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It Ain’t Hip To Be Stiff

Flexible nibs (which I did an earlier post about here) are often coveted but just as often misunderstood by fountain pen collectors. That’s to be expected since nearly all current pens have nibs that flex very little. If not stiff then they are what is often called “soft”, a term that means under some pressure the tines will spread a tiny bit.

Idolatry

So why are flex nibs so coveted and how do you get one? People can get sold on them sight unseen due to all the dialogue praising them but don’t know of the downside. Most new owners would find them hard to use on a daily basis. You have to take your time writing with one and the necessary high ink flow means a lot of drying time which leads to disappointment and some grumbling you don’t often see expressed due to embarrassment. If given a little perseverance (and practice) most folks do come to enjoy their use.

Getting the real McCoy usually involves finding a good vintage pen from the golden era of flexibility which ended in the late 1930s. It’s a hard quest since so many people selling “flexible” nib pens have no idea what that adjective really means in those cases. Thus caveat emptor needs to be strongly observed so you don’t wind up holding a nail when you wanted a noodle. Trying out pens in person or buying from a known, recommended, or trusted seller is really a very, very good idea.

Into the 21st Century

The other way to obtain a flexible nib also can be tricky. Some very high end manufactures have special order flexy ones and some nibmeisters can alter what you have on hand to be such for a hefty price. People debate the qualities of these all the time asking if they are truly flexible or just rigid with a lazy streak. Results do indeed vary.

Now Into this comes a new much talked about entry from Noodler’s, the people well known for ink and low cost fountain pens. The Nib Creaper (or NC since I’m lazy) is billed to have a flexible nib on a very low cost pen. Intriguing, yes? Well I’ve managed to get my hands on a couple through the auspices of kind friends and took some time to get to know it. Let’s take a look.

Noodler's Nib Creaper.

The Same, But Different

Do you like the look of the exsisting Noodler’s piston fill fountain pens (as shown here)? If you do then you’ll like the Nib Creeper. I don’t find the design unattractive or all that attractive. It’s a nice generic pen shape with little adornment. There’s nothing wrong with that, as I said before, since it’s an inexpensive pen. For this price point you don’t expect too much and just the fact this is a piston filled pen is a nice surprise.

This is one of the cheapest new piston filling fountain pen I can think of. The Dollar Pen rivals it for price but I’ve had no experience with them so I can’t comment on quality. Oh, and the Dollar does not have a fancy nib. The TWISBI piston filler is a fine pen and built to a much higher level of quality but it goes for nearly 4 times the price of the Nib Creaper. If someone wants to get away from converters or cartridges first stop is here.

How long a Noodler’s pen such as this will last in use is an open question. It looks to me built to perform a good long time and you can buy new piston seals from Noodler’s to replace worn ones (a nice touch.) The design is straight forward and simple much like the “school pens” from European manufacturers in the 50s and 60s. You see the minimum of parts to get the job done on this pen so rough handling should not break it.

The Exciting Bit

Now that we’ve discussed the supporting cast let us get to the star of this pen: The new flexible nib. If you look at the overhead comparison shot between a regular Noodler’s and the NC’s steel nib you immediately see the difference. The slit on the normal nib is goes part way up and ends in a breather hole. No surprise there since it’s the classic nib look and the one people visualize when thinking of one.

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Now look at the nib next door. Wow! The NC’s slit travels much farther up the nib and does not have a breather hole. Why is that? Well you can also see that both nibs are about the same thickness and (I assume) made from similar steel. Flexible nibs from the past were made thinner and some say from a different alloy of gold to make them springier. If you can’t do that kind of engineering then the long slit is a path to flex on the cheap. Here the two nib tines have more freedom to move since they are effectively longer and of less width than a common nib. Visualize this by thinking of an index card being cut along its length: If the cut is an inch into it and you push up on one side it moves a little but if the cut is 3 times that long you’ll have something a lot floppier.

