Confessions Of A Cable Hoarder

I have a rather large box of cables in my office. Its roughly the size of New Guinea and about as useful. Most geeks I know have a similar cache. You never know when you’re going to need one and whenever I need one you can bet I’ll have the wrong one in my box. So I’ll go out and by some more. I have no problem with this, but it has always been a point of contention with my wife. Additionally we have several old computers and four unused monitors. You can only imagine how pleased she was when I brought home my newest finds.

“Peter…what are those?”
“uhm..what do they look like? They’re cables”
“Sigh…”
“They were just going to throw them out! Can you believe that?”

These are Cisco console cables. These are for connecting to routers, switches and other networking gear. That’s not what I’m going to use them for! I have this bizarre need to make things. If it benefits me or not, isn't the point. The bumper sticker thing is just the newest side path on the journey of obsession. A journey I’ve been on for a long time.

When I was unemployed for seven months I started to lose my mind. It was a very pitiful time in my life. During that time I tried to burn our house down twice. Once by deep-frying chicken in olive oil. Did you know that olive oil has the lowest smoking point of any oil? No? Me either. And once by catching the vacuum on fire. Word to the wise, check the fireplace for embers before vacuuming up the ashes. A number of things came out of this period. One was a home made pizza that tasted so bad even pigs would have turned up their snouts. Second was a collection of hard drive clocks I unsuccessfully peddled downtown. This idea came from an old co-worker who made similar ones. Mine were much less elegant than his. They didn sell for the simple reason that no one in their right mind wanted them. I ended up having to give them away as gifts. Lastly was the Cisco Console Cable Coaster.


C4 is a useful coaster made from a cable and 4 pieces of twine. Actually I use wax tie used in most telecommunications offices, tied in a style called lacing. Something I picked up while working for phone company. They are totally geek and totally useful. They are super absorbent and a fun statement for the techy look. They come in two colors Cisco black, and Cisco blue. So there you go the C4. If your good you might get one in your stocking this year.