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Two days, 15+ car trips and one U-Haul trip later, we’re done with the move from Cupertino to Santa Clara! I am still having problems coming to grips with the fact that this is our house. It was only two months ago when Rae, Jon, and I walked into and marveled at the house. It feels like I’m living in someone else’s house, except now all of our stuff is here! I figure this is a common feeling for first-time homebuyers.

One of our next tasks in the coming week is deciding what stays and what goes. We didn’t have much time to throw things out prior to the move. Now that everything is in the garage, we can separate items into several buckets:

• Move into the house – Essential items
• Stay in the garage – Inessential items that we’d like to keep
• Donate – Hope, Goodwill, Salvation Army, and the Library can expect lots of stuff from us soon
• Recycle – My paper shredder is on the fritz. Any recommendations on one that won’t break in a few years?
• Trash

My goal is to get rid of half of the stuff still in the garage, or 3-4 car loads. I’m naturally a packrat, but over the years, I have trained myself to be quite ruthless. It’s a liberating feeling to throw things away that you know you won’t be using in the future. I’ve been looking for, but I haven’t yet found this photograph that shows all the possessions of an American family juxtaposed with those of a third-world country family. The former had amassed a mountain of stuff, whereas the latter had a few items. While I can’t get rid of that much stuff, I’ll endeavor to reduce as much as I can.

Thanks to Felix, Daniel, Joon-Mo, Randy, and the Changs for helping with the move!

In other news, Rae and I ended up purchasing a Galant desk from Ikea. This desk series has been recommended by several people. It’s customizable, so we were able to get a desk that suited both of our computers. The office looks great with the desk in it. My only beef with the room is that it’s not very sound dampened. The hum from my computers is quite noticeable. Good thing I’m not a sound guy, but it is distracting. Bryan suggested I blow some insulation into the walls. Has anyone ever done that or are there other options?