e-Hoarding

Cutter's Log - Stardate 3102.72.40
Current Song - Shattered Dreams (Johnny Hates Jazz)

I have a confession to make.

I, Cody Cutter, am an e-hoarder.

Have A&E have an online show about me. On second thought, probably not.

While working on website material, I needed to find an old photo file that I made some years back. I had created this for the current website setup, but scrapped the design in favor of something else. Now I'm thinking of bringing it back.

Where was it? It took about 15 minutes before I finally found it - buried deep within some other folder branching from the main "C:" hard drive.

I have used up 66 GB of my 186 GB hard drive, roughly one-third. It feels like much more.

While on this adventure to find said file, I browsed through many photos and Word documents that has been stored on here over the years, or transferred from key fobs.

I even have Word files dating back to 2002 on this computer.

I do not save everything, such as drafts and minor notes. However, I have written many completed works over the years, be it game articles, columns, personal stories, research papers, driving directions to Green Bay, you name it.

Perhaps this is because I do tend to hoard in real life - but not chronically, as depicted on television shows.

***

I had a tough time keeping my bedroom clean in the 15 years I lived at my old house on 17th Avenue. Certain things just had to be thrown away, and my dad told me one day that if I know I'm not going to use this thing in the next month, pitch it.

Then came a period when money became real tight, and I decided to sort everything into boxes for rummage sale and resale use. These boxes are now sitting in my attic at home, waiting to go somewhere other than in my possession.

A lot of the problem regarding hoarding is the Autism in me which creates the vast memory storage. For anything abstract, I have something concrete somewhere. Somewhere in a box in my attic is an owner's manual for a 1987 Schwinn bicycle which belonged to my Uncle Scott. The bike is gone, but this booklet serves as a reminder of Scott, who died more than 15 years ago.

When I moved to my own place, I had a lot of throwing away to do. Apparently I didn't do enough. In my top left desk drawer are study materials from Psychology class at Sauk. I slept through the first semester, failed, and kept these for future use when I was going to take the class again. I did, via online, and wound up passing. But these notes are still in my "college" drawer. I don't know why I even have a "college" drawer anymore - I graduated from Sauk in 2010. But when the day comes to going back for a bachelor's, that drawer will serve its purpose.

Many things that have been kept over the years involve love and friendship - two very important parts of my life. Things such as graduation invitations from the softball girls, pictures of class scenes from 8th grade, 2nd grade get-well cards, etc. They serve as a reminder of the struggle that I had to undertake to become better at love and friendship.

***

One thing that I do have an extreme problem with is the collection of my journalism notes.

I have notes dating from my days at PSO. Just pieces of notebook paper with stats written on them, rosters from past teams, programs, special booklets, and things like that.

Never know when I'll need them for future reference, right? Do I need shot-by-shot notes from Boylan/St. Joseph boys basketball from 2006? Do I need a 2003 Galesburg girls basketball roster? Better yet, do I save these programs for the likelyhood that someone in there becomes famous one day?

***

Enter my computer.

Game articles and such are written on Word and stored on the computer after the stories are released. Same with pictures. They are sorted neatly into the "NISB" Folder and its sub-folders. Then every summer, these files get transferred to CD.

But what about my personal stuff? My "My Documents" folder isn't all that deep.

I still have a file titled "A Little About My Autism," which was written for a friend of mine for a college project. "History of Sports Journalism" consist of notes from an old book which mentions the earliest days of sports journalism. "JUCO" is a scrapped piece involving the lack of media coverage for junior colleges (waiting to be finished one day). "Destroyed Blog Entries" are those entries on here that were taken down by request of those mentioned. "Musical" is a planned, but never completed epic post for Turk's Message Board. "Lotto Training" is a guide to working the lottery machines at work.  My 1998 Pontiac Grand Am owner's manual is also here. Something called "climax9". A love letter. Countless drafts of important Blog entries. And countless resumes/cover letters: journalism-related and non-journalism-related.

The pictures take up the most space, and this is where it's real embarassing.

I have a folder for the Illinois HS Glory Days website, with photos that are already posted on the website, and photos of buildings that could one day be on there. Vacation photos. Sterling/RF history photos.

There exists a folder in My Documents called "Yahoo Briefcase."

For whatever reason, I had difficulty carrying around floppy discs in school. Yahoo offered this briefcase feature for each user account for general storage space - no downloading onto discs or anything like that. One day, many years later, I got an email stating that Yahoo was closing Briefcase. So I went back and looked at what I left behind and downloaded these files onto my computer.

All of the file names are screwed up, but they include rough drafts of old PSO articles. One of which is a gamer from Rock Falls boys basketball's 2003 Senior Night against LaSalle-Peru. Also included was an article on the 2002 RF Volleyball banquet, which brought back memories of one of my most favorite teams of all-time. Leftover copies of notes to SHS "Script" staffers. An IHSA logo that I used as the basis for a postage stamp painting in art class. Homework assignments for English class. An old PATHWAYS (!!!) assignment. Drafts of my SVN columns "Move Ova, Kova" and "Nicknames Part II". A pair of unreleased columns about the softball girls, a made-up parody newspaper, a recruiting flyer sent to me by coach Zeman for a public-private paper I was writing.

But perhaps two real good pieces that still survive are titled "Sterling-Rock Falls Rivalry" and "The Manufacturing Side Of Sterling, Illinois." These were pieces from sophomore Communications class, and represent the high point and low point of that class. The rivalry paper was actually my final speech project.

The factory paper is controversial because my teacher gave me a zero with an accusation of plagarism. I did not plagarize that paper. I included dates and facts that I had already known BEFORE I wrote the paper, and my teacher has assumed that I learned of those dates through research conducted during the span of the assignment. Wahl Clipper was founded in 1919; I had known that for years before writing this paper. So basically, I got a zero for not adhering to the educational purpose of the assignment (writing a research paper of something that I already had tons of knowledge about beforehand).

I still have the hard copy, with all of the screaming and yelling of teacher's notes. This had to been a high-point of her career.

***

Lastly, I have email messages in my Inbox dating back to Spring 2001. E-mail messages from classmates saying "good luck in high school" back when email was a new concept to us.

I have had the same email address since then.

Since these are stored online, with endless space, I feel that I have no reason to delete them. It's just a waste of my time.