and it's done... sort of

Sold the house. Closed on Friday.

Officially living in my 'shabby sheik' place on the same day. My friend Lizzie dropped by today and said 'wow.. you really are doing the monk thing'.

True indeed.

I've got a bed, 4 chairs, a desk with my mondo home computer system on it, some silverware, plates, a Senseo coffee machine, cloths, shoes and 3 plants. Took me 6 weeks to empty out that house of stuff (and about 20 people I know are quite happy right now, especially the person who snarfed the 40 boxes of books for his personal library).. THAT was hard. Much harder than simply moving.

You have to let it go and that sounds easy, right? Try it sometime. Even the people taking your stuff ask you 'are you sure?' about 10 times, then try to talk you into keeping it (whatever it is) before, finally, carting it off.

We really are geared as a species to acquire.

Walls are white and clean. It's very serene right now.

I'm sure I'll add things as time passes, but for now, I love the simple emptiness of it. When I do add things, it'll be after asking myself 'do I really need that?'.

I suspect, most of the time, the answer will be no.

Junk to the world, but still, my treasure

Ack. Getting down to it now.

I've thrown out dozens of bags of 'packrat' stuff that looks like you should save it, but will never get used again (think: computer stuff from the last 25 years, like SCSI hard disks, serial port keyboards, memory and harddisk components, manuals, software, work records, presentations, business plans, product plans, 8" FLOPPYS.. god.. 8"" floppys....etc. etc.).

This is somewhat painful. Giving away $2000 suites I never wear anymore? Easy. Throwing away the 1GB SCSI hard drive that has all the records I used to run The OneNet Member Network (a global Apple BBS system I ran in the late 80's and early 90's) ... way hard.

There's HISTORY in them thar drives damnit! I just can't, ya know, turn em on cause nothing runs them anymore.

Sigh.

I think part of what makes giving up stuff like this is it's one of the things that ties us to our past. Things that are just junk to everyone else are oddly precious momento's of your life. Each piece of equipment or hardware part or sofware disk of this junk has a story. Much of it you were involved with (i.e. you help build the damn thing).

Being a computer and software guy vs. a car guy, or instance, can kinda sucks if you think much about it too much.

Why? Your work requires pretty hefty intellectual lifting and is very quickly devalued by a product cycle that lasts, at most, months. A 59 Chevy is still cool to pretty much everyone- even almost 50 years later. A 1GB hard drive with the software and a snapshot of all the postings and messages of an early pre-internet global store and forward BBS system? Not so cool. Yea, to a tiny fraction of the population, maybe. But even then 'cool' isn't the right word. more like 'interesting'.

Of course there's the ethereal reality that what you did has been built on by others and you have, for instance, the internet to show for it. But no one knows that really but you and a samll group of your friends and colleagues.

And all the thought stuff. Business plans, presentations, product plans, strategies... just throwing them out.

A sampling:
- Here's Apple's Online Services business plan... Imagine if Apple had gotten behind this in earnest? There would have been something very different than AOL dominating the online world for half a decade or longer.

-Hmmm.. General Magic's long term strategy. Still secret I see. Not only do I throw it out.. I can't even TALK about it.

- Paramounts "The Gateway" plan to build small local servers into every Blockbuster store (both companies owned by Viacom at the time) to create a low cost 'local dial in' alternative to AOL and a way to eventually distribute media (music and movies) as infrastructure built out. -

Trash.

- MCI's strategic plan to build a Global Network Operating System on top of it's massive IP network. Global services that you can just plug your business into to get directories, security, voip, etc. etc.... 3 years of work there.

Here's an Apple Newton with prototype eWorld messaging my group designed and built into it.

Trash.

Lots of good stuff in here to that actually became successful products and services. But all, still, long gone. Replaced by better, faster, cheaper.

In the end: Trash. Trash Trash. All of it trash.

Certainly puts everything in perspective eh?

I think this is one reason people don't de-materialize. This is frakin hard to do. It's litereally taking all of the things that remind you of your past and who you are and tossing them out. The only value they have is to you, but what value, really?

When I think about it, they really are things to simply learn from, build on and move on with that knowledge safely tucked away in your head. The reason for keeping it all is to 'maybe reference it' in the future sometime. Right. That's gonna happen.

So, in the end, all the material representations of all this good thinking, creation, hard work, great people, it really is just stuff.

Stuff I just don't need following me around anymore.

Treasures in my mind; great memories; many good times, but, to the rest of the world: junk to be tossed out.

