In Mechanica Antiqua

  My favorite copy of my favorite childhood story turned 100 this year and I almost missed it.  Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea captivated me as a kid.  It fueled my endless fascination with the ocean and the variety of life contained within.  This particular copy is a first edition out of the University of Chicago's Windermere series.  It's in exceptional condition and I've owned it for many many years.  It was published in 1922 making this year its 100th birthday (or print-day if you will).  The image above is a fabulous illustration done by Chicago artist Milo Winter, and one of my all-time favorite illustrations ever.  It had a heavy influence on my Logo if you weren't able to tell already! Here's the front cover. I have yet to see another copy of this book which features this particular illustration on the front cover.  Even other first editions I come across feature a different illustration from within, so I consider myself l...

  The Teal Vogue The conversion was quite easy this time around.  I've done a lot of work with the Royal P in the past, and this one seemed like a simple matter of just switching the bars, though as I discovered later that wasn't the case. The above photo shows the parts machine.  A 1931 Royal P with the crinkle duotone green finish.  I have only ever seen one of those machines in that finish before, owned by Scott Connors of Stephentown Typewriter.  That too was coincidentally Vogue.  Something about that finish just bothers me, so I took out my red Model P and decided to swap the bars in.  Well, let's back up a little bit.  I had decided to swap into my red one a long time ago, provided I didn't come across a machine I really liked.   It started off pretty easy.  I cleaned up all the type bars and started the swap using a spare segment bearing to allow me to change one type bar at a time without any others falling out.  I als...

  The wallpaper is titled "Sea is for Cookie" from Redditt Yeah, so I've never been particularly knowledgeable when it came to computers.  I swear, I have some sort of curse where the worst that can happen does happen every time.  Particularly in the realm of data storage, in which I have never ever gotten a break.  So many corrupted files, hard drives, thumb drives, and SD cards.  It has created a level of digital paranoia that is quite concerning.  But floppys, zips, and CDs don't corrupt.  Neither do typewriters for that matter.  Fun fact, my keyboard is the same base keyboard as the one on the IBM 2500 series wheelwriter typewriters (among a few others as well). The Dell Dimension 4100 you see above was made the same year I was born, 2000.  I grew up in the age of good technology, Tube TVs, 1 hour photo at Walgreens, and VHS tapes.  I hit the sweet spot, remembering the fondest parts of analog tech, and watching the digital age sweep...