Infrastructure

Spent a few hours at Tom's place this afternoon, mostly working on dis-assembling the infrastructure that he had built up over two decades of living in his space.

Power

Tom's place is basically an efficiency / in-law apartment tacked on to an older home. Two rooms, a galley kitchen, tiny bathroom, and a 3 seasons porch / mud-room / entrance (that Tom had filled with tools, supplies, sporting goods). The wall receptacles were limited at best, often two wire (no ground) and not really sufficient for modern life. Not surprised that Tom ran a few extension cords, but we pulled a ton of stuff out of there:

• Five AC timers (used for Xmas lights, but also some room lights)
• 4 plug-in receptacle adapters to convert 2 outlets to 6, at the wall
• 5 AC power strips
• 3 AC splitters (convert 1 receptacle to 3)
• 12 or so extension cords
• 2 high power extension cords 

In the course of his time there, Tom had two A/C units, a space heater, a fish tank, the usual number of modern electronics, and a few unusual appliances (a countertop dishwasher, a deep fryer). He also had rigged up some temporary things that became permanent - an extension cord / power strip that fed a window fan (up and over a doorway), power cords affixed to the headboard to feed portable electronics, power cords to his favorite chair for police / fire scanners and phone / computer supplies.

Quite frankly, we're lucky there was never a fire. I threw out more than 1/2 the things we pulled out - ground plugs cut off, corroded green. There are a few pieces that showed some signs of overheating. Between the clutter, the collections, the dust bunnies and cat fur everywhere - place was a firetrap.

Pretty much everything is disconnected with the exception of two living room lamps (plugged in directly to the wall) and a fan I brought in to air the place out when we are working there.

Cable and Phones

Similarly, the place was set up years ago, before the advent of cable modems and digital phone. There were two cable feeds from the basement - one in the bedroom (fed a TV on a dresser) and one in the living room that ran 2/3 of the way around the room, split out to feed a TV and a cable modem. I broke down both TVs, packaged up the cable boxes / remotes to go back to the cable company, and coiled / wrapped the loose cable feeds from the floor.

He also had a video switcher (a remnant of the days before flat screen / multi input HDMI televisions, when TVs had a single input) - with a handful of left/right/audio cables to switch in DVD, VCR, Roku box and who knows what. All wrapped up and bagged.

There were also a ton of phone cords around - two long runs, lots of short cords. He had at least three phones in the place, plus an answering machine, and a phone line over to where a computer once sat, in the days before broadband. All the phone cables were struck and tossed, the phones and answering machine bagged to toss, donate, or give away. The phones were still active when I was there but I assume they will be off soon.

And while there was no desktop computer evident (we've got one active laptop and two old laptops to dispose of) I did get rid of an old printer, an packed up a Boston Acoustics speaker set (woofer and two smaller speakers, wiring and power supply) which I'm assuming works and is still in good shape, although when was the last time computer components were white / cream?  Been a few years....

Audio System and Speaker Cables

Tom had the sort of overkill audio system of someone who grew up in an earlier time and was impressed by both quantity and size. There were four large Technics speakers in the four corners of the living room. He's had them a while - several show signs of being attacked by ferrets and/or cats. There were a couple of smaller wooden speakers. And there were two Realistic speakers that were the very first speakers I ever purchased (I remember bringing them back from Radio Shack strapped to my 5-Speed Schwinn bike rack). Why Tom kept them, who knows. They were prominently set atop his entertainment unit, not wired up.

There were speaker cables running all over the place (under the rug, around the perimeter) - with about 50% actually wired up / operating. All gone now.

Feeding this acoustic mess, a Sony surround sound amplifier - old school (big screw down terminals on the back). Add a CD changer, a DVD player, a VHS player, and a turntable (Kevin removed and sold with the records). All disconnected, dusted off, found, matched and packed up remotes and power cords, and wrapped all the audio patch cables.

Finally, up in the closet there were an old Technics receiver (not something I ever owned, but I bet I bought it for him back in the day) and a cassette desk (which no doubt works fine, just fell out of use). I had previously recycled a CD changer and DVD player, boxed up in the bedroom - which had either stopped working or simply been replaced and never tossed.

Pot Calling the Kettle Black

I'm sure when my time comes, people will be similarly challenged / amused by my own electronic hackery. I've got a small place, but in my own defense,, a home office / working out of the house perforce complicates things a bit.

I'm a bit less of a pack-rat though - I take regular trips to Green Monster recycling to get rid of old tech, and when technology improves, I transition over pretty cleanly. I've owned video switchers (for instance) but they are all gone now once I got a modern TV. 

My TV is fed via cable box, DVD, and Roku box (all direct connect via HDMI). The TV interfaces to my stereo (so as to provide better sound upstairs). I have "B" speakers running into the kitchen (so I can listen while I cook / wash dishes / hang out on porch without blasting the volume). And my stereo runs a line out to a small amp / speaker set-up in the basement (so I can listen to anything upstairs downstairs, as I work).

And I do have a full complement of audio inputs - CD player, video, MP3 portable (a dedicated Kindle Fire), cassette (presently in the basement for a project, but there's a spot for it). The one thing missing is a turntable, I lent mine out years ago. It's coming back to me soon, although I doubt I will hook it up except perhaps for a special occasion.