Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

A puzzle box.

Assembled:

Opened:

Satan's Sixes Sunday

Odds and ends.

This hobby is odd. And we're getting to the end.

We get to see some of the things that have 666 somewhere on them but don't have much of a story to them.

Years and years ago, we didn't have terminals, much less computers, on our desks. We had to go to the "terminal room" to actually do something with a computer. These terminals didn't have monitors. They had paper. You typed on the keyboard and the terminal printed it on the paper. Then, as if by magic, and after only a few seconds, the terminal then would print something that the computer had come up with. In other words, the only way we had to do our work was through a command-line interface.

We were doing development for something that was running on Unix. On Unix all the processes running on the system have a process ID. Occasionally I would notice that the PID for something I was up to had a special number. I kept some printouts.

More than once I had been marked.

A Starbucks card somebody gave me as a gift marked me.

Peggy has given me several baseball cards that are numbered "666."

Thanks, Peggy! These must be worth a fortune. They are to me, at least.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

A Mata Ortiz pot.

I've shown another Mata Ortiz pot in an earlier installment.

Satan's Sixes Sunday

"VII: You shall not steal." --(Roman Catholic and Lutheran version of) God

Over the years, while nobody was looking, I've stolen order forms featuring 666 from places I was doing business with. I've sinned. I'm going to hell.

I took my car to Sears for some sort of service, probably a battery died. While the person writing up my order was away from the desk looking something up I noticed that the pad of claim tickets was approaching a magic number. I flipped through the pad and pulled out the one I needed.

In the good old days I had to take little canisters filled with strips of chemically coated plastic to Costco to have them magically convert them to paper with images of scenes I had pointed a camera at. (Now that magic happens in the comfort of my own home.) Where does this magic come from? I think this envelope I was supposed to have used for this procedure (but stole instead) gives us the answer.

There were times I did use the envelopes. No stealing was involved for at least two rolls of film.

(I probably went through the envelopes on the counter to get the ones with the special numbers. Is that kind of stealing?)

I stole this insurance receipt from the United States Postal Service. I hope the statute of limitations has expired for this federal crime.

Since this film processing envelope came from Vons in Santa Barbara, I'm assuming that Karen stole this one for me. I've received stolen property.

Karen sent me this one just last week. She recently rented a car and was given this form. No stealing was involved here.

The Beast is everywhere and is constantly offering temptation. I can't help myself. The forbidden fruit is so sweet!

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

A horse hair turtle from Mom. Shown with the miniature by Daniel P. Kronberg we got at Shidoni a few years ago.

The turtle is getting a little unraveled.

Satan's Sixes Sunday

Peggy has sent me many 666 items over the years. Here are my favorites of the treasures she's given me. These live on my computer desk.

It's a bottle of 666 Cold Preparation made by Monticello Drug Company in Jacksonville, Fla., and an advertising fan. They still sell products with that name but they've been reformulated since this bottle was sold.

Here's a closer picture of the box.

666 Cold Preparation

And a scan of the fan:

666 Fan (front)

666 Fan (back)

Here you can read how to use it and what it's good for.

666 Box (front and side)

People get nervous about the number 666. Some crackpot called the company and asked about the name. Here is the start of a series of pages of exchanges with the company and other commentary. So silly! But it does have some serious discussion of the number and its newfound significance.

Be well!

Orange you glad you have neighbors with too much produce?

It has happened again!

Our very nice neighbors left two big grocery bags packed with Valencia oranges on our doorstep. Juice! A half-gallon of fresh orange juice! And that's only the first bag of oranges!

And this happened just as my pitcher of orange juice from concentrate was down to its last swallow. Such good timing!

The bag that's left weighs 11 pounds. Another half-gallon of fresh juice is on its way.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

A painting by Linda Herzog.

The Tortoise and the Hare

Satan's Sixes Sunday

Money talks...

...the language of Satan!

I mentioned before that people seem to think anything with a number must be the mark of the Beast. What is more common in peoples' lives than paper money. Each and every piece is uniquely identified with a serial number. Money is Satan's tool! It's been proven! The only safe currency is gold! NOT!

I've collected money that features "666" in their serial numbers. Friends and family have sent me dollar bills (nothing larger!) that with 666 in their serial numbers. I took the five dollar bill out of circulation myself. Here are a few:

Karen sent me one with an extraordinarily special serial number:

It has only sixes (with a "666") and zeroes and it is a "star note"!

Family members often thought of me when they were writing checks and came to ones whose numbers ended with 666:

Great minds think of me often! Thanks everybody! I never cashed these. With all that money and with all the bills I'm hanging onto I could have been rich. But I have something much more valuable than their face value!

For a while, after Uncle Sam took his bite, and paid for my benefits, and bought company stock, and deposited money in savings and the household account and invested in my 401(k), my net pay was a pretty good amount.

What does all this prove? Nothing.

Except that I save things for a silly reason.

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Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

Plush toys.

Left to right:

• Shelly — A first generation Puffkin (from Peggy)
• Peekaboo — A Beanie Baby (from Mom)
• A Canned Critter (from Karen). The can must be somewhere...the turtle used to sit on a shelf sticking out of the can.