LEVEL 8

Level	Achieved	Reward
LEVEL 1	Jan 01 2011	excitement of launching a new project
LEVEL 2	Mar 29 2011	hard work is its own reward
LEVEL 3	Dec 18 2011	+1 Self-Awareness
LEVEL 4	Jan 28 2012	intangible religious benefits
LEVEL 5	Sep 03 2012	a small spike in blog traffic
LEVEL 6	Dec 15 2012	hoodie upgrade
LEVEL 7	Sep 07 2013	graphics card upgrade
LEVEL 8	Mar 15 2014	computer desk upgrade computer monitor upgrade
LEVEL 9		hard drive upgrade ??
LEVEL 10		domestic vacation
LEVEL 11		??
Project Complete		international vacation

I finally caught up on all the books I had already planned to get rid of a couple months ago when I bought a new computer monitor as my level up prize. It was on sale and I thought I would be done soon. Oops. So much for proper self-incentivizing.

While I was reading all those books, I was also making a "next up" list as I noticed other things that need to go soon. Closet junk, stuff I haven't decided exactly what to do with yet, and so on. So now I have a plan. There are 30-something items on that list; that should get me through another full level, if I can focus on just those things.

Oh, and I decided that travel would make for nice rewards. Unlike this computer monitor, I will commit to actually getting rid of things -- and blogging about them -- before I embark on those trips. But I can start to anticipate and plan them now. Motivation perhaps!

Thing #231: Sports Instruction Books

Coaching the West Coast Quarterback is a book about football.

Hockey is a book about baseball.

I put these two in a box bound for an Amazon warehouse, along with some video games that I'll write about later, and some other video games that I won't write about (rules).

The books haven't actually sold yet, but I'm going to assume they will, because I want to close out this book level, finally. I'm already physically rid of them, anyway.

Adding in the last eight books (3 pounds), I've eliminated a total of 64 books, weighing 71.3 pounds. (I could get rid of more books later; the count was just for the book level.)

And we're done!

Thing #230: John's Books

I had extra copies of these two 7th grade English books. I don't have a clue how they ended up in my possession, but they have a classmate's name written in them.

He probably doesn't want them, either, but I mailed them back, for my own amusement. I last saw this guy around ten years ago, but I was able to look up his address, so I hope he gets them, and I hope he's incredibly confused when he does.

Note to John: if you Googled your way to this page, you have solved the mystery. I'm getting rid of a bunch of my old stuff and blogging about it. What are you up to these days?

Thing #229: More Junior High English Books

I don't actually remember which grades required me to read Farewell to Manzanar or Walkabout, so I'm guessing junior high based on page count and font size. I decided not to reread either one, because I need to keep this project moving.

Fun fact, though: I found a Star Wars pog tucked inside Walkabout. It's a lenticular image (a term I just learned) that switches between Luke Skywalker and Emperor Palpatine. It's pretty cool and deserves its own post, which it will get when I throw it away. Later.

Thing #228: More High School English Books

I reread A Raisin In The Sun, which doesn't take very long. It's terrific and I love all the characters, except possibly for Walter Lee (Brother), because he seems to have a complete change of heart twice in every scene. It's a play, which means the characters have to develop in a very short amount of time, I suppose.

Ethan Frome is not a play, which means everything can happen in slow motion, and it does. It's the longest short story ever, and I completely love it. I won't turn this into a book report that lazy English students can plagiarize (ha ha; we didn't have the Internet when I was your age), but I'm terribly grateful to have rediscovered this work in my adulthood. Guess I've been in Starkfield too many winters.

I'm nearing the end of the book phase, and I've reread quite a few old books now. Not every decaying paperback turned out to be a gem, but the few that did -- like these two -- made it completely worth the effort.

Thing #227: Computer Science Books

This stack of computer books is mostly Computer Science textbooks, and mostly obsolete. Half Price Books not only accepted the pile, but returned me a voucher for two dollars and fifty cents! (Which I immediately applied toward the purchase of a single, more expensive book.)

I had to give away twelve computer books as one "thing" because I counted and I've acquired eleven new computer books since this project started. Okay, it's more than eleven, but I plan to give some of them away later, or something, so I just now decided they don't count.

This lot weighed in at a whopping 28.4 pounds, which means I've now lightened my bookshelf by 56 books and 68.3 pounds. Wolfram Alpha says that's the equivalent of 8.2 gallons of book-water!

Thing #226: High School English Books

I studied Cry, The Beloved Country in high school, but it was also assigned reading for a college class. It has James Earl Jones on the cover; this must be a movie tie-in edition!

Jane Eyre was my summer reading assignment prior to senior year. I procrastinated on reading it, and I procrastinated on writing the paper, to the degree that I was still writing my paper the morning of the first day of school, when I was supposed to be standing in line to get a parking space. I finished the paper, but that whole year I had to park down by the gym, which was approximately nine miles from anywhere. One day, at the end of the year, my friend Paul had a prearranged excused absence, so I borrowed his parking spot for the day. The campus security guard wrote me a $20 parking ticket, and they wouldn't let me graduate until I paid it, even though that is obviously ridiculous, because nobody else was going to park in that space on that day. I remember all these events vividly, yet I remember nothing about Jane Eyre.

I did not reread either of these books. As is the case with most of my English books, these copies are full of notes and highlighting. I don't particularly want to keep marked-up copies of books, anyway, so these were simply recycled.

This last set of eight English books weighed only three pounds, so now we've eliminated 44 total books, weighing 39.9 pounds.

Thing #225: 8th Grade English Books

Pretty sure I read these two in 8th grade.

The Pearl is fantastic and I feel sorry for my 8th grade self, because he probably didn't appreciate it. I would have kept this copy, but that same 8th grade self left a flipbook drawing in the margin. A stick figure dies at the end and that's where the red pen kicks in. (Any parallels to the narrative are probably coincidental.)

To Be a Slave is a collection of non-fictional first-hand accounts of American slavery. Not an easy read.

Thing #224: 7th Grade English Books

As far as I can remember, I read both Homesick and Waiting for the Rain for my 7th grade English class. I reread each before recycling.

I recalled almost nothing about either novel, so rereading them was about as good as reading them. Homesick was surprisingly affecting, whereas Waiting for the Rain was a bit slower read: it felt more like something that junior high kids are assigned to read for English class. Apartheid is bad.

Thing #223: Societal Books

I read Moby-Dick for my junior English class in high school, though I may have skimmed through some of the narrator's extended descriptions of whale anatomy.

I read Utopia for a freshman intro course in college, though I may have skipped some or all of the pages.

I didn't plan to read either of these in the near future, and they're both in fine shape, so I gave them to my sister to bolster her literature collection.