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Dumpster Diving!

thrashd said:
I found the coolest fucking thing EVER last week. It's a "Moving Message" display, about 2 feet long and 2" tall. It has a keypad to program the message and add effects and whatnot. It didnt work when I found it and had a few severed traces on the circuit board, but I fixed that in a few minutes with my solder iron. Right now it's hanging on my wall in clock mode.

I'll take pics/vid tomorrow.
Click to expand...

Can't wait! :)
 
recently I got:
PowerSpec PC-Celeron 700
(put an 80GB hd in it, currently using in my home network)
a lot of wire
some plastic tote boxes like the drugstores use to get their products from the warehouse
that's about it, hopefully I am going to get some more old computers given to me.
 
got over 200 network cables still in wrapers. there was like 20 boxes i only could carry one :(
 
nuentoter said:
Is anyone in the Northern maine/ southwest new brunswick area? I need someone to DD with.
Click to expand...

lol

take your phone book and call a radom person :D
 
A local "non-profit" organization builds PC's for their underadvantaged friends. I DD once a week there.

My findings:
5 P1 Laptops (all work)
Dell P2/P3 machines (about 10 in the past 3 months)
New Sparkle power supplies
Older CDRW drives
 
Here's one of my recent DD experiences...

So I was packing up to go home for the summer from the University of Oklahoma, and I decided "what the hell, I'll take a look to see if anyone is tossing out any cool stuff", and walked around my dorms. Lo and behold, it only took me 30 seconds to find a Super NES system IN ORIGINAL BOX, complete with the power and video connectors, 2 controllers, and the games Star Fox and Donkey Kong Country, all leaning up against a trash can. The system looks cherry and works perfectly - the console was even wrapped in the original plastic (though it had been opened), and the original receipt was in the box. That was quite a haul for 30 seconds of looking! I remember getting my first SNES for my birthday years ago, back when it was bundled with Street Fighter 2 - firing it up sure brought back some good old memories!

-SEAL
 
SEALTeamSix said:
Here's one of my recent DD experiences...

So I was packing up to go home for the summer from the University of Oklahoma, and I decided "what the hell, I'll take a look to see if anyone is tossing out any cool stuff", and walked around my dorms. Lo and behold, it only took me 30 seconds to find a Super NES system IN ORIGINAL BOX, complete with the power and video connectors, 2 controllers, and the games Star Fox and Donkey Kong Country, all leaning up against a trash can. The system looks cherry and works perfectly - the console was even wrapped in the original plastic (though it had been opened), and the original receipt was in the box. That was quite a haul for 30 seconds of looking! I remember getting my first SNES for my birthday years ago, back when it was bundled with Street Fighter 2 - firing it up sure brought back some good old memories!

-SEAL
Click to expand...

lol maybe they where going to return it thats y the receipt was in there. hopfully they dont go to [H] on this thread :D
 
Wow, they cut the thread down. :( Never got to read all of it. Probably never would have though. :rolleyes:
 
DRJ1014 said:
got over 200 network cables still in wrapers. there was like 20 boxes i only could carry one :(
Click to expand...

That's what return trips with a car are for!
 
Peale said:
That's what return trips with a car are for!
Click to expand...

went back with my friend in his car and there was only one more box and he took it.
 
this happened a few years ago but its still the best (or funniest) dive i have ever made...

a friend and i were heading home from playing golf and we drove past a grocery store
where we seen two (young) workers going out the back door with 4 cases of beer under
their arms and they stashed them behind the dumpster next to some trees and ran back in.
so i just whipped around the block and came up and parked by the dumpster and got out
and grabbed all 4 cases of beer and headed out!
we were both laughing so hard knowing how pissed those kids were gonna be when they
came back that night probably with some girls to find out their stash was gone!
 
Northerner said:
this happened a few years ago but its still the best (or funniest) dive i have ever made...

a friend and i were heading home from playing golf and we drove past a grocery store
where we seen two (young) workers going out the back door with 4 cases of beer under
their arms and they stashed them behind the dumpster next to some trees and ran back in.
so i just whipped around the block and came up and parked by the dumpster and got out
and grabbed all 4 cases of beer and headed out!
we were both laughing so hard knowing how pissed those kids were gonna be when they
came back that night probably with some girls to find out their stash was gone!
Click to expand...
now thats freaking hillarious :D
 
i think we should start a new thread... just get rid of this one.. no one knows wtf is going on with it..
 
SEALTeamSix said:
Here's one of my recent DD experiences...

So I was packing up to go home for the summer from the University of Oklahoma, and I decided "what the hell, I'll take a look to see if anyone is tossing out any cool stuff", and walked around my dorms. Lo and behold, it only took me 30 seconds to find a Super NES system IN ORIGINAL BOX, complete with the power and video connectors, 2 controllers, and the games Star Fox and Donkey Kong Country, all leaning up against a trash can. The system looks cherry and works perfectly - the console was even wrapped in the original plastic (though it had been opened), and the original receipt was in the box. That was quite a haul for 30 seconds of looking! I remember getting my first SNES for my birthday years ago, back when it was bundled with Street Fighter 2 - firing it up sure brought back some good old memories!

-SEAL
Click to expand...

now thats a great find!
you lucky lucky person :D
 
Found some really great "old" demo phones on Tuesday. They weren't in the box, but the accessories were with them in a manilla envelope. Certainly a lot better than my old phones! Retail on one was like $150 (according to what was written on the envelope) and the other about $120.
 
