Something From Nothing Log

[Jin+Guice]

Currently furnishing an apartment I’m living in for 3-4 months. This week I’ve found 3 lamps, a steel water bottle, some chai 0-cal “syrup” 3 chairs, 3 extension cords (all working) a large painting and a small table. All lamps work and had working light bulbs in them.

[Slevin]

A friend was getting rid of a newish redwood pergola (made of 1x6s and 6x6s) in their yard. I took the redwood, and made some planter boxes out of it. Simple, but probably $300 or so of redwood just from the boxes. I still need to figure out what to do with 8ft long 6x6s. Maybe I just rip em down into more 1 by planter box fodder?

[SouthernAlchemy]

@Slevin - Nice work! I have been using up an old redwood swing set for various garden structures. The 8-9foot 4x4s are now a blackberry trellis, bird feeder posts, bottom support for a row of rain barrels and (cut shorter) the base of a potting/seed starting bench. The 4x6 top beam is the base of a firewood rack with more 4x4s as the ends. I still have other parts that I keep in an out of the way pile waiting for need/inspiration to strike.

Don't know about anywhere else, but these types of swing sets are regularly on craigslist in my area for free (if you dismantle and haul away) and are made out of a lot of expensive, high quality wood.

[Ego]

A few months ago, the guy who normally collects cans from our trash told me he was looking to buy a Toyota Tacoma. He told me he had been saving his can money for months and had finally collected enough that he was ready to buy. He asked if I knew of of any good older model Tacomas for sale. He is very outgoing and approached everyone he knows with the same question. Finally he struck gold and got a very nice mid-2000s Tacoma for a reasonable price.

In the beginning of November he told me that he qualified for Social Security and was expecting his first check. When he didn't show up the two weeks before Thanksgiving, I decided to start removing the recyclables myself and see how much I made. I collected cans and plastic bottles from Thanksgiving to New Years and took them to the recycling center last week. $40.59.

Last week Mrs. Ego netted $25 for a microwave oven we had removed from the trash, Combined, they covered the cost of 100lbs of rolled oats from Azure Standard. I just picked them up from our local drop off.



Today I ran into my friend. We were talking as he was digging through our trash cans. I asked how Social Security was working for him and he excitedly told me how he now has four income streams. He collects cans and bottles five days a week, making between $100-120 per day. He helps out at the recycling center where they give him $20 or $30 a day to return the shopping carts that the homeless people leave. He gets nine-hundred and something from social security. And, like me, he frequently sells the things he finds in the trash.

[OutOfTheBlue]

For sustainable seating on the floor for meditation (along with some elevation to keep the knees lower than the basin), if the knees don't touch the ground, it can be recommended to use props for knee support.

One such prop I had never heard before is a meditation belt or wrap. This helps support both the back and the knees and removes the need for additional cushions, blocks and such, which makes it easier for travel and for sitting outside.

Instead of buying one and adding an item in my bag, I just played around attaching my microfiber travel towel to my long sleeve shirt's sleeves, and voila. A bit of fiddling is needed to find the right distance, but I guess that's part of the ritual.

On that note, here's the entry under "towel" in The Guide:

A towel is just about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can carry. Partly because it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it around your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you — daft as a brush, but very very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course you can dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, washcloth, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet-weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidentally have "lost." What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the Galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

[Ego]

Two GCI Freestyle Rocker folding chairs were left by the trash last week. I believe these are generally considered one of the best folding chairs available. They are super comfortable, are easy to fold and become nearly flat.



I've got a tenant moving across country without a car at the end of the month. Everything including the dog must fit in airline luggage, so I expect a windfall.

[grundomatic]

I picked up a box of free books when I was in @ego's neck of the woods. Quick search showed the books had value. A more detailed searched after taking the box revealed that was maybe not the case. I sold a couple individually, and luckily was able to sell the rest cheaply all together. Netted about $30. One signed book remains on ebay for $99, but that's probably a pipe dream.

[Sclass]

Wandered out of my favorite taco stand yesterday and I found this vape pen in the lot. It was pretty beat up. Disposable non refillable type. I picked it up and took it home. Ripped it apart for the treasure it has inside. A rechargeable Lithium ion cell and a USB charging port. I can use this to make something rechargeable with a usb cord.



Tear down. I’ve learned to wear rubber gloves to keep the vape juice off my hands. It smells like vanilla. Gross. Somebody had this in their mouth.



The treasure inside.



Tested the charger. It’s good.



It’s really sad people would just toss this on the ground like trash. It’s even worse that some idiot business designs a product with this tech in it that is disposable.

[Ego]

Last summer I found a 100lb. kettlebell at the swap meet for $40. It was rusty, so I hit it with a wire brush and painted it with a $1 can of second-had swap meet spray paint. I used it for one exercise, side bends, but it was absurdly heavy, so i listed it for sale on craigslist for $180 or trade for multiple kettlebells.



I had a few lowball offers until a guy messaged to ask if I would trade my one kettlebell for two Titan adjustable competition kettlebells. They adjust from 12kg to 32kg. Absolutely! He was a giant. He showed up at my front door carrying two 70lb kettlebells like they were tissue paper. I struggled to get the 100 pounder out of the elevator.

I used the 70s for a few weeks, but realized I didn't really need them.



When I looked them up online, they were out of stock everywhere, so I listed them at $185 each. The first one sold the day I listed it. The second one sold last week for $135.

Total $185+$135-$40 -$1 = $279

Today I received a massive supply of food from Azure Standard. I expect this to be our last expensive stock-up before we leave in the fall.



25lbs of pumpkin seeds,
25lbs of sunflower seeds,
25lbs of flax seeds,
10lbs of chia seeds,
5lbs of cocoa nibs.
Total price $261.84 or free, depending on how you decide to look at it.