Wishing you a Merry Retro Christmas!

I love Christmas!  For a photographer and fan of all things retro and kitsch, it truly is the most wonderful time of the year.  Vacation is coming and I will have time to catch up on typecasting, but in the meantime here are a few signs of Christmas from years gone by.

We'll start with the creative and crafty.  Fortunately, I have encountered no objects made from slaughtered typewriters.

This is an amazing assemblage of otherwise forgotten silver serving ware.

It took one of my musically inclined kids to notice that these include old sheet music.

I keep forgetting how cool the cup and light decorations look.

Of course, the decorations we find today in our local big box store will look like it came from a certain era.  I am fascinated how materials and design can become so thoroughly embedded in a cultural period.  Will we look back on the light up inflatable yard creatures and remember a long, long recession, or will we wax nostalgic upon 2011 twenty years from now?

This little guy reminded me of David Sedaris and his Santaland Diaries monologue.  "Oh little Elf..."

From the "What were they thinking?" category.

Once upon a time, someone thought this gift set looked cute as opposed to vaguely disturbing.

And then there are the many faces of Santa. 

Such a heavy burden.

Wise Santa is watching.

There is such a thing as too happy.

Glowing, blow molded decorations remind me of my own childhood.  I can't say a single mean or snarky thing about them.  This is as about as good as Christmas gets.

We're preparing for Christmas.  The girls got through concert season.  My wife has been baking up a storm.  We're doing a bit of shopping and enjoying the challenge of family handmade-or-thoughtful-and-less-than-$5.00 presents.  I have two typewriters in cleaning and service mode (SM9 with robot type and a Wizard branded Brother) getting ready for gifting to the next generation of addicts.  Vacation starts the day after tomorrow.  All is well.

Merry Christmas to you and yours!

Travels with Trollie

Gators can only wish they were as attractive as Trollie.

Trollie loves elaborate desserts!

He has his eye on high class bling available in downtown Naples.

You might not have guessed that he is a friend to all children.

Soak him in vinegar for three days and he might soften up a bit.

Perhaps he could use a protector.  Yes, this is all downtown Naples.

Um. some coffee just isn't drinkable.

"Poor gator!", my wife replied upon receiving a text with this image.

He looks right at home in the Big Cypress Preserve.

Strangler figs  are pretty tricky.

Please excuse the margins of Typecast Part 2.  In true Florida style, it has more than a few hanging chads.

Yes, the heading should read "Swamp Lair" as opposed to "Swap Lair".  This is one of the joys of typecasting.  This one comes courtesy of the Royal Futura 800.  Saying it is cursive would be redundant if it weren't for the existence of search engines.

So Part 2 of the typecast sounded a bit extreme.  I think the proprietor was in the process of selling the handgun in question to a fellow enthusiast.  Sure, this was happening less than 100 feet away from a busy state highway that passes through the Everglades National Park.  The right to bear arms does not take a break for traffic; not in this part of America anyway.

I have to say that it was an impressive gun.  On the first loud and low pitched shot, I thought it might have been a muzzle loader.  Nope, just Dirty Harry grade large caliber fun!

I regret not capturing an image of the fake tourist family surrounding the 40 foot panther but I suspected the shooter was not the type that liked having his picture taken by strangers.  Here is the really strange part:  I have driven this road roughly a dozen times and only now noticed these impressive sculptures.  I do a lot of photography and am pretty observant.  If I did not have photographic evidence of Trollie and the Skunk Ape, I might have been concerned about my sanity.

It occurred to me later that covering a giant panther with camouflage netting overnight is a practical approach.  It's a pretty valuable piece of property that needs protection from aerial observation what with all those UFOs and U.N. black helicopters cruising above the swamps.

Trollie and the roadside Skunk Ape.  You only think your eyes are playing tricks on you.

Imagine yourself inside this store and taking this photo when the gunfire starts.  Yeah, it was a surreal experience, but I try not to be an average tourist.  Honestly, it didn't freak me out since I was in new experience mode.  I would have been more concerned in an urban setting.

