garage sale

[kragen@pobox.com (Kragen Sitaker)]

[Begun yesterday; typed on a laptop we're trying to sell for $15.]

Doing the garage-sale thing.  It's 9:24; we've had a substantial
number of people show up, buy stuff, and leave.  Leaf blower,
weed whackers, clothing, and miniblinds have all sold.

I decided to get this computer running so people could see that
it worked (a Toshiba T3200 laptop; it's not exactly the most
modern machine, but it certainly does work.  And it has this cool
gas plasma screen.

A couple of guys who know each other, but evidently haven't seen
each other in a few years, meet each other here by chance.  I can't
tell if they're former neighbors, former co-workers, or former
friends.

I drag out Friedl's regex book and read for a while.

A neighbor woman shows up; we chat for a while about diversity,
crime, quiet neighborhoods, etc.

No more people from 10:00 to about 11:00.

Then a whole bunch show up.

We sold lots of things.  Around 15:30 Marilyn talked me
My grandparents gave me a call; we talked for a while.

We have some silly quiz show on NPR turned up loud so we can hear
it even out in the driveway.

We sold lots of things; I sunbathed a bit, read a bit, chatted a 
bit.  Around 15:30 Marilyn talked me into playing Scrabble; as usual,
she beat me soundly, but it  was nevertheless fun.  We didn't
finish until 16:15 or so -- probably a good thing, because
despite our stated closing time of 16:00, several people came
and bought things after 16:00.

After carrying all the unsold items into the garage or the 
house or putting tarps over them, we went out to the Greek Festival
our neighbor Tina's mother Toula was participating in organizing.
We didn't see Toula or Tina, but we had delicious Greek food and
pastries, saw traditional Greek dances (one in which the audience
joined; one gal from the audience, who looked like she might be
actually Greek, danced more beautifully than the costumed dancers.)

We fought a bit on the way there, but we resolved it well while
we were there.  (I'm sure the lamb shanks and spanikopita didn't
hurt!)

After spending perhaps an hour and a half there, we came home, then
set out for Stein Mart to buy some clothes.  I enjoyed the shopping

trip, for probably the first time in my life.  I bought $240 worth
of pants and shirts; hopefully I won't have to shop for a while.

Then we headed down to Books & Co., which is in the same shopping
center as Stein Mart, and sat and read for a while.  Marilyn got
a stack of books on Attention Deficit Disorder, including one
I was interested enough in to buy.

That night, I read more of Friedl, and briefly checked my email.

Sunday morning, 1999-09-12, we got up around 8:00 (I with a
mysterious nosebleed, and Marilyn fortunately without) and headed
to the Breakfast Club for breakfast.  We returned home a few
minutes past 9:00 and started hauling garage-sale stuff out again,
finishing around 10:15.

So far, nobody has come to this second day of the garage sale.  Perhaps
they're all at church.

I was hoping Brad and Paul and RLK would show up, but they haven't yet.

Some guy showed up around 11:00; he hoped I had Win98 for Dummies
or a computer desk, but didn't buy anything I actually do have.

I copied my email onto a floppy to read it.  It turns out that edlin
wants to read the first 64K and then stop.  If edlin shares as much
as I think it does with its ancestors ED and TECO, there should be
a command to read in more of the file.  Unfortunately, I can't figure
out what that command might be, and like ED, EDLIN has no help.

So I used 'more' to read my email.  It's amazing how much you can
come to miss simple things like paging backwards!