hushed gray: the Kevin chronicles

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Mail Mystery
Over the weekend I received an envelope full of stamps in the mail. This happens from time to time--but generally speaking I have some clue who the sender is. In this case that is not the case.

The envelope bears no return address, and contains nothing except stamps. Ironically, there is not an actual stamp on the envelope itself; instead, it bears a Pitney Bowes meter marking dated June 13th. That a meter marking was used would seem to indicate the envelope was mailed from a business, but I've not ordered any stamps recently.

The meter marking indicates the envelope was mailed from zip code 30043, which is Lawrenceville, Georgia. As far as I know, I don't know anyone from Lawrenceville--and none of the handful of outstanding trades requested through Philosateleia even came from Georgia, much less from Lawrenceville. I suppose it's not impossible one of those collectors for some reason ended up mailing his/her trades from Georgia, but one would think he/she would identify the mailing as such.

Finally, from my cursory perusal it appears there's a nice selection of landscape stamps sprinkled among the contents of the envelope. Could be coincidence, but it almost seems as though the sender must have known my primary collecting interest (when I have time to work on my collection, which has been rarely as of late).

Can anyone out there shed some light on this mystery?

posted at 12:01 am | permalink | 1 comment

Friday, June 08, 2007

Brilliant!
I've made a very mildly amusing discovery about my new cell phone. Not funny like a speaker phone, but something that makes one go, "Huh." When I'm in the news room at work, I'm on Sprint's network. When I'm in the hallway immediately outside the news room, I'm roaming. This is immaterial (but not really a moot point except in the most incorrect sense) for two reasons. First, I get free roaming. Second, I doubt I'd get any reception in the hallway--pretty much nobody gets reception in the building. Probably something about all those cables and transmitters and so forth.

Today's Peanuts comic strip gets a big "thumbs up" from me. It's not easy being intelligent. ;-).

(And yes, Devon, I'd actually be somewhat surprised if that doesn't elicit an "oh gag!" from you.)

Karen recently alluded to her distaste for Carrie Underwood's "Before He Cheats." I'm of the same mindset--it's one of the few songs that when I hear it come on the radio will actually spur me to switch stations within five seconds. Anyway, last night as I was driving back from work it was on a country station AND a top 40 station at the same time! I object! Speaking of radio, I've found myself listening to a rather off-the-wall country station recently. They play some new stuff but also a lot of 70's and 80's country along with some odd material. The Eagles I can understand--that style of 70's rock sounds a lot like a lot of music in the country genre today. Lynyrd Skynyrd...well, they did have ties to Jacksonville, but playing "Freebird" on a country station? And twice that I've heard in less than two weeks? Odd. And Bruce Springsteen...I'm sorry, but I don't see where he fits on a country station at all. Nevertheless, it's overall an eclectic mix that I can enjoy listening to.

posted at 11:00 am | permalink | 1 comment

Thursday, June 07, 2007

Almost the weekend
And I'm not sure yet how I'm going to spend it. But there's never a shortage of things to be done, and I generally end up with less flex time than I expected anyhow, so it shouldn't be a problem.

The land line is officially dead, meaning I can pack away my telephone and answering machine. (Anyone need a cordless telephone and an answering machine?)

Channel 4 yesterday evening had a report that amused me to no end on the Atlanta attorney who is currently quarantined with TB. For those who didn't watch the news yesterday, he testified from his isolation room during a congressional hearing. Anyway, the local TV news anchor said, "Andrew Speaker testified by speaker phone this morning...." I don't think she realized how funny that sounded, but I don't see any way whoever wrote the script could have not realized it was somewhat ironic.

posted at 10:41 am | permalink | 1 comment

Sunday, June 03, 2007

Still hangin' around
I know the updates have been sporadic as of late, but life has been full--I've worked 12 days in the past two weeks so a lot of stuff hasn't gotten done. I've spent much of last night and today getting my checking account records up to speed and taking care of some mail--still owe a couple of letters but I've done what I had time to do.

Stamp collection has pretty much been on hold, I occasionally fill a trading request but I've got a paper towel full of soaked stamps to file away--they've been sitting here for a couple of weeks probably but that keeps slipping further and further down the list of priorities.

The airport recorded over three inches of rain from Barry yesterday. We're still more than five inches below normal for the year, but that three is a good start.

This week I plan to contact AT&T/BellSouth to disconnect my land line and DSL. I'm replacing them with a cell phone (Sprint) and wireless Internet (Clearwire) which should cost about the same, maybe $5-10 more than what I've been paying. I'll have only one phone now, and I won't have to remember to turn off the modem every day to ensure my answering machine will work. Plus long distance (unlimited nights and weekends) is included in my phone bill. So I'm wondering why I didn't do this before. (If I haven't sent you my new number, let me know--I may have overlooked your name.)

posted at 5:29 pm | permalink | 1 comment