I am an early adopter, packrat. When people need an extra phone charger or connector cable they come to me.

So if I throw something out, that means it must be old as dirt. Here is a list of things I threw away today.

• A Dell PS2 keyboard I got for free with my computer in 1997
• Palmrests for two keyboards I'm not even sure I own any more
• A Belkin vga/ps2 KVM switch I purchased in 2004
• A IEEE1394 (Firewire) PCMCIA card I purchased so I could connect my first generation ipod to my Windows XP powered 2003 HP laptop (I'm keeping the laptop)
• A PCI E-Sata connector - I think I got this with a 2.5" hard drive enclosure that ran on USB2.0 or E-sata (actually, I'm so keeping this if I can just find the e-sata cable!)
• 2 RJ11 (yes, 11!) cords - one approximately 10 feet, one 20 feet. Wired telephones??!?! Ha!
• A 6 foot long USB extension cable (i.e. male to female) that we bought in 2002 so we could put the computer behind the couch and the monitor on the side table like a TV
• A serial to ps2 connecter that I got for free from upenn.forfree so I could plug in a serial mouse I got somewhere...I don't even remember how this story ends
• A plug that goes from UK to standard power supply - WTF did I need this?
• A USB to Sony Ericcson T-9(?)00? connector cable I purchased in 2004. The software it came with sucked
• A PCMCIA adapter for compact flash I bought in 2000. This was awesome. But, it turns out that compactflash is the biggest kind of flash. Also, I have another 9 way flash adapter that has compactflash in it! :)
• Not one, but TWO power chargers for mini USB phones. Too bad the industry just standardized on micro USB.
• An adapter that takes USB/PS2 power and uses that to give energy to an external 2.5" hard drive enclosure just in case your USB1.1 doesn't give the drive enough power. (Yes, USB 1.1!). I bought this in ~2005.
• A PS2 mouse from a computer I bought in ~2005

Every Christmas we wonder "what do we get for people." For a lot of our friends and family the answer is really hard: We may know their interests but not well enough to have meaningful suggestions. Ultimately, though, we feel like we want to give people more time and maybe a little motivation. Time is the one thing that we all need more of.

Fortunately there is a way to do that this year that is compatible with last minute shopping: Gift Certificates to Lilly's Table.

Lilly's Table: Cook seasonally. Eat consciously. Live well.

For about 2 months now we've been using Lilly's Table to help us plan our meals. Every Sunday we wake up, open our computer, and look at what new items Lilly has sent us. The week's recipes are always seasonal and delicious. The interface shows us general nutrition information and some data on how long it will take to make the item.

The weekly menu has an introductory description from Lilly that gets you excited to make the dishes. You read about ingredients that are in season, which meals should come first or second to take advantage of leftover ingredients, and general foody advice.

We go through looking at the recipes and the beautiful accompanying photos and pick out the items we want. At the top of each recipe are buttons to "add to shopping list" and "add/remove from my recipe book"

On the bottom right of the recipe is a spot to indicate things we've made and provide our own notes.

The recipes are mostly private to paying site members and it costs $12 per month.

Why pay when recipes are free on the internet?

I like to keep track of things. For halloween this year I tracked when people came and what their costumes were. You can see the google spreadsheet or download it as an OpenOffice.org spreadsheet.

For me, the interesting things were:

A few years ago I started a company to do some website building (gvs). When it was just me we didn't have any "HR" or "Accounting" process really because it was...just me. Our project process was really messy and I didn't necessarily bill hourly, nor flat fee, nor...whatever. Now we're a little more serious. We've got serious benefits, it's a team of 5 people, we do pretty solid work for a lot of different top tier companies.

That said, I found these two documents as I went through some old files today. These are from a company I worked in 7 years ago that was a startup, but had some serious "process" so they could feel like they were a real company. GVS is not now and probably never will be this kind of "serious."

I mean seriously. Look at how much time must have been wasted on that. And I get that a "holiday" list without some sense of design input is just plain depressing, but I don't think the clipart really got anyone into a festive mood.