Tuesday, August 21, 2012

The Science Fair

One of my many life accomplishments, but one I leave off my current resume, is that I placed First in the Alaska State Science Fair in the 5th grade.  My project that year was called, "How Much Vegetable do You Really Eat?" and basically was nothing more than determining what percentage (by weight) of various veggies was actually water by using the fancy new dehydrator that Mom and Dad got for Christmas that year.  I was pretty proud of that project, and would have had the opportunity to take it all the way to the national science fair if I had only been in the SIXTH grade!

But tonight, I'm here to talk about a science project of which I am not proud.  But first, let me tell you about what all was accomplished this evening.  I am very aware that the idea behind this challenge is to FILL 40 bags and get them out of your house.  However, tonight I tackled, emptied, and sorted seven bags o' junk and one box full of things that are so old they are now irrelevant, so destroyed they are no longer recognizable, and in one particular case, so rotten that it is no longer possible to determine what it once was:


As you can see, this bag contained a collection of travel mugs and such that I brought in from my car approximately eight months ago.  And I think that at one point in time, that might have been an orange in there with them.  Once I took out the travel mugs and put them to soak in bleach water, i went to throw away the bag and noticed that it weighed practically nothing.  It had rotted away so much.  Had I still been in sophomore year biology class with Coach Lange (may he rest in peace), I would have been all over identifying what kind of bacteria was growing on that gem. Not tonight.  It went straight in the garbage.

Other exciting finds tonight include what is perhaps the best valentine I ever received.  This past winter, Marisa and I got a little obsessed with the final season of One Tree Hill and the fact that Nathan Scott was missing because he was kidnapped by the Russian mob for reasons we couldn't be quite sure of.  We literally walked around asking everyone we saw, "WHERE'S NATHAN?!!?"  And then on Valentine's Day, this was  what I found: 

While I'm on the subject of holidays and cards, I found the birthday I bought but never sent to my dad last year.  I put it in the "To be Mailed" bag, which is good, since his birthday is next week....

And, my most exciting find of the night (aside from the tin of Blue Diamond wasabi & soy almonds) was this set of pens from Ken Dixon Automotive.  Ken Dixon had this brilliant idea - they had several hundred thousand of these pens made and went around to almost every business in the county and left the pens there for customers to use when signing receipts.  Just about every server at every restaurant in the county has a pocket full of them.  And for giveaway pens, they write really nicely.  The funny thing is that, apparently, when you actually GO to Ken Dixon Automotive to buy a car, they don't give the pens away for free.  


With all that emptying/sorting/organizing done this evening, I am proud to say that I have three bags of trash...

and a roasting pan full of stuff to go.  This being the first non-trash item, it is worth noting that all of the stuff seen here actually belongs at work.  So while my house is getting a clean sweep, the same might not be said for my office.....

Days to go: 38
Bags to go: 35


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