH over the past few years. It’s a beast and I love it.

I started with 51 items, purged 11, and ended up with 40. Thus 40% of my foreseeable 100 items are sports gear. From my last month’s photo-challenge I found that 24% of my photos involved something sports related, I also spent 29% of my pictures outside. This is at least analogous to the percentage of sporting items I have in my arsenal. We’ll see how much farther I have to go in order to try and reach my 100 item goal.

Sports	# Before	# Purged	# After
Road Bike (racing)	1	0	1
Road Bike (to/from work)	1	0	1
Foam Roller	1	0	1
Baseball Glove	1	0	1
Snowshoes	1	0	1
Winter Hats	3	2	1
Winter Gloves (Goretex)	1	0	1
Liner Gloves (Polyester)	1	0	1
Expedition Hat	1	0	1
Balaclava	1	0	1
Mountaineering Boots	1	0	1
Gaiters	1	0	1
Thermos	2	1	1
Camp Bowl	1	0	1
Camping Stove	1	0	1
Hobo-Tool	1	0	1
3-Season Tent	1	0	1
Thermarest Sleeping Pad	1	0	1
Head Lamp	1	0	1
White Mountains Map	1	0	1
Sun Glasses	1	0	1
Rock Climbing Shoes	1	0	1
Rock Climbing Chalk	1	0	1
Climbing Harness	1	0	1
Trekking Poles	1	0	1
Crampons	1	0	1
Microspikes	1	0	1
Camelbak	1	0	1
Nalgene	1	0	1
Expedition Down Jacket	1	0	1
Sleeping Bag 0F	1	0	1
Sleeping Bag 35F	1	0	1
Sleeping Bag Liner	1	0	1
Expedition Backpack 70L	1	0	1
Backpack 40L	1	0	1
Backpack 24L	1	0	1
Ski Pulk (Haul Sled)	1	0	1
Hammock	1	0	1
Ice Skates	1	0	1
Hockey Gloves	1	0	1
Swim Cap	1	1	0
Tennis Raquet	1	1	0
Hockey Sticks	2	2	0
Roller Hockey Puck	1	1	0
Replacement Bike ShoeCleats	1	1	0
Replacement Bike Pedals	1	1	0
Baseball Bat	1	1	0
Total	51	11	40