Saturday, March 25, 2017

Kalamazoo Type-In


Our Typists


Andy and Andrea

Andy, Dorothy, Bill M

Andrea, Mrs. M (Debbie), Dorothy

Andrea and Andy discussing her Remette

Andrea giving her Remette a test run

Andy & Debbie discussing one of many subjects


Our Hosts.  On a very short notice Andy & Dorothy were able to organize our gathering.   Many Thanks!

I took my Montana Luxe

Andy brought this wonderful Brilliant Junior

Dorothy brought her wonderful Olivetti Valentine

Andrea brought her wonderful Remette
None of this would have been possible had I not been in contact with Richard P during my trip.  Richard graciously introduced me to Andy in one of our emails.
I got in contact and we had an instant gathering planned.

Our trip had been quite a challenge this time.  We were delayed 3 days for a paperwork problem with our insurance. I forgot some travel paperwork at home.  Later we got delayed by construction.  I missed one of my routes.  We finally made it to Cleveland for a day.  Then we were off to Kalamazoo.  Later we are stopping at Hell and then on to Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and Richmond, VA.

Friday night's Type-In was great.  We typed a bit, downed a few brews, talked about the world of broadcasting, shortwave listening, ham radio, and back when broadcast radio was great.  Oh, we talked about typewriters and our typewriters also.  I do not know all the ladies talked about. I do know they talked about some of the birds in Florida, especially Mrs. M's favorite, the roseate spoonbill.

I started this post last night.  Got delayed today.  Lost the paper I typed last night that I was going to post from the type-in.

All-in-all a great experience. 

A very hearty thank you to all.

Saturday, February 11, 2017

Birds and Books


This tall stool is just right for typing on the Signet

P.S.
An afterthought from yesterday as we were driving back to town for our lunch is that I should have at least taken some photos of the Preserve.  The numerous deciduous trees are covered with drapes of Spanish Moss which makes them look really unique.  There are wide areas of saw grass in the marshes and along the lagoons and other bodies of water, and the general landscape along the trails is unlike that of many other places in the U.S.A.

While there, I thought who would want to see trees, grass, water, and people with binoculars?  I have a typewriter blog.  Besides, many of the plants that should be green are brown, like shown in my previous post.

Since the hurricane there was so much salt water flooding the lowlands, and no rain since, the plants are dieing (yes, Blogger spell checker states wrong spelling, but dying means to dye clothing). This is also one of the reasons we are not seeing the normal winter population of shore birds and some other birds.  The plants are not healthy so they do not produce the normal flowers and seeds.

Then, since I did some outdoors typing about our day I should have had some photos.  For our next trip I'll buy some film and post a few days after the event. I do not have a darkroom in my tiny house.  Plus the iron in the water would make it difficult to do proper processing.

As far as film, Kodak still makes Ektar professional films and even brought back Ektachorme!  Maybe Kodachrome is next.  I used some Fuji film last year to one of our trips to Merritt Island.  I did not like the results.  Then I never seemed to have liked the results of any Fuji film I've used.  Colors are way too exaggerated.
Agfa, Ilford, or Kodak are still the best.

Now for the books.
While typing and grilling the doorbell rang.  Mrs. M answered it taking possession of gifts from the postman.  Gifts I purchased.  My copy of The Manual Typewriter Repair Bible and The Olympia SM 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7 Typewriter Repair Bible arrived.  These books are compiled / produce by the Right Reverend Theodore Munk.  I thought I'd use that or I could have said Activist T. Munk as he has on the books.

I briefly paged though them.  They are great resources for typewriter repair people.  I can use all the help I can find when I dig into repairing my own typewriters.  I know these will be put to good use.  If you have a typewriter hobby and like repairing typewriters I highly recommend getting a copy of which ever book you need.  He also has a book for the Olympia SG typewriters.  Here's the link to his post on the books.

Much better packaging than Amazon.  Amazon loosely packs books in big boxes and many times they arrived with minor damage. The last few I got from Amazon were not even wrapped and were smudged.

Both books.  The Manual Bible is about an inch or more thick.  The Olympia Bible is about 3/4 of an inch thick.  Both are packed with information.