A haven for outdoors types and rugged individuals.  This is on the loop road to the south of Tamiami Trail.

 I don't want to leave a bad impression, so here is the other real Florida.  The guided swamp walk through a slough in the Fakahatchee Strand was awesome!  Except for the dried out pools, this is all part a really wide and shallow running river.  The water is clear and cold with nary a gator or venomous snake to be seen.  In the deeper water the mosquitoes were surprisingly scarce.  I still put on 100% DEET to be on the safe side.

Merry Christmas from all of us!

Irrational Exuberance: The Spacebot Star Wars Knockoff

There are some things in this world that are so uniquely ugly they are beautiful in their own way.  Such is the case of the Spacebot.  I've seen photos of these Darth Vader Bootleg/Knockoff things, but I never thought I would actually get to hold one.

Finding these at a Dollar store made we way happier than I should have been.  As much as I love real classic robots and space toys, the funky fugly toys are in a class of their own.  As the title implies:  irrational exuberance.

Just in case you don't make it all the way to the end of this photo set, I will go ahead and recommend one of the finest online collections of ugly robots for your perusal.  If you don't make it to the end, you will miss the best part.  I won't hold it against you, really.

ToyboxDX Forum Fugly Challenge

Without further ado, I present the Spacebot twins (and friends).

Even the packaging screams "quality".

You push the button and all kinds of things light up in concert with an incredible collection of digital noise and Star Wars blaster sounds.

Meet Darth Albino

Yep, albino glowing red eyes.  Well, make that a glowing red skull.  The plastic is a bit thin what with the recession and all.

A face only a mother or a true nerd could love.

They look even better off the cards.  The light saberish thing lights up in Anakin blue.

Is the pen truly mightier than the sword?

What if you have R2C4 for backup?

That's how Will rolls.

You cannot win, Darth.

Late Maker Nerd News

This blog is still pretty new.  I was reminded of this as I looked through existing photo collections for new material and inspiration.  I'm preparing for a week on the road and Blogger will help me by putting up posts on schedule and in my absence.  Tricky... I've done this before on a recent business trip.

I want to keep this blog fresh and lively.  "Fresh" to me means diverse content and recent events.  The downside is that there are have been some awesomely nerdy events that happened in the recent pre-VTO blog era that I think deserve mention.

Today's nerd event (actually from June) was a first for Kansas City - we got our own mini Maker Faire this year!  So exciting!  We even delayed leaving town on a family trip to hang out here.  Before the Kansas City event was announced, I had considered a special trip to Detroit or the Bay Area for their Maker Faires.

I am really stoked on the emergence of a modern Maker movement.  It is second nature for people who like opening things up to see how they work or figuring out how to turn something old into something new.  In my personal opinion, the purely organic and spontaneous emergence of all things Maker is one of the things that will keep America from lapsing into an innovation deprived coma.  No Child Left Behind isn't doing a whole lot to stimulate creativity along with test scores.  Oops.  Got political there.

Bonus story courtesy of MAKE Magazine:  Economist Magazine on the Maker Movement 12-2011

So, presented for your viewing pleasure is a total nerd overload known as the Maker Faire.

Claire with Super Awesome Sylvia.  She is sporting the finest in Olathe Northwest Ravonics Team 1710 FIRST Robotics wear.  This is currently her high school of choice.

Slyvia and her Dad, the Tech Ninja.  This is a family of Makers.  Slyvia video blogs on tech and science projects in plain language even mortals can understand.  Tech Ninja runs a website and blog of his own.  They travel the country for Maker Faires.

Claire with a new friend.  Yeah, this took some coaxing.

Thanks Mr. Tesla for your coils.  Thank you to Mr. Faraday for the protective cage.  And thanks to Arc Attack for teaching coils to sing and creating such visual nerd goodness.  P.S.:  Claire has a slight Tesla/AC fixation.  Don't get her started.

