You say you want a resolution

 Carrie and I do like making little road trips and I usually take a bunch of pictures during them. Often I will get shots of Carrie and sometimes a shot or two of myself, but almost never do I take a photo of the two of us together. This year I have determined that I am going to change that and take at least one picture of us every month. Even if we don't take a road trip.

So the first of these was taken on a trip down to Portland. We made a stop at Trader Joe's and then were too early to go into Casablanca Comics. We wandered around a little, killing time, looking at architecture and icicles and a Japanese mailbox.

I used up a little of my credit with the comic shop on some Torpedo hardcovers that were on sale at five bucks each.

Afterward we went to a bookstore and found some ERB books I didn't have. I used the last of our credit with that store and spent some cash as well to pick up these four books. I hope we can go back soon with more trade goods and see what else they have.

Aye, Lassie

The Early TV Memories stamps I mentioned here some time ago are out and I've already started getting some of my painted envelopes back. I didn't do many, though. I did The Lone Ranger and Groucho because I wanted to do those two. I also did a Twilight Zone 'cause I think I'm supposed to send one to Tamara. I also did one for each of the two individual special postmarks I knew about, Lassie (shown above) and Red Skelton. As I was finishing them up, I found out about one for Dragnet as well. I sent all these envelopes off to get their postmarks. The three getting individually themed ones to the three different post offices doing them, and the others just in to get the Official First Day for the set. Lassie and Red Skelton are back, and I'm still waiting on the others. I just found out two more individual ones, for Lone Ranger and Hopalong Cassidy. Now I have to figure out if I'm motivated enough to paint more envelopes.

Next year, the big stamp release I'm looking forward to is comics! Garfield, Dennis The Menace, Beetle Bailey, Archie, and Calvin & Hobbes! I KNOW I'll have no trouble drawing C&H envelopes. Probably most of the others will come out fairly easily as well.

More envelope art can be seen on my ComicSpace.

K & C See the Sea

Did the monthly mail run down to York on Sunday. It may be the last time we do so, as June was when I took out the year's rental on the box and we have a valid Maine mailing address where we're living.

We did have some fear that the holiday weekend crowds would keep us from getting anywhere fast, but the light rain in the morning and general overcast skies seems to have kept people away. Ogunquit and Wells were still fairly well attended, but Kennebunk, were we took our beach walk, was sparsely populated.

Where's Waldo's Mailbox

Our mailbox is across the street from the house. This is the view of it from our driveway.

I spent my day off this week clearing snow off the front of our roof, as much as I could reach, which was a lot, with the new roof rake Carrie bought me. Then we had a couple of days of above average temperature and melted all the rest off. At least on the front, so I'm still glad I worked it. the back still has a bunch, mostly over the porch where it doesn't get the house heat.

A couple of days of cold weather and more snow on the way. We were hoping we would have it by now so we could both be home to clear it away. But, no, it's now supposed to be hitting us Monday, when we'll both be at work. Eight to twelve inches.

Pushing the Envelopes

Considering the weather we've had recently, I think the one smudge on the Steamboat Willie envelope quite acceptable. The scan came out really light, just like the nutcracker one I did previously, but I played with the settings a bit to make it come out closer to the original.

Unfortunately, I also got the nutcracker envelopes back. Again. The first return was because, although the Freeport Post Office felt I'd put enough postage on the bigger envelope I'd enclosed the eight nutcracker envelopes I wanted special cancels on, the Richmond, Virginia Post Office felt I needed to put more on, so sent it back. I put the additional postage on and sent it again. This time they accepted it and cancelled all the envelopes inside with the special postmark as I wanted them to. But then, instead of sending them on to the people I addressed the envelopes to, the post office stuck them all in another envelope and mailed it back to me! So today I am going to the Freeport Post Office to try and get them to take these envelopes back into the mail stream. Preferably into the no more canceling required branch so as to not obliterate the special postmark with more cancels.

Nutcracker? Sweet!

The scan looks a little pale, but this is one of the envelopes I painted to send off in an effort to catch up with all the mail I've gotten as part of the Asian Philatelic Cover Exchange. I've let it pile up a bit since I started my move back at the start of summer, so I owe probably about a dozen covers. I sent off what ones I could find but I'm sure I have a few more lurking in the mess of our half unpacked boxes.

I used a couple of the new Nutcracker stamps and a tropical fruit stamp to more than cover the cost of sending letters overseas. And I sent them to get a special nutcracker postmark. I also noted on the enclosures that I had a new address, so I'm hoping that gets me some forgiveness for my lateness.

Gone Postal

While I was in Arizona I designed a few postmarks that were used for special events, including three for the annual ARIPEX stamp show held in Mesa last February. The only compensation I ever ask for doing these is the actual rubber stamp used for the cancellations after they are done with them.

In the mail recently were the three cancels from the ARIPEX show sent by the Mesa PO's special events person, Sue Rohde. Sue also enclosed a note thanking me as well as an official R2-D2 mailbox bank. Sue probably remembered how much fun I had with the real R2-D2 mailboxes especially as I took lots of pictures of myself and Carrie dressed up next to them!

And as a further boost to the happy feeling this package brought me, Sue writes: Your cancel artwork was definitely a hit. Never, in my 15 years in Mesa have we had requests that even came close to the number we had with those.

Wow. Thanks Sue!