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Sold - Helicopter Pilot's Helmet

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: For Sale

Published: 06 June 2010

Hits: 2310

Proof that it all comes down to advertising. He didn't even dicker on the price, drove in from Cochrane to pick it up, he asked how & why I came to have it (long pause...."um....."), I asked what his plans for it were - he has a friend with a plane, it would be a good dirt biking helmet, vague uncertain plans, he just knows that he wants it, exactly how I came to possess it....

Now this leaves me a table to get rid of, but I think I have an angle or two on that, then there's the Pachinko machine and the hanging brass oil lamp.

It's addictive, this downsizing, and I'll see how far I can take it. 

Garage Sales 2010 - Week 8

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Miscellany

Published: 06 June 2010

Hits: 2092

They are every where. 

Dozens of pages in Kijiji and on Craigslist. The Calgary Herald even has a few, in between the hundreds of spam ads posted by ShopLocal (Their website has been flooded with spam for over a year, and is next to useless. Clicking on an ad brings you to a screen that tells you how often it's been viewed, but no expanded details. Now you could imagine the site being broken for a couple of days, a week even, but this has been broken for over a year.).

(Above: Screenshot of the Calgary Herald's idea of a Garage Sale. I wish I were making this up.)

So I pick a neighborhood, Wildwood, North of Bow Trail between 37 St and Sarcee Trail. There's a parade there, over 80 in one neighborhood, it's close, only a single bus away.

The weather, it rains a bit and then clears up. The garage sales, they're there, but there's a dearth of treasures. A couple of Wii games for the girl, a few X-Box 360 games for the boy, and that's pretty much it. By 11:00 in the morning I've walked 5 miles, visited perhaps half the sales and filled only a single small bag.

And then the bus home, time to get ready for work. Not a total bust, but nothing exciting or worth writing about.

On the way home, dozens of other garage sales. This was the big day of the year, and I look sadly at the signs all pointing to the better sales that I missed, the sales where there were vintage Rolexes, 5 for a dollar, vintage jewelry, rare books, antiques, none of which I discovered today.

I need a car. Garage sale season, to all intents and purposes, is pretty much done this year, but next year I'd better have a car.

Package #2

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Miscellany

Published: 04 June 2010

Hits: 1973

Predictable, really, that they're all arriving the same week. 

This one, from Belgium, small enough to fit in an envelope...I thought I must be mistaken, but, no, it was exactly what was ordered. 

What was I thinking?

But small enough that they won't take up a lot of room, already in the printing trays above the bookshelf.