early start on my new year's resolutions

[ovrclokd]

i have accomplished exactly one thing today: dealing with the landslides of glossy-paper periodicals in the house.

this involved:

• collecting all the various piles in the house,[1]
  
• sorting them into magazine or catalog,
  
• sorting all the magazines,
  
• categorizing them into keep or recycle,
  
• shelving the keepers in our new plastic magazine holders,
  
• alphabetizing all the catalogs,
  
• categorizing them into keep or cancel,
  
• collecting phone numbers from the ones i plan to cancel,
  
• saving a reference copy of the ones i'm cancelling that we actually might still want to use one day,
  
• saving the most recent edition of the ones we're keeping,
  
• and boxing up all the rest to recycle.

some stats:

• the whole process took about 6 hours.
  
• the catalogs went back to 2004.
  
• we are getting or have gotten 123 different catalogs in that timeframe.
  
• i'm cancelling all but 14 of them.
  
• according to our scale, the recycle pile for weighs 213 lbs.[2]
  
• i have 83 catalogs left to call and cancel - fortunately i can do this from the road.
  

it's very nice to be able to see most of the floor in the library again. :)

so happy new year! i hope the rest of 2007 is this productive...

1: except the ones in thebroomecloset's office, where angels fear to tread...
2: including the weight of the 5 paperboxes holding it.