Wednesday, June 8, 2011

The Bigs Come Through and Random Missives

I had it in my mind that instead of buying one of those nice display boxes to put BG's flag in, I would design and make one myself. Everyone says that home made things are better. And I thought that it was one last thing I could do for my friend.

I had an idea in my head that I could incorporate one of the Folger Adam keys like we carry at work into the box. One or two of those and maybe a couple of cuff keys. Not completely sure how it will turn out, but I thought it might be cool if I could pull it off.

Going to the Folger Adam website I found that 1: I can't buy a key from them unless I am an authorized agent of a prison or jail, which I'm not. I guess it's a good thing they do that. And 2: Cut keys from them are $60.00 each even if I could buy one. Yikes!

Heading next to Ebay I found a few for sale. Starting at about $30.00 and up to over $100.00! Hokey smokes!

Then I went to the locksmith at work and asked him. He told me to see the Warden who sent me back to the locksmith again. That worked. Today he gave me an old unused key. To make it completely official and so there could be no security questions about it later, he ground off the serial number on the back and cut the teeth down until they were almost flat. So that way if that key ever fell into the wrong hands, it might slip into a lock but it would never open anything ever again.

It still looks cool and very much like one of our keys and I think it will do nicely. Now all I have to do is come up with a design that will do it justice. We will see, I suppose. It's going to take skills I don't quite have down yet to pull this off right.

I'll surely post a picture when I get it done. Have no fear.

Another thing I have been doing lately is kind of a morale building thing. I came across a listing of all of the printers all over camp. On occasion, when I am near a computer and have a few minutes to kill, I'll type up some random nonsense that pops into my head on a blank form and pick a printer at random to print it out to.

It's never anything bad or that (hopefully) nobody will be offended by. Just some silliness. That way the next person who grabs whatever is sticking out of the printer looks at it and says "What?" Hopefully it brings at least a brief smile to their face. You never know.

And hopefully also I won't get in trouble for admitting that. If anyone complains, I'll offer to buy the state a ream of paper to cover the expense. But I've already gotten a few laughs and sometimes we need those around here.

Thursday (My yard day) will be National Donald Duck Day. Oh boy oh boy oh boy! Man! You just cannot type in a Donald Duck voice, can you? Ah, well.

Wow. And for once, it seems that we only have one thing to celebrate on that day. Odd.

4 comments:

  1. I was going to say that I hoped you would post a picture, even though I knew you probably would. Then you already said you would. Then I read that. Well, that pretty much brings us up to date.

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  2. I'm mildly relieved to learn that not just anyone can buy one from the catalog. Now I am mildly worried about ebay.

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  3. Bryan- Well..... I'm glad I said what you said I said...Or something like that.

    Doug- Between the price and their security measures I think we're pretty safe. Most of the keys on Ebay are for prisons and jails that are closed down now. The chances of one of those fitting one of our locks are a bazillion to one, I think. I'd love to have more of them but woof!

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  4. I love your idea to make your own case to display the flag!

    Padawan has his father's flag and he has it sitting next to his father's picture. I wonder if I could try my hand at making a display case?

    I definitely want to see your work when it's all done!

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