Strange day at MIT Flea
Unlike other months, thsi time I was the one going with a lot of big ticket items and wanted to get some money for it. In addition, I had some items that were in my basement gathering dust (or water, depending on how high off the ground they were). Some of these items were things I got years ago from a former co-worker with the idea that I’m borrowing them and I’ll give them back to him at some future point.
Now, the gear I got from Chris was old even in the late 90s: a bunch of 640×480 mono LCD panels, some 386 single board computers, power supplies, aluminum cases to hold it all, and a bunch of random wires. Maybe even some hard drives and floppy disks. They’ve been in my basement for probably 8 years now, gathering dust and being ravaged by the water the floods my basement every 5 years or so. Not long After Chris gave me the hardware, he left the company, and we talked for a little while after that, but we lost touch over the years.
But I never sold them. They weren’t mine to give away, and Chris was a nice guy, so I held on to them. Until Saturday. Nelson and I were going through the basement when I finally decided 8 years was long enough, and the boxes the parts were in were staring to disintegrate. Into his truck they went to be sold or given away.
Sunday morning arrives and at 6:45, Nelson and I are waiting to get into the sellers lot. This is the time of morning when the other sellers wander around, try to make some early deals, and just see what’s out there.
One of these people wandering around looks familiar. It took me a second until this strange feeling of “well that’s a strange coincidence” comes over me. It’s Chris. For the first time inprobably 10 years, he shows up at the MIT flea to sell some of his stuff. The same weekend I decide that I’ve had enough of storing his stuff and decide to get rid of it. That was the point where I say “Chris! I got some stuff that’s yours! Want it back?”
Turns out he had much of the same gear himeself and wanted to get rid of it as well. We wound up selling both our sets of boxes of stuff to some kids for about $20. We split the money. Yay. $10 to my motorcycle fund. Which now has a grand total of $10 in it.
One of the other things I decided to get rid of was two of my R/C cars. I had three of them, but one was a 2WD and didn’t have enough oomph to move around my yard. Another was a 4WD gas. Same problem, and it also had much nastier chemicals associated with them, like ones that has in the warning label “Cannot be made unpoisonous”. Having a three-year-old in the house makes me want to not have such things around, just in case. The one I’m keeping is a 4WD electric, suitable for chasing the dog around the yard for a while. I wound up selling the two cars for slightly less than I wanted, but after looking at e-bay prices for such items, I guess I did pretty well.