One hour in...

I was so tired last night, I only dimly recall it was around 9:45 pm when I hit the rack, which means that my getting up at 5:15 am does not really stress the envelope, if you get my meaning.

I've managed to send off the outstanding translation, but I won't know anything about two potential over-the-weekend jobs until later today. Meanwhile, there are "garage sale" signs to be, um, personalized, and a price list to be created and printed.

And it occurred to me—somewhere in the middle of the night—that, in a pinch, nobody really needs to be here for the PODS pickup (except to possibly make sure no damage is inflicted on, say, the garage).

In other news, I was pleased to see a couple of offerings on eBay for what are described as "plating collections," which consist of some number of the same stamp (in both cases, 19th century French definitives), along with diagrams of the often very subtle image differences that would enable a collector (who has access to the right literature) to determine the position of a given image in the plate used to print the stamps. Here's an image from one of the auctions, to give a better idea of what I mean:


That said, I did not bid on the auctions, as I do not have access to said literature (although my 2009 Maury catalog does contain rather simple plating diagrams for selected stamps). It was educational to review the offerings, though.

Enough lolligagging... to work!

Cheers...

Not a propitious start...

I got up early enough (5 am), but by the time I was finished with the translation, there really wasn't enough time to do a workmanlike job with the garage sale signs and get them stuck in the ground in time to catch any early garage-sale prowlers. So Galina and Alla set off for the Webster house with the signs, while I got ready for a blood draw.

When I went to double-check the time of my appointment, I learned that my appointment had been made at the downtown location for 9:30 am, which bummed me out a little. I called MD Anderson, and the person who answered told me I could come by the local office at any time for the draw, so I showed up at 8:30 am. The whole process went very smoothly (I'm to the point where I know the names of all the ladies who draw blood, and Gladys is my favorite, as her 'sticks' are well and truly painless).

By the time I got back to the house, the PODS had been picked up, so that was one additional item to strike off the to-do list.

I showered and went to the Webster house, where it turned out (it's around 9:20 am now) that the signs were still not in the ground (and since the signs were our only "advertising," that's saying something). So I drove around and got the signs put in all the right places, after which a thoroughly tired Galina went home.

There was hardly any action at the sale. By the time Alla and I decided to call it a day (around 1 pm), we had seen only a handful of people stop by. In a way, this makes sense, because Friday is a work day (I have never been able to figure out why folks in Texas typically hold their sales on Fridays and Saturdays instead of Saturday and Sunday—although I understand a certain reluctance to hold sales on the Sabbath). Our cash "take" for the day was pathetic. Hopefully, we'll do better tomorrow.

Cheers...