Northerner said:
this happened a few years ago but its still the best (or funniest) dive i have ever made...

a friend and i were heading home from playing golf and we drove past a grocery store
where we seen two (young) workers going out the back door with 4 cases of beer under
their arms and they stashed them behind the dumpster next to some trees and ran back in.
so i just whipped around the block and came up and parked by the dumpster and got out
and grabbed all 4 cases of beer and headed out!
we were both laughing so hard knowing how pissed those kids were gonna be when they
came back that night probably with some girls to find out their stash was gone!
Click to expand...

that was you? wtf man :mad: you stole my beer!
 
From various dives I have managed to obtain:

4 1" binders someone had used for biochemistry class
1 white fan (working!)
1 blue fleece blanket (threw it in the wash and it was as good as new)
1 radio/cassette player (working with only a broken window on the cassette area)

6 / 9 / 04
1 small popcorn tin
1 discover card thingies that they bring to your table at a restaurant
 
Sheesh..
And I thought that new pack of white out I found behind staples outside its dumpster was the ownage...
 
Anyone here DD in the north houston area? I'd be interested to hear where the good places are......
 
Anybody in/around the Cedar Rapids, IA area? I'm looking for someone to go diving with. 25 years old with a car, work third shift. I'm thinking about scoping out some places after work this morning(5:00am). Anyone try diving that early in the morning?
 
Anyone in or around McMinnville. A teenager? I'm 14 and have no ride. I live to far away from anything to ride my bike.
 
I have a good story for all of you divers. The other day I was DD'ing with a couple of friends of mine, roving around their apartment complex on foot. Since I had been DD'ing a while and had come up empty handed too many times, I decided that I would bring a knife this time to slit some trash bags instead of just going for the loose stuff in the dumpsters. As it turned out, I picked the wrong bag to slash. As soon as the bag was cut, a horrific stench filled my nose and made me gasp for breath. As I inspected the bag through teary eyes, I noticed that it was filled with none other than freshly gathered goose shit. Oh the wonders of the geese that swarm to the apartment's many ponds! I'd have to say that that was my worst DD'ing experience and prevented me from cutting any more bags that day. In the future, I will be sure to make smaller incisions, so that I don't have to deal with the repercussions of my all-too-ready attempts to get just a little big more from the trash.
 
I'm not a bag slasher. There's just too much weird shit you'll find in there. And most of the stuff I am looking for(computers and electronics and stuff) people usually don't put in bags. I also don't go digging down deep. If I can't see it and get to it then I pass it up. Sure, I wonder what I could have found, but then I think about what my nasty worthless shit to awesome valuable find ratio would be. I've heard of people finding dead rabbits and other funky shit inside bags.
 
The more that I dive, the more time I spend at each dumpster. I've found it to be highly rewarding to move aside a few bags to check what lies beneath. I'm still not sure whether to pursue the slashing method, but I think that a few more attempts will warrant a decision. As for tomorrow, it's big item pick-up day, where the city comes and picks up washers and the like. It should be promising as I've already seen quite a lot of stuff that I would probably like to grab or at least take a look at.
 
Dude I LOVE bulky item pickup day. I go to school in a small town so they only do it about once a year(as opposed to once every month or two here in KC). It is so nice. I got to the point where I just rolled down the back windows of my explorer and I just started throwing stuff in through the windows. Dot matrix printers seemed to be the big thing this year. I also found a few echostar satellite recievers and a couple satellite dishes. I sold a few items on ebay this year, but my favourite one was the alps md-1000 I found a couple years ago. I put that up on ebay and later that night somebody did a buy it now for $100! For a damn printer I found on the side of the road. Here in KC my favourite find was an old compaq prosignia 500 server that was still in working condition. Oh yeah, another thing I found up in kirksville is an old Microvax II. That thing is big and heavy. It has like 32 serial ports on the back of it. I think it came from the US dept of interior, wildlife and fish division or something like that.
 
I should have known that staying up till 3 last night would be a bad idea. I got up at 10:30 this morning, tired as hell, but ready to go get some good stuff. As I call my friends that live a couple of blocks away to ask if they're ready to go get some stuff, I hear the familiar sounds of a diesel engine. I ran to the front door and saw that vehicle that would ruin my day, the trash truck. :( So, I guess that it's back to dumpster diving. Do you know of any kind of schedule for when these things happen? I want to be on the ball next time.
 
I remember my parents had some sort of schedule for the bulky item pickups. Like there was a map that divided up KC into different zones, and then they would do each zone on a different day of the month. I knew I should have saved a copy of that. :mad: It's probably up on some website somewhere though.

edit: Well I found the zones for the missouri side.
 
Thanks for the link, now I just have to find one for Kansas. I'll go do some googling and then maybe make a few phone calls.
 
Haven't been DDing since last summer, what ever happened to the huge thread? Think I'm going to DD later tonight.
 
Isn't this the huge thread? As far as I know it is, since I didn't start posting in it until the update.
 
This is the huge thread, but every post before 2004 got pruned out when they were doing all that stuff to upgrade to VB3.
 
Ah, was going to go DD at ~11:30-12, but when I went out there were cops all over town and still tons of people out.
 
scottm5657 said:
i scored a 150 piece craftsman tool set from the trash at my building the other day
Click to expand...
Damn, that's the kind of thing that I need to find. My parents aren't really handymen and don't have a lot of tools. Oh, and of course I'm too damn cheap to buy tools that I need lol.
 
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