"Blogger Post #350!"

I was very saddened to hear about the passing of yet another comic book legend this week, Arnold Drake, who by all accounts was getting better after a round with pneumonia. Mr. Drake's work was a large part of my childhood comic memories, particularly on "The Doom Patrol", and this world is just not quite as complete now that he's gone from us. His work shall always be remembered. (And, oddly enough, I had just written him a letter the week before in care of his hospital, thaning him for all the good memories he'd given us. I can only hope that either he got to read it, or that someone read it to him before his passing.)


Also gone from us this week was musician, Brad Delp, lead guitarist and singer of the rock group, "Boston". Perhaps there's many who didn't care for Boston's style or music, but it was a stable for my listening pleasure in the 1970's. I'm especially a fan of the first 2 Boston l.p.'s. Very sad to hear that he was just 55 years old (as I'M 55 as well!)


After a 6 day work week, some 52-1/2 hrs., I finally got today off. This has been a hectic week with my attempts of solely being the one to keep the tool section filled (we carry over 2,000 tools at work), with new items coming in on several different trucks from the owner's buying trip a couple weeks ago on the West Coast. And now we're carrying well over a dozen very large farm implements, of which I have to display at least 3 of out on the parking lot each day to draw attention. Last night when I got in I pretty much collapsed on the couch, didn't feel like even eating dinner, and then laid on the bed for a good hour just trying to get a bit of my strength back. I slept pretty sound last night for a change (as I've been having a little trouble doing that lately). I think I only woke up once from 9:30 PM till 7:30 AM or so, so I got a little rest.

Last weekend I was wanting to go see "300" at the matenee, but had to work both days. I'm going to try to go see it this coming weekend if possible.

This morning I decided to measure the floor space in our living room and see how much decent carpet I had stored in the garage to fit it. This carpet has been stored out there for nearly 6 years now and has a few stained places, but still savable. I measured and cut pieces to fit together the yardage I need, which will be three pieces totalling the area of 14' x 15'. I'll have to have these ironed together before I can lay them, which is one of my vacation projects this year (sometime in either April or perhaps the first week in May).

While in the shop I ran across a bag of posters I'd saved, some of which were probably 25 years old. Looking through them I found 99% of them ruined beyond salvation and had to toss them in the garbage. Either moisture had gotten to them even with plastic around them, or the wasps had decided to use them for material to build nests. I was only able to save two of them: a "Batman & Robin" movie poster (that I'd probably got at Wal-Mart), and a plastic banner-type of "The Jackel" (a Bruce Willis flick). "Why" the wasps didn't get the Clooney Batman one is beyond me (probably because they have good taste, tho' and wouldn't touch one from such a crummy flick); the Willis banner was plastic, so that's why they passed on it. VERY heart-breaking was to discover that the 11" x 17" blow-ups of some Marvel SA comic vovers were destroyed, such as the repro of the Steranko cover to Nick Fury 7 (where he's floating in outer space). Damn insects.

Needed to go downtown this morning as well so I stopped by the local bookstore where a guy keeps a "spin rack" filled with back issues of comics. He'd actually been there recently and restocked, so I picked up 8 different modern comics, mostly DC's. The three most interesting of these were copies of the 1996 Supergirl series by Peter David #76 (I only need three issues of that now to complete a set), Adventures of Superman #559, which was the retro issue made to look like a 1960-70's issue, and Action Comics #826, which was an issue drawn by Churchill and featured an app. of the original "Captain Marvel". About the only new or different comic I've gotten in the mail from any on-line auction wins lately has been a copy of Weird Western Tales #18 (1976/DC), which, of course, is a fairly early app. of "Jonah Hex", but what makes this issue more special is that it's the first full app. of the character (i.e., the first solo Hex comic), and the first issue to display the "large" type Hex logo. Jonah Hex is still a flick I'd like to see someone make; Hollywood needs a decent western these days, and with super-hero and comic book-type flicks still hot, seems like a natural choice.