I love...

...being able to wake up one morning, go to the newspaper to help distribute papers to vendors for an hour, going to the library to get my schedule, and then later that day going to the local art museum to help out with something, and when I go to the post office they know I have three places I work for.

...being able to walk from the office, to the bank, the drug store, the market, go eat lunch at the Channel-side park, go to the post office, and back to the newspaper office before my lunch hour is over.

...being able to walk up to the mayor in the street and him knowing who you are. I swear, he has eidetic memory.


[Added]:

...being able to shake hands with two cops walking during lunch break: One I've had a ride-along with, and the other goes to the Town Council meetings when I do.

...getting tours in the local museums.

Small towns. Gotta love them.

My roots have definitely found good, nurturing soil here, and no matter how far my branches grow, this place is where I'm going to keep drawing from in my mind

More Jones appreciation

I've had my ongoing Jones "Saying of the Day" section on the upper-left column for the last week, and I'm liking it.

Oh, and here is the shirt I got from the appreciative company. Totally rocks! Gonna be showing this one off in the Southwest!

If just looking at this awesome shirt design by Wotto makes your lips dry and your tongue ache for Jones, why don't you just click to their product page here? You know your tongue wants it.

Gotta Love the Manuals

On Fourth of July, there was an estate sale within the area, and I decided to go check it out to see if there was anything good/cool (aka, hopefully a typewriter, rotary phone, or button maker). So, early that morning, my friend woke me up at 7:30 (the sale started at 9...), played some Fourth of July Muppets, and then we went to the sale.

When we drove by, it looked like any other garage sale, but we still checked it out all the same. In front were boxes of rocks, and not like awesome rocks, like geodes, just river rocks. Behind those was a table of airplane models (in boxes), and then the rest of the garage. As I walked through, there was a pile of stuff, and in between the junk I saw keys. Like typewriter keys.

After finding out my haggling/money-saving skills are pretty much zilch, I had another working typewriter in my possession. Behold!

Notice the sleek carrying case, the black-to-red ink toggle (on the right side), and that awesome red button! What does it do, you ask? You press it, and it sounds like a machine gun, and the carriage rattles it's way to the end, and that satisfactory ding sounds. I call it the super-tab button.

That super-tab button makes it that much cooler. My brother isn't really one for typewriters, but he loves that button. Rattatatatatatatatatatat!

This machine, the Olympia Traveller C, is in almost perfect condition, no dust or grit--just a used ribbon--but it still types cleanly. It lacks the personality of my Skyriter, but it feels a lot more...business-y. My brother says I can use the Skyriter for personal letters, and the Traveller C for business letters. Sounds good.

The Traveller C is a relatively new typewriter, from what I've found it's like 2005-ish...I think. There's not really a place that says it outright. All I know for sure is it's not manufactured anymore, and eBay and a few other places has it priced as $109 (which is actually a few times more than what I paid for it at the estate sale).

Anyways...

For comparison, my Skyriter in the same light and position. By the way, the Skyriter is hereby dubbed Magnus and the Traveller C...has no name just yet...

More to come...at some point.