The Northward Contrail

Well, if *that* is the biggest crisis in the world today....

I guess the world's not in as bad a shape as we're supposed to think, since the newspaper from the nearest big town put the Miley Cyrus fiasco on half the front page, above the fold.  It'd be horrid there were, gosh, actually news events that were happening or something.  So, given that's probably Crisis A of the moment (never mind the ongoing tensions with Iran, the bumblings of our alleged state legislature, and so forth), I guess my mind is free to consider more profound things:

:: You know by now I'm awful fond of The Park Bench, another nerd-girl blog.  Liz often has a way of drilling right to the gooey center of my mind, and she did it again yesterday with this post about how certain foods are "gendered."  I've fallen victim to that sort of pressure myself, of really wanting to go to town on a big meal but feeling obliged to stay with a salad.  (Granted, as a vegetarian that's often what I have to make do with, but I can piece together a reasonably meatless meal from most menus, and I've also been known to be pragmatic from time to time about meat when there are absolutely no other options.  Or when we're at a Chinese restaurant and there are no vegetarian eggrolls available.)

The funny thing is, it used to not always be this way.  Does anyone remember how Kellogg's marketed Special K back in the day?  It wasn't always about trying to become a hot chick who can fit into a swimsuit.  I remember this ad from an old National Geographic in my collection that plugged how Special K was a sensible breakfast for people who were trying to stay healthy and watch their waistlines.  The spokesmodel?  It wasn't some lady in a swimsuit.  It was an older businessman in a blue suit, sitting at a breakfast table with a bowl of Special K in a railroad dining car, looking out the window with this vaguely optimistic smile on his face.  I vaguely remember the "Can you pinch more than an inch?" campaign in the 1980s.  But at some point Special K got rebranded as a cereal for ladies, and Kellogg's started to put that hourglass-figure motif on the box and it seems every few months there's some fitness offer on the box featuring Kathy Smith.  Drove me crazy.  It's good cereal, but it drives me crazy still.  (I'm not worried about fitting into a bathing suit.  I'm more concerned about staying in reasonable shape.  I was a fat kid growing up -- a really fat kid -- and if you were fat growing up, part of you never stops seeing yourself as that overweight kid.)

:: Sir Jackie Stewart has written his autobiography, Winning Is Not Enough, and it's now available in the States.  I got my copy via Amazon.com preorder yesterday, and after I got home I started to leaf through it.  It didn't take me long to get entranced by it.  It's a big book, and Sir Jackie has a lot to say in it and a lot of vivid recollections, and you learn a lot about his adventures behind the wheel, as a team owner, and in front of the television camera (which is how I first became aware of him, in my childhood, as a member of the Wide World of Sports team). 

There were two sections of the book that really, profoundly moved me, and neither had anything to do with racing.  One chapter discusses his lifelong efforts against dyslexia.  When Sir Jackie was a child, no one really knew about dyslexia, and so many adults around him assumed he was lazy or "stupid" when, in truth, he was struggling and had no way then to be helped; in fact, he really wasn't aware of what it was until about 1980, when his son was diagnosed with the same problem and, after a subsequent test, so was he.  The chapter title ("Am I Stupid?") is haunting in itself.

The other chapter that really moved me is later in the book, and in it Sir Jackie talks about his dogs.  The final days of one of those dogs, and Sir Jackie talking about the day he had Boss put to sleep, is one of the saddest things I've ever read.  Anyone who's ever had to say farewell to a terminally ill pet (and anyone who knows that part of the price you have to pay for an animal's companionship is the likelihood that you will have to say goodbye sooner rather than later) knows the pain he describes too well.  It will move you to tears.

It's a wonderful book.  To call Sir Jackie "a motorcar racer" is almost to do him a disservice, because you read through this book and you see there's so much more there.  In that regard it reminds me a lot of Janet Guthrie's wonderful memoir, which is a book about a busy life filled with so much more than just a distinguished racing career.  I highly recommend it.

Playing out the frayed string

Things are winding down here, thankfully.  On the other hand, there's just enough to do to be slightly annoying, and I'm now to the point where I'm coming in early in the morning not out of a sense of responsibility to be here for the kids, but more out of anticipating that something will go wrong if I'm not.  At least it's about to be over with, and I guess I can put up with it a few more days. 

:: I fell victim to sniper fire again yesterday on eBay, and the Selectric III I had my bid in on fell from my grasp in another sniper attack.  On the other hand, I'd even begun to think that maybe my maximum bid was a little out of hand.  What happened then?  I promptly did a search, found another Selectric III in good working order on a "Buy it Now" deal, and ended up saving quite a bit of money.  It's a bicycle-ribbon model, so finding ribbons may be interesting, but I can live with that.

Yesterday I also did some limited teardown and cleaning on the Selectric II, and found a few parts need replacement.  So far I've found only one company that makes new parts for Selectrics, and some of them are sturdier than the factory equipment.  The problem is, the company doesn't sell to individuals, and registering through my employer would raise some red flags, probably put my job in a little jeopardy, and would just flat out be dishonest.  The other problem is, though, I haven't been able to find anyone else who sells them. 

So, does this mean I start my own small business just for the sake of being able to get a few parts?  Maybe down the road, if I'm able to master the intricacies of Selectric repair with anything approaching some confidence, and feel my services are worthy and reliable enough to share with others, I'll think about it.  For now, though, I'll readily admit that I have a lot to learn, and I'm content to let the pros handle the big stuff.  I know for sure that the Selectric I will be entrusted to a professional should it need work.  I don't mind digging a bit into the guts of a later model, but the significance of the original model makes me hesitant to screw it up.  I'd have no trouble replacing a Selectric II like the one I have now (which I'm treating as an instructional airframe), but a Selectric I is a bit dear and I don't want to mess it up with a rookie mistake.

Welcome to Selectric Ladyland

When we left off Friday, our young adventurer had just taken possession of her salvage-project Selectric II.  Well, when I got home, here's what I found.

Well, it's an early Correcting Selectric II, and it's intact.  It's in that light-green color so popular in the 1970s.  It isn't avocado in color, more like a sea-foam green.  My grandparents had a Nova when I was a kid that was about that color.  Quick exterior check showed it's all there, though the big vertical plastic keys for power on/off and tab set/clear had broken hinges and were floating free inside the bag the seller wrapped it in (the metal arms under the plastic external keys are fine, though).  The access cover had also been bent at some point, and is warped on the right side.  I was able to do some straightening on it, but it still needs a little more work.  I think it can be salvaged, though.

A quick power-on test shows that the motor is still strong, but it sounds worn and could probably stand a rebuild or replacement.  As usually found with Selectrics that have been idle, it wants to type but the keys and the machine's guts are jammed with gunk.  It's filthy inside, with three decades' worth of debris and grime: flecks of carbon from ribbons, dust, grime, pieces of disintegrating acoustical foam, you name it.  There is, however, enough function inside to make me believe that a seriously good cleaning by qualified personnel could restore the machine to life.

I took the cover off, and it didn't take me long to wish I hadn't.  As owners of some Hammond keyboards know, the foam padding that got installed during the manufacturing process turns, over time, into sticky, corrosive goo.  Well, this had happened with this Selectric, especially with the adhesive padding inside the upper part of the case.  There are a couple of latches inside either side of the case, and you trip them to remove the case.  One of them brushed right up against the foam padding, or what used to be the padding.  It was now dark gray, sticky ick that got on my hands.  At one point I held the case and my fingers brushed against the padding, and the impression of my fingers was left inside on the padding.  The big foam pad at the bottom of the case, on which the internals sit, was in sorry condition and was crumbling from just my looking at it. 

Though cleaning and mending the internals is a bit beyond my skill set, there was nothing preventing me from giving the case a really good cleaning, so I did just that, cleaning it inside and out.  I got all the ick from inside the case (man, that was an operation) and now I can handle the case without getting gunk on me.  I made patterns for new acoustical foam for the inside, and will replace that (and plan to replace it every so often so it won't get icky inside again).  The only thing that worries me about the case will be straightening out that access cover, but it can be done.  I believe with a little love and care, this old warhorse will work again. 

:: As if that wasn't enough, I closed a deal yesterday on a first-generation Selectric.  It, too, will probably be a salvage project, but for what I paid for it (which was about as close to nothing as you can get), and assuming there's no lurking internal damage or anything, I'm very much willing to put the effort into it. 

:: Neat article here, too, about one of the dwindling breed of Selectric repairmen.

:: Finally, a very kind reader posted a very informative series of comments in response to my post a couple months back about network staff announcers.  Some good stuff there.  Nerd girl says check it out.

Be very afraid

I normally don't post twice in the same day, but about 45 minutes ago the phone rang here in the office and the salvage-project Selectric II, all 42 pounds of it, was at the campus post office for me to pick up.  The box is filled with packing peanuts, so I don't dare take it out for inspection, but it's here, baby.  (You can see a couple of its green sisters at the bottom of the stack in the photo atop this page.)

The trip home this afternoon probably won't be its first excursion out; it probably has a protracted shop visit in its future, at the very minimum for a good cleaning.  But it's here, and it's mine, baby.  Whooo.

It's always something, but it's never there

Yesterday afternoon I was looking for something I needed to find fairly quickly.  So I made the mistake of going to the local Wal-Mart.  Just after lunchtime. 

We've had a love-hate relationship with this Wal-Mart ever since we moved here.  We used to shop there quite frequently when we lived closer to town.  In fact, that used to be where we'd get our groceries on the weekends.  Over time, though, we found that it became a crapshoot each week because we were never sure if any given item would be available the following week.  Worse, we got seriously annoyed with the quality (or lack thereof) of service we got from the employees.  After one checker with a little too much attitude and a little too much indifference, and after complaints to the manager really didn't result in any improvement, we took our business elsewhere.  We get our groceries from 40 miles away, from a really good Publix location.  The quality of what we get, and the quality of service we get from this location, is worth the hassle nine times out of ten.

Yesterday, though, I had occasion to be back in this Wal-Mart.  As much as I have to grit my teeth when I go in there, and as much as the patrons cause me headaches with their lack of situational awareness, it's still handy when you need to find a common item fairly quickly.  (It's also about the only store in town left that has a decent cross-section of dry goods, having pretty much caused every other business in town to dry up, but that's another rant.)  The item I needed was something related to fabrics, cloth and sewing.  I remembered that this Wal-Mart used to have a fairly substantial section in the back devoted to this kind of thing.  Well, not any more.  This Wal-Mart has been restyled -- new paint outside, new interior inside.  What used to be a big sewing section in the back of the store is now one side of an aisle up front.  If you need anything more advanced than knitting needles, you're out of luck and it's a 40-mile trip to the next town.

You can throw the economic arguments at me all day, and I agree that Wal-Mart and other businesses need to do what they can to survive and respond to customer demand.  On the other hand, it does make me fret a bit, as it's a sign of something else we're losing in this culture of ours.  We're now getting so streamlined, homogenized, cost-effective and disposable that we're shedding maybe a little too much.  The "disposable" bit, I think, really gets me.  Not just from an ecological point of view, but also from the standpoint of that we throw away so much that nobody much knows how to, or cares to, repair too much any longer.  With cheaper imports, and with technology eating its young at a dramatic clip, there's not any incentive.  I had an entry-level laser printer several years ago that got taken out in a lightning strike.  I called a repairman to see if anything could be done.  I should have known what I was in for when I heard him laugh, and then there was a pause of a second or two before he told me, "Printers like yours cost so much to fix, it'd be cheaper if you just bought something new."

The repairman, I fear, is someday going to go the way of the dodo.  Sure, there will still be mechanics to fix cars, and service people to repair copiers (at least as long as there are service contracts), but the old-fashioned philosophy of repair is dying.  Last night I was trying to look around and find some way to get trained to repair typewriters -- partly for my own purposes, and partly to try to preserve what's becoming a lost art (and partly to help folks who still want to use these old machines).  Twenty years ago I could have sent in for a correspondence course and gotten a distance-learning deal.  Now, the best I can do is order a secondhand copy of a book published in 1981.  (Which I did, of course, because I have to learn what I can in whatever way I can.)  Maybe I could get lucky and find an old repairman who would train me, but even those are hard to find.

:: I had hoped I would have some success to report on the Selectric I search.  Yesterday I had a functioning one pretty much in the bag off eBay, until a few minutes left in the auction, when someone who subscribes to one of those automated bid-sniping services swooped in and grabbed it.  Yes, I know that goes with the turf, and I know that I bid the absolute maximum I was willing to pay for it, but it doesn't stop me from being a little annoyed about it, especially after I'd been the leading bidder on it for about two or three days.  Then here comes someone out of nowhere, in the last moments, and yoink!  There is a bit of a thrill on eBay, but -- at least for my part -- I don't like getting things at the expense of someone else who wants it.  (If that makes me a sissy in your eyes, then so be it, but it's the way I am.  I don't like for my pleasure to come at the expense of others.)  My philosophy is that should someone bid on it before me, I don't want to be the skunk at the picnic.  Other people, though, differ on that, and more power to them, I guess. 

So, in the moments after the auction ended, I violated my own "Liz, don't buy all the hot dogs" rule and put in a bid on the next Selectric I in my price range.  It may, or may not, work out.  If it does, so be it.  It may need fixing.  It may not.  We'll see.  I also have some searches going, too, so maybe I'll find a workable one off a "Buy It Now" deal.  That's why I keep coming back.  I hate the suspense of the auctions, but find me a good "buy it now" deal and I'm happy.

:: The term is almost up, and today we're just playing out the string through final exams.  I don't know why it is, but it seems half the people who have come sauntering through the doors of our building this morning has let out this huge, wet sniffle almost as soon as they've passed my office.  Must be a Kleenex shortage somewhere....

The next sound you hear

I'm entering today feeling like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, sort of waiting to see what else will happen.  Why?  Last night brought this goofy set of accidents that seemed eerily scripted. 

We have a riding lawnmower that's out of commission at the moment.  Hubby and I went out there to see what the problem was, and figured out that the battery needs to be recharged.  So we got the tools and he started to disconnect the cables from the battery terminals so he could take it and get it recharged (we don't yet have a charger of our own).  At one point, the pliers slipped and he got a really, seriously nasty pinch from the pliers on his hand, one of those where you jump around shaking the affected hand and uttering words you don't post on a family blog.  Yeah, you've probably done that at some point in your life, too.

Eventually, the battery got out okay and we went back inside.  We keep the tool kit stowed in our utility closet, where the washer and dryer live.  There's a wire rack above the washer and dryer, and we keep tools, empty ice chests, and so forth up there too.  I put the tools up and closed the sliding door.  About three seconds later, there was this thunderous crash that probably took about five seconds but seemed to last a lot longer.  It sounded like Fibber McGee's closet.  The anchors that held the wire rack to the wall let go, and all the contents of the shelves came crashing down.  I tried to remount the shelf last night using some toggle bolts, but the anchors did too much damage to the drywall.  We'll probably engineer a fix over the weekend, probably screwing a good, solid piece of wood across the wall (using lots of screws, of course, to evenly distribute the load across as many studs as possible) to anchor the shelf.

Last night, after all that was over, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.  It didn't.  But today I'm still finding myself being really cautious, just in case.

:: I have to apologize if it seems every other post of late has something to do with IBM Selectrics and/or Tina Fey (and that raises the question of what would happen if, in an interview, Tina Fey described the pleasure of typing on a Selectric.  I'd probably transmute into another state of matter).  But I found a nifty piece that's an appreciation of the nerd girl den mother.  A passage or two in there hits pretty close to home for me.

:: Oh, and should I mention that I think I have a line on a couple more Selectrics? I'm working on them, and trying to do the best I can.  I'll write more about this one day when I feel a little more expansive, but part of why they enchant me so much (and why other stuff, like old cameras and other such items, gets to me) is that they were built to last.  We're so surrounded by items these days that aren't made to be repaired; if they break, they go in the landfill.  That wasn't the philosophy behind the old typewriters, though.  They were made for hard use, meant to be maintained and used from now until the cows came home. 

Yesterday I put in a bid on a Selectric III that's been reconditioned.  The price of it is a trifle dear, compared to what you can find if you're especially quick or lucky (though it's not as much as some others want for their reconditioned units).  But never far from my mind is the knowledge that it's a durable machine, meant to take hard use and meant to last, and if I'm careful about it, the investment I'd make today would last me well into my old age.  Yes, that'd be dependent on consumables, but the mechanicals wouldn't really be an issue. I think part of that part of me that's a constant mourner laments the loss of craftsmanship and care you see in a good Selectric.  It seems like something from another age, or another planet, these days.

And it appeals to the part of me that's a tinkerer.  Yesterday I found a link to this shop, and it reminds me of something I'd love to do if I had an unlimited supply of money.  If I could, I'd get a storefront in a nice, historic area of downtown, one of those with the display windows in the front, and open a shop that did this kind of thing.  It'd hearken back to every cool old hardware store I've ever been in my life, where you could buy nails by the pound out of big bins and you could find cool old stuff that'd been on a shelf for 40 years, and there was a place in the back where the store's proprietor had a workbench and all kinds of tools and fixed things for customers.  That's what I would love to do, and I think if we ever do make good on hitting the lottery, I'll give that a good, hard look.  I'd love to do my part to keep durable goods (from back when "durable goods" meant something) alive and going for future generations.

While we're at it, here's a cool essay I found this morning that praises the Selectric and its Composer variant.  The comments are especially fun to read, too.

Nothing good can come from this

I have a newspaper I have to slap together this morning, one more miracle to pull from thin air before the term ends.  That said, though, I have to say that, last night, I may have gotten myself in over my head.  I plunked down $37 ($10 for the unit, $27 for shipping the gigantic heavy ingot it is) for an out-of-commission mint-green Selectric II.  I figure even if I have to eventually blow $100 or so to get a professional to get it running again, it'll still be a good deal, especially considering the prices some of the reconditioned units command.

The search goes on for a Selectric I.  There are some on eBay that can be had affordably, but they are in varying states of repair, and the ones that work become popular.  Not as popular as the Selectric III or even the Selectric II, but they still have admirers.  Watch this space.  I still don't know why these old machines captivate me the way they do (she wrote, happily pounding away on the 20-year-old IBM M-series keyboard).

:: Nerds of the world, unite  Once again, Liz at The Park Bench beats me to it.  Well played, sister nerd.

A new arrival

Busy day again today, and I have a lot to get done, but it's worth noting that Gov. Sarah and her family have a new addition.  Congratulations and best wishes to the family.

It's about time

Today's subject line is appropriate for two reasons: first, my shortage of it today because I'm finishing up my duties showing around a candidate for our position, who's in town for a weekend visit -- hence a brief post today.

More to the point, the subject line refers to this bit of happy news from over the weekend. May it be the first of many more to come!

The odds and ends get...odder and endier

Yesterday's quests came to a happy conclusion.  I found a ribbon for the Royal HH (at the local office supply store downtown -- I'm convinced it's one of the few places in this world where you can still buy carbon paper), brought it home, and within about 15 minutes I was happily banging away on the keys like crazy.  I had to make some adjustments to get the typewriter in tune and happy, but once she was dialed in, man, I was goin' like sixty.  And I found the other items I needed, too.  So it was happy time back home when it was all done.

Now the next conquest, and this one genuinely has me worried...I spent last night looking at Selectrics on eBay.  Specifically, first-generation Selectrics.  I believe I may have an inside track on one each restorable Selectrics II and III, but the original Selectric is harder to find by comparison.  But, they're out there and can be had reasonably.  Just have to hold out until next payday, that's all, and that's the hardest part.

:: Isn't it good?  (No!)  There have been, at last count, about 6,782,002 remakes of "Norwegian Wood."  I keep coming back to this one (via April Winchell's site) as the most surreal.  I was listening to it in the car on the way to work this morning (it's on the fourth "Golden Throats" CD) and it gets more and more surreal.  Even more surreal when you realize it won a Grammy.

Need more surrealism?  Here's Telly Savalas doing "Something."  At the other end of the spectrum, here's the utterly amazing Tony Spanos organ version of "Something,"  which sounds like "As The World Turns" during a rain delay.

:: Another preserved moment, thanks to YouTube: a 1978 PBS station break, with the introduction to the late, lamented Wall $treet Week.  "TWX in Twelve Bars" is permanently in my mind's Muzak rotation, and takes me to a happy time and place.