a skeleton key

I wasn't going to post pictures with every entry... but I found this cool antique skeleton key on my morning walk. the key is marked "Yale & Towne" on one side and "Solid Steel" on the other, and measures 2-5/8" in length. since this neighborhood (Midtown Atlanta, GA) features many turn-of-the-century homes, I'm not too surprised to stumble upon this key. I fought the urge to pick it up on the first pass, but was compelled to return to claim it.

buttons, buttons, everywhere!

today I am spending the day designing and setting up buttons and magnets in my CafePress shop. they are looking pretty cool so far... lots of ideas flowing. I'm sure I will end up having tons of designs!

on another topic... my sweetie and I are looking for a house, to make a home. this is my biggest hope & dream, so I hope we find something that is just right for us (fingers crossed & breath held).

an interesting coin

on my afternoon walk today, I happened across a somewhat beat up 1891 Liberty Seated Dime. pretty cool.

ended up walking 6-1/2 miles today. actually it felt good. it has been so darn hot & humid (miserable weather for walking) in Atlanta this summer that I have only been walking 3 or 3-1/2 miles each morning. finally a little break, the humidity dropped and the temperature high was only around 88 today... so I got out for a second walk this afternoon with my sweetie. we have been walking nearly every day for the past 4 years. I found it very helpful when I stopped smoking (just over 3 years ago)... and now it is just a part of daily life.

some good news

woke up this morning to some lovely emails... I sold 7 of my puzzle books, yesterday! wah-hoo! so far that is my single best day for book sales... which is actually turning this week into my best week for book sales, with a total of 13 sold so far. not quite getting rich... but still a good direction in which to head!

an Astyanax Red-spotted Purple butterfly

today I managed to snap a pic of an Astyanax Red-spotted Purple Butterfly. pretty fair shot of the underside of the wing. I wish I could've snapped a few more, but he took off.

last week was good for book sales. I sold 8 of my Pixel Paint by Number Logic Puzzle books. granted, they aren't going to make the NY Times bestseller list or anything... but sales have picked up and I am happy. I actually sold 2 more today, so this week is off to a good start as well!

a SETI milestone

just turned in my 500th work unit for SETI@home (SETI@home is a scientific experiment that uses Internet-connected computers in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). You can participate by running a free program that downloads and analyzes radio telescope data.).

pretty big milestone as I have been running the program for over 5 years. I've run through 3 computers in that time... and over 26,973 hours of computer time donated to the project. my newest system processes units much faster - what used to take me a week now is accomplished in a few hours, so I am rapidly completing work units.
another of my tiny contributions to science. (yay!)

free image hosting

I just signed up at photobucket.com for free image hosting, so I can put a few pics in this journal. I take a lot of photos with my digital camera and I create a lot of artwork, so I expect to pop a few images in from time to time. I've seen mixed reviews on photobucket.com, so I'll just see how it goes...

<-- that's my kitty, Chaos. he's been with me for nearly 11 years, now. I snapped that photo just this afternoon (don't let the sweet face fool you).

many free comic books!

Free Comic Book Day was good this year. The first shop I went to had a nice selection of the old EC Weird Science reprints for sale (which is what I'm most currently into). Sadly this shop only had the mainstream free comics, so my sweetie and I decided to walk a few miles to another comic shop & see what was available. The owner showed up late & didn't even have the free comics set up... (odd way to promote your shop for "Free Comic Book Day")... anyhow he did have most of the alternative free comics (yay!) I think the only one I missed getting was the Keenspace.com "From Pixels to Paper 2004" issue (which I really would've liked to have). But I feel very fortunate to have received roughly 30 free comics this year!

I will be enjoying these comics for quite a long time and hopefully I will feel inspired to put pen to paper again & do some creating of my own.