First Day Tomorrow

Back up at school for three hours after church doing last-minute stuff with new materials in a new campus . . . must have been twenty cars in the parking lot. That's just ridiculous, but, I guess it's the nature of the beast.

----Time out; I have to check on a sardine label bid on eBay. Still twelve minutes to go. ----

I read Shelly's comments . . . sounds like a torero putting together her traje de luces. I'll probably wear khakis, a collared shirt, and my SASes like I have every day for the past fourteen years. Since I'm planning to ride the bike every day, I've made a little rat's nest in a corner of the lab where I can drive up with the truck and hang shirts and trew and stash meine Schuhe in a dark corner. One of the local cleaners delivers; I'm looking into the possibilities there.

---- Back to check on the labels . . .

" 25 vintage Telmo Brand French Style Fancy Fried American Sardines labels, Distributed By Franklin MacVeagh & Co., Chicago, Ills. These seldom-seen labels are close to 100 years old. They were discovered in a barn near an old factory site here in Maine. "

. . . these are todally dudical. I got into a bidding war over this same lot about a month ago, and it got over $25 plus s/h. I quit when it passed my limit. Then all of a sudden - same dingdong day - they were back on the market in a second-chance auction. Uh . . . no thank you. Smelt Hamletic . . . Five minutes to go ----

Where Shelly has manicured and pedicured herself to a fare-thee-well (I'm just going to remain sans comment about the parts in the middle . . . well, I'm gonna clean my fingernails and wash my feet . . . who cares? They're clad in leather (sounds kinky) . . . the feet.

---- Back to eBay . . . they're still mine at 2 mins 13 seconds . . . I'm clicking the "refresh this page button like a channel surfer . . . YES! . . . they're mine at less than half the bidding war price.

Is this cool, or what? Look at the saturation of the colors and the wonderful Deco linework and the curved text. Remember, this was all done without photolithography or Microsoft programs. Oh, man, oh, man. What a prizeI And there are twenty-five of these puppies in this lot. I can sweeten my collection and turn around an resell the rest to another addict like myself. You know what? I don't care if anyone buys them or not. These are schweet.

OK; so maybe it's an acquired taste, but I feel like Scrooge McDuck with another canvas bag of "gold coins that were used as a trade currency throughout Europe before World War I. Each coin's weight was 3.4909 grams of .986 gold, which is 0.1107 troy ounce, AGW, actual gold weight. Gawd, I'm going to miss teaching English and being able to pun with my smart buds.

I'm gonna go watch a movie, eat a little ice cream, and bring myself down slowly from all this excitement.

God Bless All Here.