What about the vent hole you ask? Well, what about it? The purpose of one is supposedly to allow air to flow in to replace the outgoing ink more efficiently. However a lot pens have done without it and seem to have no ill effects. Additionally with a slit that goes up to where everything snugs into the section it makes little sense on the NC to have one.

The Unseen Hero

One thing about flex nibs that people should know about is that they need a lot of ink. When they are flexed to make a thick line they have to put down a wide swath of that liquid stuff and if there’s not enough ink coming up through the feed they “railroad”. That means each tine makes a thin line and there is a blank nothingness between them. That is bad. Now if there is enough ink to cover that gap you see a very wet line indeed. The balance between too much and too little ink is usually in major part controlled by the feed of the pen. Of course I should mention there is always a point where railroading will happen if a nib is flexed really far and capillary attraction loses out to gravity and other forces.

Flexy pen feeds that work well have deep channels holding ample ink ready to be called upon when needed. In the picture below I’ve taken a few photos of the regular Noodler’s piston fill feed and the one from the NC. I love that these are great looking old school ebonite feeds since it’s nice to see something made today that looks just like it’s counterpart from 100 years past.  No molded plastic fanciness here, just good old lathed hard rubber.

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You can see that the feed for the flex nib pen is more robust in construction especially along the bottom where material was added. Perhaps the idea was these new pens will get more of a workout and so this part was beefed up to prevent breakage? The other change is the very important use of larger feed channels to supply more ink. Seeing this shows that the pen isn’t just a “swap the nib” endeavor but there is thought behind it.

In summary we see that that the Nib Creaper has a new nib and feed on the same barrel as the regular Noodler’s piston fill pen. Well, there is one cool additional difference: The colors (or lack thereof.) Initially the NC was introduced in black mottled red and clear demonstrator plastic but at the time of this writing a black mottled white pen is being sold too. The swirled colors are a welcome and interesting visual change from the solid ones. As for the demonstrator, who doesn’t love those? (If you don’t please just slink out of the room now.)

So, What About That Flex?

We all know the real question everyone wants answered about this pen is how flexible is the nib really? Using it gives an impression but that is subjective and hard to relate in words. One person’s flexible nib is another’s rock hard nail like scratching device.

What I had to figure out was how to test and show the Creaper’s flexnibedness. A comparison between a vintage pen I think anyone would describe as having a flexible nib and this modern upstart made sense. Looking for a good wet noodle as a comparator I was lucky to have a vintage model also sporting a steel nib (even better for the comparison) on hand. This flag bearer for flex is a 50s Montblanc that can accelerate from narrow line to wide in the wink of an eye. Once that choice was made I moved forward to formulate a hair brained scheme.

What I needed was a way to illustrate how much flex there was using the same downward writing pressure on both pens. After a great deal (practically minutes) of thought I came up with two options which could work. In the first one I would buy expensive equipment to apply the exact same measured force to both pens and run a moving belt of paper underneath to capture the lines. Then I use magnification and a micrometer to measure the line width to high accuracy.

Yeah, right. I’m lazy and all for loose, unscientific tests that don’t cost me anything so I selected the second path: duck tape. Since it can do anything I figured it would provide me a cheap and cheerful testing solution. So what I did was tape both pens together with the points at an equal level to each other and on the same plane.. With that done I made lines across the paper increasing the pressure as I went. Since the pens are, so to say, a single unit the pressure was pretty equal on both.

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The results in the scans above (you’ll want to click on the images to see it all) show a couple things: Yes, the Noodler’s Nib Creaper will flex. No, it doesn’t flex as easily as a vintage nib does.

So, How Is It to Use?

My use bears out what the duck tape experirama shows in that the Noodler’s pen was not an entirely willing flexible partner. It takes a good deal of pressure to get line variation and that makes it a bit less enjoyable.

The next issue is that both nibs I tried were a bit scratchy. I’ve read some people’s reviews where they state the pen was very smooth so this may just be an anomaly or maybe I am a tougher judge of smoothness. As always this is something you will have to see for yourself.

