Cleanup time!
With Nino a desire to actually, I don't know, complete it for once, I decided to clean up my work area, to make it more writer-friendly. For example, re-install the old under-the-counter rolling keyboard tray that puts my hands at a better level to quickly type. It was just a matter of finding the bloody thing.
Maybe it's in my closet. peers inside Oh, shit. Everything's in my closet.
I did not find my tray in my closet; it was in the basement. What I did find:
The box - and CD and manual - for Norton Antivirus 4.0. From the naming scheme, so old it apparently predated time.
Print Shop for Apple IIe. Anyone planning to hold a yard sale circa 1986?
Trio Plus, a word processor/spreadsheet/database program for the Apple IIe and her clones (like our Laser 128.) It was basically a lesser productivity program for those too lazy and/or cheap to buy AppleWorks. Think "Microsoft Works."
Manuals for both the aforementioned Laser 128 as well as the Apple IIe; my father took the latter from the radio station. This was in the late 80's that we purchased this machine and cribbed the unused Apple manual from the station; in an interesting twist, the Laser would later be sold to WHCO years later. By "years" I mean "in like 1999, cause they didn't have PCs until about 2000." Heh, you think I'm kidding. You haven't read much, have you.
Tiny baseball helmets! Back in the early 90's the little toy machines outside of Wal-Mart would have the little inch-and-a-half mini helmets for a quarter or so, and I got every. damn. one., plus a lot of repeats. They come in very handy: Mini helmets What was that noise? Oh, wait, it was just your total jealousy.
TV Guides. Lots of them. I used to save them - for some reason - and there are boxes more in the basement untouched. The pack rat in me sees a bit of logic in keeping some of these; it was neat to stumble upon the 1999 Fall Preview issue and read their first word on The West Wing (they loved it - duh.) Still...totally not worth the room they take up. And the weight.
An old Andres Galarraga clock. The first baseman stopped off in St. Louis for one year (1992,) spent half the season on the DL, then split for Colorado for their inaugural season. For whatever reason I was drawn to him, and was briefly both a Cards and Rockies fan until 1996 came and liberated Redbird Nation from the horror (read: Joe Torre. And to a lesser extent Todd Zeile.)
Anyway, my mother was doing crafts at the time, and at the shop in Pinckneyville where she had a booth another lady had sports clocks where she would take magazine covers and baseball cards and embed them into the shiny surface. My mother had one custom made for me for Christmas one year, and I treasured it for several years afterward.
After finding it amongst my myriad baseball cards, I threw it in the garbage bag, thought for about two seconds, then yanked it right back out. It's not going anywhere.