Here’s an update for those who entered my one year anniversary contest a little while ago. The winner, Chervatruffle, received the pen and emailed me:
“I really like the design of the body with the green bands and I like that when light shines through it the other bands are an amber color. Very nice! Writes nice too!”
The next comment after that states that her handwriting isn’t that great. I think you can see from the image below of the first sentence written with the pen that she does just fine.
I love the way this was done. The Vac is happy too, I'm sure.
Oh, the title of this post is the sentence you see above but in Tagalog. I found a site that translates it into more languages than I knew existed.
Wow! So many people entered this contest I’m shocked. 46 threw their hats into the ring and I wish all of you could have won. I was excited since so many people I knew and so many I didn’t showed up. I’m very happy to meet you new folks and grateful for the old friends.
So who won? Number 15 did in my enumeration of comments from the contest post.
I’ve included my scrawled list below:
Yep, Chervatruffle was the winner of the Parker Vacumatic! It’s someone I don’t know which is very cool. Congratulations and I’ll be emailing you for details soon.
When I was younger a year seemed an eternity. The summer would end and the long winter would creep along as I waited for warmth and fun to return. Now that I’m much older the moments seem to run through my fingers like sand. Yes, an overused metaphor but it’s the first thing I found at the metaphor lending library. Now I’m struck dumb by the fact that I started blogging a year ago today. I’d say, “where did the time go?” but I’m pretty sure there isn’t a temporal reservoir that holds the flow so I’ll forgo doing that.
Looking back and ruminating on the process of writing something and putting it up for people to read I find I’ve only accomplished some of what I wanted to do. Many people share a bit of their souls in blogs giving readers insight into their lives and personality. That’s the one thing I thought I might do but really never did. In the end I did what came naturally to me and wrote about things or events that I thought were interesting.
I feel that a blog is a lot like the old-fashioned vanity press publication in practice and I mean that in a good way. It’s a nice feeling to be able to get ideas out of your head and present them without obstruction. Since I’m not very vain, and when I am it’s in spurts and about silly things, that may explain the lack of more meaningful content over the year.
But there are a lot of good things that came of this endeavor. I managed to keep creating content even if it wasn’t as often as I wanted. Writing is hard for me and I thought doing it more often would make it easier. Well, it didn’t and struggling with that and mostly overcoming it has been a win. Also I think I put out some valuable and semi-interesting information for people who have the same odd interests as I do. Technically it was fun learning how to set up a blog and customize my WordPress theme a bit.
Initially I didn’t tell more than a few people I was blogging and felt odd about promoting my ramblings. I’m mostly over that now and I’m happy to see that both friends and strangers have peeked in and read a bit here. In appreciation I’m giving something away as an anniversary present of sorts: A circa 1941 green Parker Vacumatic. This is a full size double jewel model that was made in Canada. The nib is somewhere between fine and medium with a hint of flex to it and some of the original silver plating still intact. It’s in working order so all you have to do is add ink and go.
Now you are saying “this sounds too good to be true” or at least “what’s the catch?” Well, the pen isn’t perfect. There is a transverse crack in the barrel that doesn’t go all the way through but I’ve stabilized it and it’s not easy to see. The feed is missing a couple of the comb’s teeth and there is a touch of brassing. The filling unit is a plastic one from a later pen and not the aluminum speedline that should be there. Overall this is a user grade pen so don’t expect a museum piece.
Win this pen!
In order to win this pen I’m going to do the usual: count the comments and use a random number generator to choose a winner. However there is one additional requirement: In your comment tell me what the first sentence is you would write with this pen if you win it. That’s all you have to do to be eligible to win! I’ll pay postage anywhere in the world but realize if you are far away from the U.S. it’ll take a while for this to get to you via normal mail. I’ll pick a winner one week from the date of this post. You’ve got 48 hours to respond to the “you won” email or I roll the random number generator again for a new winner.
Thanks very much to all of you for reading my blog over the last year (or just looking at it and grunting). Additionally thanks to all my friends who provided support and so many great comments. Some of them have blogs (better than this one) listed to the right. This here blog certainly has not contained any deep philosophical content or life changing information but maybe I’ll steal some for posts in the second year. A few ideas never were pursued or lived beyond an initial post so perhaps I will revisit them in the upcoming months. Of course any suggestions are always gracefully accepted.
Update:
Here’s a tiny writing sample of the Vacumatic to look at.
