If you have a truck you make money. Where you been?

So last thursday my brother, the real estate mogul, and I sit down for breakfast before we plan to go mountain biking. He tells me about this house he is going to list. A man lived in it for 35 years and never threw anything away. It needed to be cleaned out because you couldnt see any walls or floors or anything, there was no way to see what type of condition it was in.
"the lawyer said it is going to cost ...."
"Ill do that for that price."

We skip mountain biking and check the place out. Maybe 2000 sq ft house TOTALLY FILLED with junk. We didnt know that the library had a mantle until we cleaned it out. There were paths around the main rooms and things stacked everywhere else.

Friday, Ed convinces me to leave for the USGP and skip out on all of life's responsibilities. Leech picks me up and we roll out. I annoy him on the way down making "business calls" about the permits/dumpsters/fees/applications involved in this. This is my first time and I am still trying to pick up on the jargon.

Saturday and Sunday were USGP. Read cycylingnews if you want to see that stuff. Oh, I was the LAST PERSON to get lapped. Totally bogus. If I hadnt crashed I probably wouldnt have. At least I didnt quit. Leech convinced me to pour rubbing alcohol in the cuts at night. That sucked. Ed Krall did offer to rub sports balm into my legs!

Monday, Justin and I start busting ass and fill up a 30 yard dumpster in about 18 hours. Click Here if you dont know how big 30 yards is. Its the biggest you can get residentially.

The past week left me throwing a man's life away. From what I can tell:
He went to school for journalism. I found the college newspaper articles that he had written. I found an archive of the years best college writing that he was in.

He made a career of the Military. I found all of his old flight jackets, hats, uniforms, etc. I found a certificate that he broke the sound barrier in the 70's, which I imagine was a big deal.

He worked writing for the local paper. I found a box of envelopes with 2 copies of every article he had written labeled with a dates and subjects. This was for a few years, but I think he had a military pension as well as this job.

He then made cross work puzzles for a living. He had at least 50 dictionaries of weird things. Geographical dictionaries, author dictionaries, slang dictionaries, language dictionaries. He had bookshelves filled with just dictionaries of weird origins. I also found boxes and boxes and boxes of crossword puzzle books FILLED. Every puzzle complete. Crazy.

He must have loved burning cd's. He had at least, no lie, 4 - 5000 cd's filled with MP3's. Every genre, any artist you can think of. The weird thing is that he had no decent stereo to play them all on. I think it was an OCD thing.

What do you do with this much stuff? I donated what I could, and the rest will end up in a fill. The man's family came and took a few things, but didnt want anything else.

I have always thought that if you leave something, you have lived a decent life. My brother's thrash metal band put out a few records that might keep them in people's minds for a few decades. As depressing as it is, it seems like all that this man left will be in a landfill in Monroville. All of his money and time spent on a household of stuff is just gone. It made me want to take his camping gear (tons of Titanium backpacking stuff) and just go into the woods for awhile and really think if spending the money I am going to make doing this on hardwood floors in my house is really worth it.