I recently moved. My office is still a desk surrounded by unpacked brown boxes – mostly books. I have a lot of books.

I try to maintain a lifestyle unencumbered by too much extra junk. My wife and I regularly give away anything that we don’t actively use or enjoy. Having less stuff fills me with a sense of freedom. I feel agile and ready to meet change head on like my life is a light ship ready to ride over the waves life throws at me. Ok, well sorta.

I love my books. I hate to throw them away, give them away or lend them out. I guard my library – each book representing something I have consumed. Each one is a part of me. My novels contain places I have been in my mind, friends I have known, companions whom I have accompanied through adventure. I have books on theology – references, lexicons, commentaries – that have shaped the core of who I am and what I believe. I have volumes of history, politics and economics – a part of my identity. Then I have instructional books. Most of those are computer books.

My computer books represent my career, my skills, my craft. I love them all, but there are too many. I need to purge. Will I ever refer back to some chapter on a programming language I haven’t used since the ’90’s? Old computer books have no practical value. I think maybe I keep them so that if someone walks into my office, they will scan the shelves and form a high opinion of me. I don’t want to be THAT guy.

What do you do with your old books?

So here’s the deal. I really like Twitter but I also think it is a huge time waste. I’m gonna breakdown the pros and cons of it and see what I come up with.

Cons

Not many of my friends tweet…I hang out with a buncha rednecks.

I don’t care that Ashton Kutcher just ate some chocolate cake.

Spam.

Just like when I first started Facebook, I’d probably waste/spend about 20-30 minutes a day clicking around. I can think of better things to do.

I don’t wanna ‘conform’

All the cool usernames are already taken.

I want to be able to ‘unplug’ sometimes and be away from all things technology.

There is alot about my life I don’t want to share….

Pros

It is kinda cool to see when/what people I know are doing. Here is my best man’s page, but he lives in Chicago He also got hired from doing Direct Messages with his new boss.

It is a nice research and info share. I know I would follow CNN and PTI

Real-Time info.

If I set it up right, I could have all the information I wanted without looking too hard.

Am I going to have to have a Twitter account to Google something?

I came up with more cons than pros, but some of them are pretty lame. So what do you think? Would you like to see twitter.com/heathstanley?