My last comment has to do with ink supply. Even with the modified feed the pen railroads quite a bit. To stop this you can write slowly and deliberately which slows the rate of ink being put on paper so the flow can keep up. This is something some flexible nib pens require but it can be a bit exasperating.

Writing sample.

Everything I said in my review of the normal Noodler’s piston filled pen goes for this one. It’s a featherweight pen which makes the NC easy to use and carry. The piston works as advertised and there are convenient ink windows in the barrel to see the level of such. On top of all this is a screw cap which is my favorite method of holding one on.

Whadda I Think?

A fountain pen that is this inexpensive makes me want to play up the positives and minimize the negatives. You get good value for your money with a Noodler’s Nib Creaper for sure but as with all things you do get what you pay for. That turns out to be a fun pen to use but not an amazing wet-noodle nib writing experience. For that your best bet still is going for a vintage pen.

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More Than Two Monologues

It’s a newly minted year but I shan’t be going on about auld lang syne. I’m going to look back only a few days to this past Christmas and one gift in particular. I was given a lovely pen which I was not expecting in the least and it surprised the heck out of me. Earlier in the year I was spied examining this particular writing instrument finding it quite interesting and now, suddenly, I own it.

I have a tendency to ramble (although when I write these posts the words come out at a glacial pace) and with this pen I’m going to give myself an underlying structure for this and future reviews. I’ll keep things in a format like this:

1.       Introduction

2.       Appearance

3.       Engineering and Features

4.       Relevant Comparison

5.       Usage Comments

6.       Summary

So let’s give this a shot with the aforementioned pen: A Lamy Dialog 3 (or D3 for short.)

Bow House

Lamy pens often attract the adjective of “Bauhaus” when described. That famous design school (Staatliches Bauhaus) is well known for clean, machine age creations that are often associated with the aphorism “form follows function.” (Because Louis Sullivan is my favorite architect I must insert that he coined that phrase long before used in this context.) Lamys are smooth and modern and if you are familiar with the metal tubular furniture from Bauhaus designers you can see a similar rationale and resemblance. Pushing the envelope in this direction keeps all the new Lamy designs looking fresh.

Tubular Bells

The above brand of modernism can be seen in The Dialog 3 (even though it was designed by the Swiss Franco Clivio) and it is a pen that elicits strong reactions. It’s one of the least adorned pens I’ve seen and resembles a cigar tube. This design is broken only by the slender clip and access hole for the nib on one end. Textured and shiny metal is what you see and what you feel holding it. People could be confused and not even take it for a writing instrument.

I’ve read many comments on this pen and a large number of those are negative. Some have joked it needs an LED so it can become the penlight it was born to be. I’ve read even more colorful commentary on what it might look like (ahem, tampon). In my eyes I find the shape simple and compelling. I appreciate this unadorned mechanical appearance in many items from Porsche Design watches to Braun appliances so I’m predisposed to a favorable impression. Looking like some kind of tool is not terrible for what is really a tool to write.

Wienermobile without the Wheels

It used to be said Germans over engineered everything due to their skill and perfectionism. The gist of that idea is elegant engineering cuts no corners and exceeds all specifications. Lamy’s Dialog 3 fits well into that ethos. To begin with you can see the quality in its manufacturing on close inspection. You see smooth threads; polished internal parts, and well dampened movements. From the exquisitely knurled grip on the nib unit to the rotating half spheroid that acts as seal on the nib end the feeling of no cut corners comes on strong.

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Of course there is a down side to this feeling of quality and that is weight. The pen is quite heavy which I can see turning a few people off. It feels like it was machined from a solid block of steel. Good? Bad? It’s a matter of preference, of course. It doesn’t bother me since I can adapt to massive or featherweight pretty easily.

There are three parts when the pen is disassembled (not counting the converter): The top section, the nib section, and the bottom section. The pen is separated by twisting the bottom past a detent in the direction that you would to retract the nib. Once apart the nib and feed come out in a unit which unscrews from the bottom of the pen. You can run water through or soak this for cleaning.

As if this pen wasn’t already complex enough the clip even has to show off. It’s on a spring tensioned hinge so it slips over fabric easily. Showier is how when the nib is extended the clip will actually move closer to the barrel and lock into place unusable. Even the most absent minded user won’t wind up with the nib staining any article of clothing.

East Meets West (Germany)

The obvious pen to compare the D3 to is the most popular retractable nib model on the market: The Pilot/Namiki VP or Vanishing Point (sometimes also called the Capless.) I have one from the 1980s which is similar to some of the current models in length and girth. You’ll see when it is placed next to the Dialog 3 there is quite a size difference. You’ll next notice the push button on the end of the Namiki which denotes a functional difference. This pen extends the nib by pushing this button like a click ballpoint. Compared to the D3 it has a simpler mechanism, a flap to close off the nib end, and a fixed clip.

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In use the VP feels light as air in comparison to the D3 (mine has a plastic barrel but newer VP models have a brass one and weigh substantially more). As with all retractable point fountain pens you will have to deal with holding the clip end and some people with different gripping styles can find this problematic. Usability testing ends there since I can’t compare the much smaller Capless nib which was ground to italic with the Lamy’s medium.

Bullet with Butterfly Wings

What can I say? I like using this pen. It took a little time to get used to handling its thick and hefty body. I don’t find it uncomfortable though and it has a nice cool tactile feel on my fingers. It’s no nonsense, here to write, and don’t forget that.

The twist action to extend the nib is easy to get used to after a few instances of disassembling the pen when turned it too far but that is certainly not the worst learning curve in the world. Once opened it starts to write without hesitation. I’ve read some people have had their Dialog 3s dry up easily which hasn’t happened to me. I assume if that was a problem with the pen it has been fixed as production moved along or the inks I use are more resistant to drying than those of other folks.

The nib is nothing fancy. Two tone 14kt gold and slightly plain looking it won’t shock you but that is fitting to this pen. The range of points available will elicit a yawn as bold is about as fancy as it gets. Mine is the often hated medium and it creates a textbook example of that line width. So much so I won’t bother with an exemplar of the writing since you should be able to picture it well if you’ve ever used a medium nib. My example is very, very smooth with good flow in use, perhaps the smoothest nib I own. Once again I’ve read some people have flow problems which may have been fixed by the time my pen was made. The smooth, slightly soft nib makes writing with it is no chore and for a daily use pen I couldn’t ask for more.

Sometimes A Pen Is Just A Pen

I said this pen was polarizing before and I can’t stress “try before you buy” more in this case. You may hate what I find lovely about the Lamy Dialog 3. It’s big, solid, complex and these attributes could both be positives or negatives depending on your predilections. Over the last few weeks the D3 has performed reliably and I’ve enjoyed using it which about sums this all up.

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“Unlike any on this planet…or any other”

The Parker 51 changed the face of pen design with such advanced features as the tubular, hooded nib and aerometric filling system. Unlike many radical designs it worked incredibly well and its successful production run was decades long. Parker was on a  roll and eventually an improved, ingenious successor model was readied to eclipse the 51. We all remember that one, right? Um…right? I’ll give you a hint: it was called by another number. Got it now? No…not the 75. That was a terrifically successful pen with an incredibly long production run but this was before that one. Got it yet?

Norman Rockwell did this ad art for the 61.

OK, I was being mean with the guessing game. Few people remember the Parker 61 and for good reason: it followed a legend and had several disappointing flaws. Let me rephrase that and instead call it a fabulous flop. Every once in a while a pen comes along with an advanced and clever solution for a problem that people didn’t realize existed and the Parker 61 was one of those pens.

The 61 was the last advance in the category of self-filling pens that began when the rubber sac and lever came into being. In fact this model not only saw the switch to ink cartridge/converter fountain pens it was swept up in the change. A watershed pen that may have been so advanced it was partly responsible for its own ill luck.

Now that I’ve reached this point I feel I may have been a little harsh. The 61 did have one of those super long production runs Parker pens always seemed to be blessed with like the 51 (1940 to 1976) and the 75 (1963 to 1994). Its run was not as long as those two but was an astounding 27 years (1956 to 1983). You can’t fault that kind of longevity even if it was not quite the same pen at the end as the beginning (more on that later).

Let’s take a look at the 61 and the mechanics so you can get an idea about what I was alluding to. At first glance the 61 is only subtly different from its predecessor. The pen has a plastic barrel with a hooded nib and metal cap à la Parker 51. Closer inspection shows it cuts a svelter figure and is squared off at the jeweled barrel end. Overall a very evolutionary design showing the change in preferences as the 50s marched towards the next decade.

A few other things should be noted about the new duds the 61 wore. First off is the “arrow” on the top forward position of the hood. It certainly reminds you how to hold the pen and has a great “jet age” feel to it. More striking are the rainbow metal caps on the first edition pens. Parker used several different metals in these to create a very pleasing layered effect. Due to a high rejection rate in production eventually these were deemed too costly to continue.

Actor William Holden ponders the filling 61.

Inside the pen there were changes more revolutionary then belied by the staid exterior. In the front the nib, collector, and feed were generally along the same lines as the 51 with one important change: A new tab on the nib acted at a locating element to finally make alignment with other pieces far easier. If you’ve ever assembled a 51 you know this is no small thing. The real pièce de résistance was behind that part of the pen: The capillary filler. Fountain pens always used capillary action to move the ink along the feed to the terminus of the nib point. The 61 took this to the next level by being filled by this very same phenomenon.

Capillarity is the when a liquid tends to rise in opposition to the force of gravity in narrow tubes or small openings like between grains of sand. Parker decided to build itself a capillary filler so that when backed up into ink would suck it in with no effort needed. There were no moving parts to need service and was “clean” in use due to being coated in Teflon, another modern magic material which repelled ink residue. It’s often said that this filling system was in response to Sheaffer’s Snorkel “clean” syringe filler (first seen in 1952) however Parker bought the rights to this idea in three years earlier which shows they were thinking it had potential before the Snorkel went on sale. The working bit was a thin polyethylene film rolled tightly together but not fully touching inside the housing. That’s where the ink went and waited to gather and flow out to the feed and nib.

So, this all sounds great, right? Who wouldn’t want a clean, easy, and gadgety way to put ink into your pen? But all was not well with Parker’s attempt to push the edges of technology and problems reared their inky head quickly. First off if the ink was allowed to dry up in the pen it was a terrible and tedious job to try and get it out. You couldn’t run fast flowing water through it and so soaking and shaking was about the only answer. Parker had to sell bulb that could be fitted to the filler end and force water in and out to their repair people. Even doing it that way was slow. You probably realized the previous issue did not bode well if you wanted to change your ink color. If you can’t easily clean out a pen then you will always have old ink contaminating the new. This kind of thing meant a high rate of repair returns which is never a good sign.

Eventually Parker redesigned the 61s filling system to be a cartridge or converter type in 1969 and all pens returned for service automatically got switched.  So it really became quite a different pen in one fell swoop and ushered in that soon to be the most common method of holding ink. Thus the complex marvel Parker advertised as “a gift unlike any on this planet…or any other” and the fountain pen’s rocket age came to an end. It would be decades before we would see a wide variety of self-fillers again beyond the stalwart Germans and their piston fillers.

Now that you’ve been through Parker 61 101 we can take a peek at the subject pen of this post. The well rounded and erudite pen and paraphernalia collector known on Twitter as Toaster_Pastry called it “Probably the coolest design of the 20th Century next to the Coke bottle” and I see why he is so enthusiastic about the Parker 61 desk pen.

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There is now a certain retro-coolness to the proportions of this pen. Without a long taper it’s shorter than desk pens I’m used to and terminates instead with a metal cap which is a head-on intersection of two conical shapes. That along with a sleek gold trumpet holder perched on the ball of the “magnetix” articulation system immediately plants it in the era of slab sided Lincolns, thin ties, and beehive hairdos. It’s got style of a kind forever lost shortly after it was made. You could easily see someone in a neutral gray sleek silk suit reaching for it across a Danish modern desk located in a suite at the Century Plaza hotel in Los Angeles.

The Century Plaza hotel: A mid-century archtecture icon.

Parker’s desk sets also were advanced over other brands with the aforementioned “magnetix” system. There is not friction dampened ball joint here but a ferrous sphere and a strong earth magnet in the base. The holder is held tight in a metal socket and can swivel to any angle. The base it sits is black-gold Italian marble which has such a mid-century feel to me I can have flashbacks to the lobbies of International style skyscrapers I’ve seen it used in.

There are far better histories of the Parker 61 than I have written like this one.  I hope my brief background helps you appreciate this unique pen. For the collector and lover of vintage pens the bad reputation should be avoided because with a little TLC these pens can be not just fascinating yestertech but also good writers.

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Warmth In Winter

I was thankful to spend Thanksgiving in Florida. That’s because while it was getting chill here in Virginia the weather was perfect there. The Sunshine State is a strange place full of natural loveliness and so many new urban areas that it often seems like there are only two times: now and the future.

We landed on the West coast and spend time in Naples. After that we drove across the narrow peninsula and arrived on the other coast in Stuart. It was fun to visit both the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic in back to back days. We saw a sunset over a beach and the next day a sunrise. You can’t really beat that.

On this trip I visited two wonderful gardens. The Naples Botanical Gardens were pristine with tropical plants from many areas of the world. After being in gloomy fall weather to see the visual pop of colorful flowers was fantastic.

On the other coast was the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens. Finding this in Florida feels a bit strange but there is a compelling story about why an elderly Japanese-American man donated the land for this endeavor. You can find it on their web site.

As usual I took way too many pictures and it took forever to sort them out. I’ve included a few from the trip here and I hope you enjoy them.

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Wic Wrap Up

Sadly I’ve been rather slow at updating this site as of late. So here is something I should have mentioned quite some time ago but am now only getting around to.

If you remember I gave away a vintage Eversharp Tip-Wic some time ago:

Wic It, Wic It Good

The one caveat was I wanted the winner to write about how it was to use. Lauren won it and did a great write up on her blog here:

Testing the Tip-Wic

It’s a very interesting read so I hope you go over there and take a peak.

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My Perfectionism…no…Perfectionism And Me…no…Present Perfect…no…

Calling someone as imperfect as me a perfectionist boggles the mind. I’m often haphazard and prone to procrastination. I’m messy and ramshackle. I’m unorganized and absent minded. None of that sounds like the profile of someone who fights to make every detail correct.

Despite what the litany of attributes above says about me I have to admit that I can turn into a hyper-focused perfectionist at times. I see it more as a curse since it makes itself known with silly things and never what might be helpful in the pursuit of bettering my life or work. When the demon does pop out it seems a bit self-defeating and senseless as when I make sure my ink bottles are sorted by maker.

A recent example of this tendency occurred last weekend during a sunny sojourn with nature. While bicycling along I took a quick glance to my side and was presented with a scene I thought would make a great picture. Yes, I always sling my camera bag over my shoulder when I mount my trusty two wheeled contraption on the off chance I see something I want to capture for posterity. That leads to some of the slowest bike rides ever as I often stop to click my shutter button over and over. Sometimes I jump out of jogger’s and biker’s ways as they almost run me over during my fixation on something through the lens.

In this instance I saw a fallen red leaf being illuminated by the sun and surrounded by darker ex-foliage. It seemed very right as a shot to me in both color and composition and so a few seconds of squealing brakes later and I was on my knees leaning in to focus. It was a rather windy day and the leaf that was the center of my universe for that fleeting moment flew off before I could get a third picture of it. My perfectionism in this case makes me wish to be sure I’ve got a good image so I press that dang shutter release a few times in case focus or lighting is off at first. I was dismayed to think that my need for excessive exposures would not be accomplished so I ran after that dang leaf so I could bend it to my will. What followed was me putting the leaf into many similar settings and positions for ginormous run of subsequent photo-ops.

Now you may feel taking 30 pictures of one sad beat-up leaf is a bit excessive. Um…what would you say about 40 or 50 then? Actually, I’ve not counted and I will not in order to maintain my self-respect. When I did get home with my days’ worth of photographic meanderings I dutifully went through the cavalcade of red leaves I now had. OK, you know there will be a punch line to this story and I don’t want to disappoint so here it is: the one I liked best was the very first frame. Typical.

So, was I right in my choice? I’ll let you decide. Below is the image I liked best and several of the “posed” surplus shots taken later. They are not in order so examine them all and find which one you feel is nicest. I’d be interested in seeing your choice if you would be so kind as to indicate it in the comments. A few days from now I’ll let you know which one I chose. Yes, they are all rather similar so you might just think any would do…but I didn’t. I’m Mr. Picky.

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That’s Capital!

I’ve never visited the capital of the state I live in at all. After over 10 years here you’d think that would have happened but so far I’ve skirted it instead going to the coastal, mountain, and northern (mega-urbanized) regions of Virginia in the past. Last weekend I was thrilled to travel to Richmond for a couple days to visit a friend and eat far too much. The city was wonderful with so much history, beauty and activity. I managed to go picture crazy too and here are a few of them.

Richmond

Richmond

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Hollywood

Hollywood

25 Photos

Maymont

Maymont

55 Photos


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Old Salem

Another day and another bike ride somewhere new. This time I decided to try a greenway on the outskirts of Winston-Salem, NC. Recent floods made it a bit dirtier than I expected but the strangest thing was the construction. A section had some workman and vehicles installing what looked like pipe or drainage corridors underground. What was odd is that much like what you would see on a busy street they had a person at both ends of the work holding a “Stop” or “Slow” sign to give directions to us intrepid path users. I always thought a bike was pretty slow to begin with.

The ride was nice as it wound along the side of a creek on this crisp early fall day passing a ruined railroad bridge which I took a few snaps of. Eventually I reached a rather confusing spot where I couldn’t figure out how to continue on. The greenway went up over and under some roads and ended. I knew you needed to ride along a road to rejoin the path the signage was lacking. I set out in a likely direction and discovered to my surprise I was in Old Salem which I’ve not been to for a few years. I spent a good part of my day wandering around and taking photos of this historic neighborhood. Take a look below for some of them.

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History In Red

For many, many years Virginia and tobacco were synonymous. The bright leaf variety was commonly known as “Virginia Tobacco” and was considered a type superior enough to be bragged about on packaging. In the late 19th century it built and molded many Southern U.S. cities. Now this once wildly profitable crop’s cultivation has dwindled since it often kills those who use it.

Danville, VA was a beneficiary of tobacco and became a center for processing and storage. Between that and textile manufacturing the city enjoyed a nice industrial base which allowed for businesses to flourish. In the “Tobacco District” commercial structures were built through the early 20th century. These were severe but  handsome warehouses, offices, and processing facilities mostly made out of formidable looking red brick.

As the 20th century came to an end the two major industries mentioned folded up leaving Danville a much poorer place. Still, the structures were left behind as a testament to the good old days. Looking at them now a few have been converted to housing or are still in commercial use but the bulk of them are empty. The fact that they mostly all still stand is a wonder and a thrill if you get a chance to wander there.

I wandered there and took a few pictures.

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Wheee! Wic Winner!

Here’s the announcement you’ve probably not really been waiting that much for: The winner of the Tip-Wic pen I’m giving away. I counted up those who wanted to be part of the contest and there were 13 entries which I numbered oldest to newest. The random number generator told me the winner was number 11 which is Lauren. Congrats on winning something of little value and possibly no real use!!! A notification email is on the way.

I really do appreciate all the people who took the time to read my blog and enter the contest. So many were from people I knew not and I can’t figure out how they found my contest. Lauren was one of those mysteries, btw. Maybe next time I’ll give away more than one thing since I do wish everyone could have won.