finding stuff

 I've never had a good memory, in fact I can remember some times in high-school & college when my memory let me down, going to the blood drive after it was done, seeing a teacher I was supposed to have a meeting with, getting to see Cliff Robertson at the student union in college just as he stopped speaking because I forgot the starting time of the event, that kind of thing.

But I used to remember where I kept my electronic stuff (junk box), especially in the old apartment in IL.  Now after moving here that old adage my grandfather used to quote: "three moves are as good as a fire" seem to have come true.

One thing I try to notice in videos by hams or engineers is how to they store stuff, sometimes it's amazing how orderly these folks are.  But it's probably worth it depending on how you value your time.  I've always subscribed to the old filing maxim to put everything in one place and then at least you know it'll be there, somewhere :)

Now I'm trying to find the Island Memory prototype kit and also the Accu-keyer that I used it with.  I've looked in the usual places, sometimes more than once but no luck, other than finding other excellent stuff and taking that out and messing with it !  I do have some off-site storage so that will be the next step.  Update: I did find the Accu-keyer at the off-site storage but no sign of the Island Memory kit.

I basked in the glow of my most recent find for days.  It was a bag of JFET and MOSFET transistors.

Yes, the transistors are in anti-static bags inside the McMaster bag

  I looked in every storage box I had, twice !  I got rid of a lot of paper and cardboard that I've been saving for some reason.  Finally just by accident I closed a closet door that I normally keep open and BOOM, there the bag was.  It must have fallen somehow and I didn't notice it.  I was really happy :)

I do pine for some stuff I've lost, a nice, long metal ruler from Moore Business forms, a Maglite solitaire AAA flashlight, the spare key to the garage, a dash cam that I had taped to a kite but it fell off and I couldn't find it in the high vegetation of the field.  None of this stuff was valuable, certainly not as valuable as the time I spent looking for it.  I looked for a Ham Radio magazine issue (that had a project in it that I wanted to build) for a long time, not sure what happened to it but the internet finally came to the rescue with the posting of the PDF versions of Ham Radio magazine on Archive.org.

I've realized that I'll probably never stop losing stuff, getting organized or developing a better memory would help but neither is easy.

Best Regards,
Chuck, WB9KZY
http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm