This Is Drivel

Category: hobby

  • Truman by McCullough

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    I’m two-hundred pages into the biography of Harry Truman by David McCullough. My Darling B gave it to me for Christmas after I spent months trolling the aisles of every used book store in town, looking for it. Now that I have a copy, I notice that there are three on the shelves at Saint… Read.

  • Dark Side of the Moon

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    I just finished reading Dark Side of the Moon, a book about Nasa’s lunar landing project. I feel it is safe to say that author Gerard DeGroot, a science writer from Scotland, is no friend of America’s manned space program, or any other country’s. Time out: What, by the way, is a shorthand way to… Read.

  • Show and Tell

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    Aaron, one of my coworkers, was showing me how to approve course work for continuing education. That’s what I do now; I’m one of the two continuing education specialists in my unit at the Department of Regulation and Licensing, so I’d better know how to do this at least a little better than the guy… Read.

  • Lazy Sunday

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    Here it is, my last day before I start my new day job and how do I spend it? I cut up a bunch of lumber, because that’s what guys do. Not sure how much is enough to qualify as a bunch. I cut up a few odds and ends to make some doodads and… Read.

  • Man Buys IBM for Three Dollars. Film At Eleven.

    I can’t believe my good luck: I am now the ecstatically proud owner of an IBM Selectric II. And I paid just a little over three dollars for it! How does this even happen? Well, just like this: I found it on the bottom shelf in the electronics section of a Goodwill store here in… Read.

  • Finders kee … how much?

    While I was prowling the aisles of the Madison Antique Mall this morning I spotted this Corona Sterling sitting amongst the china, figurines and other bric a brac. Carefully picking my way past the tightly-packed shelves so as not to become the not-so-proud owner of a newly-broken Humel, I managed to get a close look… Read.

  • Just Hanging Out

    I’m of two minds when it comes to recycling parts of old typewriters for jewelery or other artwork. My first reaction is revulsion. Typewriters have an intrinsic value to my nerdy sensibilities that is so great I could probably be persuaded to sentence key-cutters to jail terms that would raise an eyebrow on Charles Manson.… Read.

  • Books!

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    I finished off the last of the books I’ve been reading this month: Of A Fire On The Moon I’ve never read anything by Norman Mailer before. This is one hell of a way to start. I’ve picked up Of A Fire On The Moon at least twice, once when I was in high school… Read.

  • All the live-long day

    Gloomy & wet all morning, cold and gray all afternoon – perfect day to stay in the basement, playing with trains. Haven’t done that in quite a long time, and the neglect is apparent in one glance at the layout: track torn up, box cars lying on their sides. You wouldn’t look at it and… Read.

  • Smith Corona Super Coronet

    I stumbled upon this Smith-Corona Super Coronet waiting on the counter for someone to take it home from the Willy Street branch of the Saint Vincent de Paul’s thrift store in Madison. Unfortunately, I didn’t take it home because I couldn’t figure out how to make it fit in my book bag and carrying it… Read.

photo of the author and the author's best friend