Homegrown Kansas nerdom from Topeka.

This has to be the best use of scrap computer parts I've seen all year.

Welcome to the thrills and spills of Power Wheels Racing!  What is it?  Start with dumpster or garage sale kiddy toys, add deep cycle marine batteries and real motors and let the fun begin!  In this case, something electrical overheated.

Competitors get extra credit for flair.

I'm jealous.  I want to build one of these.

 Next year, the Kansas City Maker Faire should be bigger and better.  There is a Fab Lab located in the Northland and at least two hacker spaces in the Metro I am aware of.  I hope you enjoyed the photos of the future engineers of America club.

There are more photos on my Fotki site at http://public.fotki.com/coyotesareus/maker-faire-kc-2011/

Analog Record Keeping and Kansas City History

I'm plucking out cards from cancelled sales for typing use.  This is the back of a card like the one below.

The story of one customer and his watch.

Each drawer held hundreds, if not thousands, of customer records.  The earliest were from the 1920s and the latest from the 1960s.  The entries from the '50s on weren't as interesting since they added small appliance repairs.

I have a certain nerdy fascination with forgotten history gleaned from esoterica.  Out of all the antiquities I looked at during the October First Fridays' sale at Good JuJu, this was my only purchase other than a 1960s vintage Girl Scout Handbook for my wife.

There are many uninteresting stories in this collection, but that is made up for by the really interesting customer stories.  I settled on this one because it contained a record of a house call to repair the dashboard clock on a "Ladies Red Buick".  In looking at the customer addresses, I've come to the conclusion that this jeweler generally served the upper middle class and above in Kansas City proper.  There are many monied addresses along Ward Parkway in the file.

The drawer full of record cards was one of many.  In talking to the seller, I found out that the whole lot of drawers came from a single huge estate sale cabinet that was in very poor condition.  So out came the drawers for sale to crafters, creative types and nerds.

I guess since I am using backs for typing, that makes me semi-creative.  The fact that I am blogging about it places me squarely in the nerd category.  At any rate, I have lots of fun reading material to pick through.

Typecast Courtesy of the Royal Futura 800 (Borg Edition)

Mousiest Royal Futura - Except for the Awesome Font

Early morning sun brings out the best in this color combination.

The subject today is the world's mousiest looking Royal Futura 800,  We're not talking a little bit mousy - we're looking at full gray on gray.  I suppose at some point it must have been a cool combination since this seems to be the most common.

You push the logo to pop the hood.  Pretty neat and not at all gray.

 Um, yeah.  Even with the cool red logo button action, this is still one of the most boring looking typewriters in the world.

That is until you find out what is lurking under the hood.

Mmmm, tasty.

Pretty spiffy, huh?  This is Royal's version of cursive.  It is looser and more informal looking than the Hermes variation.  It is perhaps a little closer to my casual writing, but much more legible.

Funny:  Just now the gingercat (Claire) just looked over my shoulder and noted that the type slug caption sounded like something a key chopper would say.  I prefer to think of is as the sound of a type face connoisseur.

But perhaps we should let the Royal do a proper introduction:

As much as we love the Royal Futura, it doesn't have the precision of an Olympia.  The fit and finish are to a noticeably lower standard.  However, it's still a nice typing machine and is just generally more laid back.  It is almost quiet enough for night typing unlike the staccato Olympia SM3s.  The Futura is more beach bum than jet set executive.

The Futura has a whole different look.  At the moment, they are not particularly popular.  Hard telling whether that will change or not given the myriad options for used typewriters.  I've heard Futuras have shown up on TV.  I wouldn't know since we watch the Olympics, Presidential addresses and weather alerts and that's about it.

Gray to awesome, or leave it as is?

We're thinking about maybe doing a little repainting action.  So what do you think?  Leave it as is or go crazy with some hammertone?  There are so many luscious colors at Home Depot...