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AFK
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1904
Just a note. If you've been following you know I'll be heading off soon to parts unknown. Before I go I'll be removing the blog - don't want those searching for my obituary to come across it and the less than favorable impressions of my working life.
So - soon, the blog will disappear. Not that it's been particularly maintained or kept up, but the disregarded thoughts will be filed with pen and paper to be edited and possibly posted later.
Week 2 - Garage Sales - 2012
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1887
Week 1 - in the end, a bust, the Good Samaritan Rummage Sale (an hour and a half in line) good only for a handful of neckties, I needed, wanted nothing else.
No watches, jewelry, other treasures, and the searching wore thin at 40 minutes, grew claustrophobic, had to leave.
From here to St. Lukes, but at 9:50 they were already heavily picked. Nothing worth having.
Week 2
Blizzarding outside. A few on my list, Holy Name Church up by my old house, Scarboro Church, another in the deep south.
Holy name, half an hour early, one of the first few through the door. I'm not with it, out of practice, notice others with my finds, dealer with Ukelele, dealer with painted Jesus on Ostrich Egg. I find a china cup, sleeping bags, (my first dash at the moment camping gear), nothing I really want or need.
2nd sale, Scarboro, a misprint on Kijiji apparently, there is no sale here today. It's not just me, I run into others showing up as confused as I. Perhaps the Hillhurst Dealers running interference?
Then the thrift shop, pair of antique candlesticks, a toonie. The find of the day, and the first pair of antique candlesticks in a long time.
That's the garage saling the past two weeks. Had I known I would have slept in.
Buttons Done
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1896
And, finally, my initial estimate of 26 hours grossly under budget, my imaginings of well-sorted containers of buttons strictly imagined (shape, size, color, in the end just color, vague adherence to tonal values and my own perverse black-velvet color theory) the buttons are done.
Lots of white, mother of pearl, motley brown, the rest (reds, greens, yellows, purple, in limited supply. Artworks will be based upon this palette. Gaze at the jars, every one seriously flawed, purple with brown, white with purple, black with burgundy, the sorting of these buttons always balanced against the colors of the neighboring buttons in my palm.
It's a great way to learn about relativity and color.
But, sorted now, no beginnings of things until the fall when (given the predicted/imagined success of the expedition) I'll have time. Expect dire things for Xmas.
Metal detectors
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2198
And so with the going away looming imminent on the horizon I'm looking for a metal detector. Days off searching ghost towns for abandoned caches of Platinum and gold, lost jewelry, etc. Even prospectors need a day off.
Used, there's nothing, a 40 yr old Bounty Hunter on Kijiji for $125.00. There's got to be better out there.
So I begin searching.
Now, treasure hunting is a bit like - well, hard to explain. But people interested in prospecting and Metal Detecting and other related things tend to be - well, judging from the websites, gullible.
Every metal detector comes in 30 different models, ranging from $200 all the way to $3000 and more. Waterproof, discriminator functions, 3D Holographic imaging, the specs are varied and nonsensical.
The specs are mostly concealed in jargon, and the new fancy computer-led-displays, while possibly a good thing, smell to me a bit of quackery.
People who go searching for buried treasure I suspect are a bit gullible and easy to bilk.
The specs are never easy to read. Add to this the sites that sell them are frequently cluttered with ads for treasure maps, binoculars that will spot gold on riverbanks, other absurd "treasure hunting" equipment and you start to realize that to buy anything strictly practical will not be an easy chore. It's much like Celine's descriptions in "Death on the Installment Plan". Add to this the fact that few places in Calgary sell them, and virtually none offer any sort of selection, and you'll know what I'm up against.
Still, do a job, do it right, I'll possibly only travel this road once and I'd rather not be blaming failure on a lack of preparedness, and so off I go to test them out... After all, it would only take a nugget or two to pay for one...
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