Impulse Purchases

Back home. This is the only picture I took today. I took it with the camera in my phone, and it rather boggles my mind that it came out so well. For the first two years of my Blackberry career, my camera had no phone. I'd see phone photos online and they were so poor I didn't care about not having one, but when I got my second Blackberry (a Bold), I could not believe how well the photos came out. I don't want to go into Blackberries much today, though, because I have a whole story about phones I may want to rant about. Back to this picture. Right away I notice the lovely multicolored drawstring bag. I bought a bunch of them over a period of time when I lived in Colorado, using them for tarot cards and other things. I became so addicted, I bought way more than I needed, even sending fabric I'd bought to be made into bags, but I have to say they are one of the purchases I have never regretted, because I use them for many things and have gotten so much pleasure out of the colors and patterns. I use this one for my portable hard drive when I travel, so that's why it's on the desk. "We" just got home.

The big, wide cup is an impulse buy that I'm glad I made. I bought four just because I saw them and they appealed to me. I use them every day for just about everything from oatmeal to soup. The shape and size are perfect. They were probably pretty inexpensive, but when I bought them every dollar counted even more than it does today. I remember it was a struggle to convince myself I could have them. So glad I did it.

The green box is another story. At the moment, it's only holding my computer up at eye level, which would better be done with books. (I should swap it out.) I thought it would be cool to digitize all, or at least some of the dozens of cassette tapes I'd made from borrowed music or had purchased on cassette - especially one I have yet to find on CD - but once I read the instructions, I got scared. I'm only half geek, and the other half was pretty sure I was going to do irreparable damage to my files, disk or something. That was quite a long time ago, and I still have the thing.

Enough babbling for today.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

End of the End-of-the-Day Office?

This is the office I use at the end of the day - the best seat in Starbucks. I'm not sure how I'm going to give up that cold, ice-crunchy, sweet, chocholaty frappuccino, but I feel a change coming on. We'll see. Now that I've described the frap, I really don't know how I'm going to give it up. The end of the day is when I kick back, read something that isn't digital, and answer a few e-mails and calls if the mood strikes. If it were not for the calories and the checkbook, I'd have no problem with this scenario, especially as the evening afterwards often includes more work at the computer. As I said . . . we will see.

By the way, I won't say A History of Iowa is a gripping read, but it's interesting as research for this project that I've been working on.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Sept 13, Astoria: Old technology, found while cleaning

I've been reorganizing my office this weekend to make it easier to reach things in storage boxes. Quitting Market America has opened up a few file drawers and bins, and that's probably what got me started on this particular Augean stable. So far, I'm liking it. I've been thinking of the various projects I want to work on over the next few years, and all of them entail easier access to the materials stored in boxes and files that have been essentially out of reach for awhile. There are also boxes of old files that have run their 7-year IRS mandate and can be gotten rid of (once reachable :)

Anyway, in the process I found this bit of old printout from an order of a number of years ago. It brought back the old days when I had so few orders and less sophisticated technology. A customer would place their order online, and I had to then e-mail them the total cost and the shipping amount. They would have to OK it and e-mail me back. Then I could ship the order. In the earliest years before that, I actually had to pack up the order and take it to the post office to get a mailing cost, then contact the customer! Back then, if I had a few boxes in a week, it was a lot. Now, of course, it comes in already approved by the credit card company and the customer has selected their shipping method, with the total right there for them to look at.

A Guzmania bromeliad comes to my office on the Columbia River

Lee's gift to me before his trip to Bend this week was a beautiful jungle plant for my office here in the (nearly) frozen north. It reminds me of the bromeliads we saw in Panama. Nice memories of an amazing time, and a splash of color on a gray day. Astoria is actually in a rainforest, but not of the type this plant would call home. Here it looks out the window over the Columbia River. There is plenty of water here for a bromeliad (billions of gallons, nonstop), but the heat rises only on the occasional day each year. The pamphlet says I should pour purified water into the leaf pockets (oops, I hope it will forgive me for drowning the soil at its feet an hour ago) and I should let it dry out between waterings. I can do that - ask my other plants. When in doubt, I can go to Kent's Bromeliad Nursery Inc. according to the brochure and get further hints on keep it comfortable. Eventually, if I'm good to it, it will have puppies, or pups, which you replant when they're half the size of mom. Hmm. That could be interesting. Check back next year and see if the jungle has flourished.