Moving Sale

Welcome, cleansing reader, as this week I regale you with the details of how we're clearing up, shaping up, and eventually, shipping out.

Moving house is generally quite an odd experience, and moving continents even more so. In a metaphysical sense it makes you look at the stuff you own and wonder why you have it, if you need it, and if it's really worth lugging half way around the world. And oddly, the things that I think are lugging half way around the world now are different to the things I thought were worth lugging half way around the world when we moved to the US.

So as you hold an item in your hand, dear reader, you have options: it might be something that's so vital that it needs to travel home with us, or it might need to be shipped by our removers, or you could sell it, give it away, or bin/recycle it. Decisions, decisions. We have actually bought quite a lot of new stuff here (when we moved, we thought there was a chance we'd end up living in a much smaller house, so we left quite a lot of stuff in storage in the UK), and we need to consider carefully what to do with it all.

There's a class of things which simply aren't useful in the UK and we're trying to give away: typically basic electricals like kettles and toasters. There's also a class of things which probably aren't useful and we can get rid of; often things like computer keyboards, of which I've run up quite a stock of in my pursuit of the ultimate mechanical keyboard. I've tried a lot of keyboards in the last few years, and I have to admit to buying 2 of most of them, on the assumption that we'd be going back to work a significant amount of time in the office at some point. Well, you know what they say about the word "assume". And I can say the same thing about computer monitors, which I also appear to have been stockpiling.

A quality mechanical keyboard, yours for a small fee

Now you might think keyboards are a slightly weird obsession, but the keyboard, mouse and monitor are the bits of the computer that you actually touch and stare at, so they're arguably the most important pieces. They're also the pieces that manufacturers have been cost-cutting on since the 80s (with notable exceptions: Apple trackpads and monitors are extremely high quality, although their keyboards are pretty naff). What you see above is a Unicomp Model M keyboard, built on the same production line and with the same tooling as the venerable IBM Model Ms of the 1980s. These things were built to last, and to optimize the typing experience.

I've alighted on the Happy Hacking Keyboard as the ultimate, after trying many options. This is built using ludicrously expensive Japanese switches, and has a layout which at best can be described as "idiosyncratic" and at worst "downright confusing", but the typing feel and compactness are hard to beat. And yes, I've got two of them, just in case, so one goes in the shipping container and one comes with me.

That means the rest of my keyboard collection needs to be sold, which in turn means having fun with eBay. The eBay experience in the US is very different to the UK: in the UK it's a reasonably trusting platform where you can buy things that people genuinely don't want, and buyers generally act in good faith. In the US it's a trust-free game of haggling and trying to negotiate around terms of sale and policies which ought to be taken for granted. As an example, I have some monitor arms (big metal monitor stands which you clamp to a desk) which I want to get rid of. Given that these things weigh a ton and are weird shapes, I marked them as "local pickup only". This week my phone has been red hot, buzzing every few minutes with someone asking "HOW MUCH TO SHIP THIS TO DELAWARE?". Perhaps given their communication style, the error I made was in not putting "local pickup only" in block capitals.

So whilst eBay is a frustrating experience, the Zen master in me recognizes that it's possible to get rid of most things this way, and I'm getting at least some cash for those things, so I should feel good about the ends, even if the means are needlessly full of friction.