Life in General

New from 1969 Typewriter

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At first glance, it looks like a Hermes 3000. Like my favorite typewriter. But the platen knobs are mismatched, one black, one brown. Where did the 1 key and the 0 keys go to? The comma and period keys have their shifted states producing? and ¿ for Spanish. At the right-hand part of the keybank there are keys for a tilde, cedilla, grave and acute accent characters and more. This is not an American typewriter.

This is my new 1969 typewriter. I’ll refer to it as an International Hermes 3000. It has most of the combinations to make Spanish, French, and German alphabets. The upside down ¡ exclamation mark is not there. And the quotation marks for French is missing. I guess they will have to live with quote ‘ and double quote ” characters.

It is mine now. Now I have some typing to get used to the new layout.

What's avaailble on my Hermes International 3000

A Month of Gas

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“Five gallons sound right?” asked the guy at the gas I station. “Yep,” I replied. The last time I filled the car was in August. August 28! While we were in Salem. And we went back to Salem again to visit my mother-in-law. We have 276 miles, using 5.54 gallons, and that was it for September.

We are enjoying our new retired lives.

And you know, I kinda miss the effects of Covid. We did have a lot of driving to to in April through July. With people not being out to drive. it was easier. Left hand turn across a busy street? No traffic to wait on wile I looked to the right, to the left, to the right, and go. Unlike the old days when I would repeat the right, left, right and so on for enough time that I’d consider turning right and going a different route.

Another View of Me

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I have just launched My Typed Page it is kinda blog like. I try to update it daily with more random thoughts. But these are done on a typewriter. In this case the typewriter is currently one of

  • Hermes 3000, my favorite typewriter, a find at Ace Typewriter
  • Hermes Baby, a Spanish language typer, thanks to Kent Peterson who gifted it to me
  • Olympia SM5, another great one, this from a Craigslist
  • Royal KMM, a beast of a typewriter, with a 14″ platen and it weighs 50 pounds or so. I got it from SCRAP.

You can view all of these at my Typewriter Database Gallery. They range in age from 1940 (Royal KMM) to 1967 (Hemes 3000). The Royal was used by a local TV station and had it’s platen replaced let in life, so it has plenty of life left.

Enough digression, go visit it here.

Happy Equinox

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Yes, this is the day that we transition from summer to autumn. Or we are entering the dark months. Only six months left until we’re back on the bright side of life.

I did go out today, to view a photo show from Bobby Abrahamson. It was an outdoor show of North Portland Polaroids. This was the first outing, actual social event, I have had since February 27. Wow, over six months without any social events. I’m not counting having a pair of couples over for their visits, my sister was here for my birthday, and I’ve gone out to eat a meal or two with my wife. But to go out and just be someplace for the pleasure, this was a first.

Oh my wow. What a string of life.

Got Some Rain, Got Some Sun

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I suspect that there was little talk on social media because they were out enjoying it. We are down into the Good area.

We walked to get some lunch at John’s. This is the most I have walked since September 1. Yes, over two weeks without walking. I’ve only been out of the house twice in the last ten days.

This is not good.