The Brain Dump

8-22-24

A Place to Keep All My Stuff

I (like many people today) have stuff and a desire to hang onto said stuff. I've lived in a number of places over my life that succeeded in helping retain stuff, so everything seems to be going according to plan so far. But here's where we go into the cool zone: I had never lived in a house with a garage. It sounds like an everyday mundane thing (and I guess it is if you're a WASP), but now that I have, I think it's a game changer in stuff-retention edifices.

Behold: My True Potential

Having a garage is not overrated. I'll admit, I was a bit cynical beforehand. I mean, it's a big (usually) uninsulated room that doesn't have central HVAC. It's not like you can really do anything with it except just store things that are too dirty to bring in the house. Well, maybe if you don't have room in the house and put it in the garage, in which case another room sounds ideal. Such hubris. Its true greatness had not yet begun to reveal itself until I stared at a mostly empty garage and thought about the possibilities.

Being your typical contemporary adult, I made the obvious calculus of "space + money = STUFF". What kind of stuff? I had no clue. I had no particularly special crafty hobbies or anything... Until now. I had the money and space to start doing some basic woodworking stuff. I might have overdone it a little bit with the powertools, but given how much I use them now, as long as the batteries are still available, those things will last me the rest of my life. To be fair, I did buy a bunch of lumber and do a few projects that actually turned out pretty decent. There have even been times those tools or know-how came in handy and I was able to fix something.

With one win under my belt, I knew I had plenty of room for some other stuff. I was able to indulge a bit more on the camping supplies and that took up a little bit more room. With the kit I have now I actually went out more. I actually camped in some interesting and unexpected places. Honestly, that one was just a lay up. I needed an actual start-from-nothing kind of scenario I had before. Before long it came to me.

I always told myself I would use a home gym if I had one, but the thing is there's a tradition about home gyms, and that tradition is that it has to be in a garage. No garage? No gym. After going full ham twice already, I expressed a little more restraint this time. I got a few pieces I thought I'd actually get use out of and go from there. That turned out to be an exceeding wise decision, as "from there" never went anywhere. I'll admit, it's nice to have that stuff so conveniently near by, but it's not the "I'm going to turn into some kind of health nut" level of life changing you think it would be. Even if I don't use it as often as I should, I do stilll use it. And if nothing else, I have a cool stained & torn rug that I have on the floor next to the squat rack. That shit rules.