And now, for me, it's time to take out the trash.

Why I think it's time to rent

I've had several people 'look askance' at me when I say I'm selling my house and renting a small place for awhile. Several have said things like "you're making a big mistake".

I really don't think so.

Part of this is the process of getting rid of all the 'stuff' that's accumulated over the years. To get a sense of lightness and not feel like I'm owned by the things I own.

The other is just marshaling your financial resources wisely. If the timing is right, and other life priorities line up, hell, do a little profit taking.

The guys over at eFinance Directory (a guide to home mortgages, mortgage refinancing, home equity loans, home realty, housing and all personal finance matters) have an article up you should read before saying I'm making a mistake getting out of home ownership right now.

It's called: This is why I rent: Median incomes do no support median home prices.

I bought my house a little under 10 years ago. It was my 'divorce house'. You know, the one you buy after you get divorced; usually smaller and usually low maintenance. Mine's a 'patio home'. Perfect for someone who doesn't want to mow the lawn and have the HOA take care of everything.

It's also more than doubled in value in that time.

I was able to find a buyer who's paying close to my asking price and on a a 5% of the value of the house 10 years ago down payment, I get a return of about 18x my initial investment (plus a lot of nice tax right offs over the years).

Not a bad investment.

And according to pretty much everyone I know that knows this industry (and the link above goes into some detail on), there's going to be a serious correction in home prices over the next 5 years and we're just at the start of it.

I live in Boulder, CO which traditionally is insulated from any decline in valuations of homes.

The general consensus seems to be 20% decline nationally and some say as much as a50% decline in home valuations over the next 5 years is very possible.

Maybe in this downturn Boulder prices will hold, again. Maybe not.

I do know one thing though: if I'm going to de-materialize and simplify my life, there's nothing wrong with a little profit taking at the high end of a market that's got a multi-year correction ahead of it.

And last, having money sitting in reasonably safe investments that are growing without much attention paid to it is much simpler than all the hassles of owning a home and having to worry about the potential of a downward equity spiral in the damn thing's value.

Simplify, simplify, simplify.... and simplify some more.

http://www.inavandownbytheriver.com/

In a van, down by the river.

I love it.

This was inspired (in part) by the 4 Hour Workweek, where Tim Ferris talks about living a totally mobile lifestyle. Well, we love America and before setting out abroad we want to have a base and find the best city to live in that we could make our permanent home.

...

The rough plan as of now is:

1. Sell most of our crap. Store the rest.
2. Find, buy, steal, or otherwise get a van.
3. Pimp out said van with a custom bed, office, LCD tv, etc.
4. Get a high speed internet connection
5. Get laptops, photo, and video gear to document this crazy thing.
6. Figure out what to take along for survival
7. Go!

Norwegian Mothers

Never let your "Norwegian Raised During the War Without Enough Stuff" Mother come over to help you get rid of things.

I love my Mom, but she spent most of the day trying to talk me out of giving things away.

M: "you're going to need that someday"

S: " ma, it's magnifying glass; I think I used to use it to torture insects as a boy'

M: "well, eventually your eye's will go and you'll regret giving that away".

I'm not kidding here. That's an example of the entire day.

Haiku Productivity: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential

I'm no Buddist, but I do find you can learn alot of interesting things from those Zen dudes.

There's a great post on simplifying from ZenHabits called: Haiku Productivity: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential.

The title pretty much sums it up.

The little stuff

Maybe it's my Norwegian genes but as I go through this house I just sold and start to purge all the stuff, I'm finding the little stuff is the hard stuff. "Useful" things like those office supplies that I"ve had for, what, 10 years... "You never know when you'll need a really large paperclip'. Maybe it's because these are things that are harder to get rid of (you can't really sell them on CraigsList and friends and family already have this stuff around).

The big stuff I'm finding is easy. Just sold the entire living room (about 11 pieces of leather, wood, rock and fabric in the form of really big furniture). I also found that if you sell it way below it's value, it'll go fast, and they'll gladly do all the work (take it apart, pack it up, get out quick before I come to my senses).

But the this little stuff, calculators, small tools, phone connectors and cables, magnets you can slick your business cards on (yea.. I know)....etc. etc).. selling it 'cheap' just doesn't work.

But it's good stuff! Do I just throw it out?

I think I'll try putting it out next to the trash (not in it) with a note that says "Free". I'm pretty sure my little HOA community here has it's fair share of stuff hoarders. We'll see.