Daily Doings at the Line of Death Bar & Grill

The cats woke me up this morning, as they often do. I may go back to bed later, but for now, I'm up.

While I was going through the stuff I have in the basement of my mom's house, I came across two boxes of magazines. One was filled with issues of Communications of the ACM from 1983-89, and the other had issues of the IEEE Spectrum and Computer magazines from 1985-86. These are publications from technical/professional societies I belonged to at the time. My professors saved their old issues, as they had them displayed in their offices. And so I thought, why shouldn't I?

Somewhere, in a corner of my garage, I think I have a box or two of issues of Communications of the ACM from 1989-1999, when I chose not to renew my membership with ACM. I felt that I was paying for a magazine that I wasn't reading, and at the time, the society's news and activities were not relevant to what I was working on at the time.

I'd hate to throw out these old magazines. As with most of my paper output, I'd rather recycle them. But I think they'd be useful to someone. So I've been hanging on to them, hoping for a worthy recipient. I thought about local college and university libraries, but they probably already have the issues. Does anyone have any other ideas?

I'm keeping the issue that has Donald Knuth's "The Telnet Song", and the issue that Cliff Stoll signed for me. But everything else can go. And I'm keeping all the SIGGRAPH stuff because I think they're way cool.

This afternoon, I started looking for some paperwork I received in the mail last September. I've yet to find it.

It's not upstairs in the loft. It's not downstairs in the living room. It's not even in the portable safe. Where did it go?

As I looked around upstairs, I thought, "I'm in over my head. My files have overwhelmed me. The only way to fix this problem is to have a big bonfire."

The problem is, I'm not as ruthless as I need to be when it comes to paper files. I think, "I can use this someday", or "This can come in handy someday", or "I'll need this two weeks after I throw it out", or "This could be worth money".

Maybe I should just get some cardboard boxes, pile the papers in the boxes, and schlep them into storage. But I'm not sure that's an option anymore. It's so much easier to do that than it is to sort or even sift through the papers.

I need help.