Sunday, February 26, 2012

There's No Escape for the Young

My daughter has been ruined.  My words mean nothing.

I noticed she's been glued to her laptop for the last several weeks....

I'm fully aware that her tech acumen readily outstrips mine and she regularly makes me look like a buffoon when it comes to computer issues.  "Dad, you need to reboot, go into msconfig and edit your startup items...." she'd say as I stared blankly at an unusual error message on my screen.  I'd look up...reminding myself that she was still just ten years old.  This is to be expected since when I was her age, my exposure to technology was limited to ownership of a digital watch that only told the time and a sandwich sized calculator that could only add and subtract. The world was different back then.

Honestly, I had this great fear that she was perhaps hacking into the Bank of America computers....That perhaps any day now a pair of men in pressed suits, sunglasses and earpieces would knock on my door and ask to speak to my daughter for a few minutes about some internet irregularity that was traced back to our house.... I warily slunk over and asked..."So....whatcha doing?"

"I'm on Animal Jam...." she replied smugly.

I had not the foggiest idea of what it was...so I sat down and watched her gaudily clad unicorn-like fantasy creature galloping around a tropical island, magical pet frog in tow.

"This is my den...." she added as she proceeded to trot through what appeared to be a huge virtual multi-level expanse of a mansion.  It had amenities I could only dream of...A waterfall in the living room, an indoor pool, a fully stocked bar, 70 inch LCD TV...there was a banquet table complete with a royal feast, some huge glowing one-of-a-kind icon or shrine or something that she had surrounded with multicolored swiveling barstools....In another place there were what appeared to be hundreds of virtual stuffed animals...no less than 30 alligators of different colors all neatly lined up...panda's, horses, armadillos.  The walls were covered with tchochkes...flags, mirrors, sconces, paintings....everything.

I was horrified.  "You're a HOARDER?...You're Hoarding in cyberspace???!!!" I snorted while cupping my head in my hands.  My failure as a parent was complete.  I felt like sobbing...All those words about materialism and she does this???  If she couldn't have everything she wanted in the real world, I guess there was always cyberspace where she didn't have to worry about whether or not daddy would say yes...

As I sat there in shock, she showed me all of her acquisitions, large and small.  "I want to be on Epic Dens, but I need more stuff" she casually mentioned... There's a virtual stuff acquisition contest????!!!  Animal Jam, my ass!  This should be called "Keeping up with the Virtual Joneses."  or "Cyber Materialist Spoiled Princess.."  My mind was out of control.   Still horrified, I queried..."Why do you need 30 alligators?"

"I won them. Besides dad, it's just the internet."  She rolled her eyes in normal prepubescent female fashion.

I didn't know what to say.  She had a point, but the mere thought of an online game pitting kids against each other to see who acquire the most crap makes me shiver.  How can that not somehow translate into real life behavior?  I found myself asking the usual questions.... "What are you going to do with 30 alligators?"  "Why not 50, or 1,000 alligators?  When does it stop?"  My daughter wrinkled her face in disgust.  "Dad!  It's just a game!!!"  I laughed.  She was right.  But she lined up the alligators so nicely...like soldiers.  It was cute....but still horrifying.  At least she didn't approach me each morning asking for my credit card number so she could buy more virtual-currency with which she would gamble with the hopes of winning more alligators.  That would have put me into orbit.

As I'm typing, she has won more cyber-gem currency and is asking me what she should do with it?  She wants a full sized castle.  I agree, but note that maybe it would be better to save up, take a trip somewhere and move into a smaller castle that's easier to maintain.  Then I remembered...you don't have to maintain a virtual castle.  It just shows up when she clicks on the website.

In cyberspace, she can have all the alligators she wants and won't have to worry about where to store them.  I certainly won't be tripping over them in the living room.   I should be thankful.  I think.

If storage and practicality isn't an issue on the internet, should I worry?

Monday, February 20, 2012

What's Hiding in Your Drawers?

Not in THOSE drawers.  Besides that.

I hate drawers.  Its too easy to stash crap in them.  Knowing that, I've made a concerted effort to minimize the total amount of drawers in my place.  No big cabinets.  No dressers.  No place to hide anything except for two small filing cabinets... for business and important stuff.  As a result, if I end up with small items...like maybe a cool keychain, a roll of stamps, a couple of flash drives...I have to deal with them immediately.  I end up walking around, looking like a human bobblehead trying to figure out where to stash the little buggers.  I'm forced to deal with everything and make a decision about each item.  Usually.

There's one small drawer next to my desk and despite my best efforts, it manages to fill up with doo-dads in about a week.  USB cables, extra keys, a spare case for my phone, a checkbook cover...Darn it.  Drawers are evil.

Yesterday, I glanced into one of my file drawers...it was full to overflowing with gosh-knows-what so I got out the shredder and went to work.  Bills from 2004, account statements from accounts long ago closed, instruction manuals from items I no longer owned, passcodes to long-defunct websites.  Amazing.  I cleared out a full cubic foot of space....  That's a stack of paper a foot tall...not bad.  I felt much lighter despite having eaten lunch just a few minutes earlier.   New problem though.....I've got more drawer space to drop crap into!  The only solution might be to get rid of the whole cabinet.

Sometimes when I clear out houses I have to sort through the junk drawers.  Often the contents at the rear have physically merged with the wood of the drawer itself resulting in an odd conglomeration of materials typically held together by old disintegrated rubber bands.  Archaeologists 5,000 years from now will have a field day trying to decipher what the pencil-staple-paperclip-eraser-bottle of whiteout-ketchup packet-thumbtack-melted rubber band object was used for.


Cleaning it out isn't the solution.  Get rid of the whole cabinet. 

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

The Ongoing Urge to Complicate Things

I've been doing well keeping things simple...until an urge hit me.

For those who don't already know, I'm a recovering real estate junkie.  Give me a crappy looking house that smells terrible and some profit potential and I'm your bitch.

What I noticed is that with most projects I've tended to grow weary near the end.  I was always anxious to jettison the current property, take the profit and move on.  It rarely worked out as simply as that and I've been reminding myself about all the time /financial/ personal juggling that has to go on when I get involved with a property.  Over the last few days, I've been muddling over a potentially tres chic project that would test my limits in more ways than one.

The property is in a premier location but has a host of issues, not the least of which is a potentially monumental expense down the road (in the form of an assessment.)  The upside is ownership, future profit potential and possibly dwelling within a magnificent and historically significant space in a great spot.  The place is tugging at me and I've needed to make the pro / con list.

The biggest con was that I would not be simplifying my life, but just the opposite.  The place needs an enormous amount of work and there would be a constant outlay of money and opportunity costs.  On paper the project has all the hallmarks of a money pit and the logical side of me has pretty much dismissed the whole shebang.  But why is there such a desire to toss myself back into the grinder?  I live in a great spot at what I consider to be reasonable cost.  Am I bored....perhaps crazy?  What about human nature causes me to be restless and not satisfied with what I have?  These are things I must constantly grapple with and I suspect most people do the same in varying degrees.  I have to remind myself what the goal is and that if I'm bored, I should get on the bike or go to the museum or walk on the beach....not buy a money, time and sanity sucking property.

It's cute but....nothing I should be doing if I'm bored.