Call me Raebert. I’m making this website because I inherited a computer and a bunch of files from a guy I met on the Internet.
I knew him from his Facebook page. He seemed to post every day, multiple times as a rule, and he was very focused on political matters. I read him because he was funny if vituperative and his graphics were often clever, created in some kind of unstated code he never explained. We exchanged a few Messenger posts, where I guess he learned that I was a collector of sorts, what some would call an eclectic hoarder. I have a lot of Corgi toy cars, a drawerful of old pocket watches bought for cheap at auctions, some bad amateur artworks that struck my fancy, also at auction, and thanks to my family and attic space boxes of oddball books, a huge pile of old LP’s, a stack of VCR tapes, and a smaller pile of movies on laser disc. More, but you get the idea. I think he picked me to send his junk to because he realized I really don’t like throwing things out, even if I have no particular use for them myself.
The stuff arrived in a good-sized cardboard box, over-wrapped with layers of duck tape, and a cover letter scotch taped on top. The letterhead was written by some law firm I couldn’t find in my admittedly out of date Martindale-Hubbell directory. It said the sender had “passed on” and had bequeathed me the contents of the box to keep, use, and exploit in any way that appealed to me. Included was a brief personal statement from the sender declaring:
“The recent death of someone I admired prompted me to agree with what his widow said of him. That he had died with much work left undone but no unfinished business. I am in exactly the same state of mind. Why I’m simply trusting you to follow your own curiosity and instincts regarding the disposition of this property. I’ll leave it to your ministrations to identify me by name or names, as I have more than a few. Hope that will be enough to jump-start a rewarding exploration of these left-behinds.”
Also enclosed, without any explanation whatever was a Xerox copy of the following:
There was hardware too. An older model Apple iPad. It was working but barely, it had used almost 230GB of its 256GB disk, almost all of the usage accounted for by image, video, and WORD files. Many files were open when I switched it on and I was too cautious to close any of them.
I’ve now spent some months rummaging through the junk (his words, not mine), and I’ve decided I need to find some way of keeping track of what I’m uncovering and questions I’ve both asked (many) and answered (few). This site is mostly for my own purposes, accounting for mymtime if nothing else, but I’m making it public because others may be intrigued or have helpful information to contribute via Comments on specific post content.
That’s it. Just a beginning. Not that I’m using the software he left on his machine, which posts entries newest to oldest. What I’d suggest is a bias in your reading is working as much as you can against what I call the Reverse Order Phenomenon. The easiest approach is to scroll through all the post titles and choose files that are either early on the timeline or indicating content of special interest to you personally.
Alternatively, you can work through them in approximately the order you find them, which will seem kind of like the Blind Men and the Elephant, fastening in ton one isolated piece without knowing ahead of time what all it’s attached to. After all, bouncing around here and there is a great way to inventory a junkyard. Which, let’s face it, is all this is.
I should note he liked the Blind Men metaphor. He was at pains to capture images of the elephant version and also to do his own version of the same premise for a camel.
He stole a Chinese painting and turned it into a puzzle. He loved puzzles.
The camel painting was intended to be part of a Hump Day discussion he may or may not ever have posted at one of his blogs.
There had to be a ‘camel toe’ joke in prospect here. He was often ribald in his humor.
And on the subject of Blind Men, this odd little graphic makes an oblique reference to other sightless seers.
Looks like two or other fights going on here, at least.
That’s the problem with this junkyard. Everything’s connected to other things somehow, and you don’t know how without picking your way through immense piles of everything from hubcaps to fully functional muscle car motors missing a carburetor and air cleaner. But it can be rewarding. Finding bits that matter to you is the point of looking. Regardless of what he was intending.
Some Nuts and Bolts
Archives
This is the post that always appear first on the list. Afterwards, the software automatically displays rhem newest to oldest. Which is a complication. As much as possible I’ll try to work from the more general to the more specific, so that in reverse order it will seem like you’re being introduced to the junkyard one wreck at a time and dealing with bigger piles as you go. If you get confused, there’s a button on the upper right of the screen (a box made of three red parallel lines) that you can click to see the post Archive and Pages with helpful or frequently referenced content. There’s so much stuff here I couldn’t think of a more efficient way to give you a hand working through it.
Pages
Some things are general background, others are in-depth examinations that might seem disruptive of the one post at a time experience. Some are clearly reference resources that might need to be referenced on a regular basis. These account for the Pages. I will try to add new pages to the list as I add them to the archive titles. Which makes this first post a living document of changes through time. Don’t worry about any of this. It will all come out in the wash. Trust me.
I’ll leave you to it. I’ve got work to do.
Comments
Post a Comment