[SunRescue] good news

[amyturtlex at frenzy.com]

Dave McGuire wrote:
>   If I married someone and they turned around and said "you've got to
> get rid of all this stuff!" I'd wonder why that person was involved
> with me in the first place.  Someone who wants me to curtail my
> technical activities quite simply wants me to be a different person
> than who I am.  Now, I don't pretend to have all the answers, but that
> CANNOT be what relationships are all about.  It simply cannot!

agreed.

>   When cohabitating with a girlfriend (which I've done twice), I make
> every reasonable effort to be considerate and keep my stuff out of her
> way.  No PDPs in the front hallway, for example.  But the first time I
> hear anything like "don't bring home any more computer stuff!" or
> anything of the sort, the relationship is over on the spot...no
> questions asked.  Just to be a hardass?  Definitely not.  The point
> is, someone who wants me not to be a technogeek surrounded by my
> technogeek stuff, wants SOMEONE OTHER THAN WHO I AM...it's as simple
> as that.

years ago when i first met bill, he sat down and took the *time* to
explain to
me that hardware collecting was a huge part of his life. of course i
didnt 
realize the extent of it until later. i underestimated it greatly. i
remember
coming home from a trip to my entire living room floor covered in sparc
elc's.
i mean at least 40 of em. i sorta stopped where i was--couldnt go any
deeper 
into the room--and requested that he stack a few of them so i could
vacuum.

at the time we were crammed into a 500 sq foot apartment--so the hard
and fast
rule became what goes in, approximately must go out. i never held him to
this 
but he kept the in/out about even.
 
later when we got the house he said initially that all his hardware was
staying
out in the garage. that was his territory. no females allowed. no
problem, right?
eh well, we never figured that the sheer heat of summer would be a
problem 
(garage heats up to ~100 on a good day). so he gets another room inside
the house
to fill up. over all we've never had any problems. i did sort-of boggle
when i saw
the size of a 690 for the first time. but i also wanted to take some
liquid nails and attach the skins to our fridge (exactly the same size,
woulda been so damn cool).

over time i started learning things about what he collected. worth,
value, 
components, names, uses, operating systems used on them, secondhand
prices--that type thing. and i noticed that when people couldnt get
ahold
of bill, they'd ask me. then i started collecting some machines of my
own 
(i have an affinity for anything colored...sgi's, next's, my far-off
dream of
a dual-133 bebox *sigh*, the cobalt cubes). 

try introducing non-collecting women to these loves gently. the colored
machines will always be more entertaining to a woman than a beige
machine. show them practical uses 
for them (classics make excellent recipe storers when submounted into
cabinets ;).

make a fishtank for her out of an unused case :) be creative! make an
old ibm ps/2 into a catbox!

>   Guys...let those wives know that this "junk" (Christ, what an
> insulting but _frequently used_ word!) is important to you...no matter
> what they think of it.  Marriage doesn't have to mean "sacrifice the
> stuff that you like".  Compromise?  Of course!  But sacrifice?

compromise is the key here. i dont think many women make the mistake of
laying
down ultimatums. i dont think we *want* to. inside every non-collecting
woman 
lurks someone who just wants to be able to ask people over for dinner
without
getting strange looks because there are pallets in the driveway and
vaxen on
the couch, and scsi cards in the bathroom. :)

oh, and i've never referred to his stuff as "junk" unless it was junk!
(old pc
cases that had blown power supplies, etc) when he told me that a lot of
people
had claimed the machines that were to be tossed, i acquiesced. i
understand that
they're getting rarer and rarer and dont deserve to be crushed. 

anyways, that's my .02 :)

--amy