Hello, World!

Typed on a 1957 Underwood Universal (from the post-ENIAC age)



What I didn't mention in the typecast is that this means I'm also dipping my toe into being a mobile-computing-device-owner, although I have yet to desire or need a "smart" phone. What's driving this decision is mainly my desire to edit my novel, and not having any time in which to do it, or access to the home computer (where the draft resides) when I do have the time. Inspired by this photo of an AlphaSmart/tablet hookup and Mr. Speegle's own foray into the tablet-driven revision lifestyle (and emboldened with unspent Christmas cash from my family) I'm dipping my toes in. So it's all for writing, you see, and not solely gadget lust.

That's my story, anyhow. If you could have told 30-years-ago-me that I've be able, in my lifetime, to have Star-Trek like technology in my lap, and program it, I would have scoffed you right out of my room. Not that I would have been able to hear you over the din of the cassette drive, mind you.

Goin' back to (old) school

A rambling history of planning

I've used a variety of planning systems over the years, ever since the company I was working for got into talks with the Franklin Quest people (now Franklin Covey.) We were a tiny spinoff company from an established printing firm, and after flailing around for a year or so, we somewhat accidentally fell into web development, making some of the earliest commercial web sites (ask me about meeting Fabio.) Franklin was one of those sites, and my future wife and another co-worker got shipped out to Utah for a meet-and-greet and to become One With The Planner People. Soon after they returned, we were all treated to one of the planning seminars and given our choice of planners.

Now, I've never actually been indoctrinated into a cult before, but this sure felt like it. I'm a pretty type-A kinda guy, so the thought of having a System for capturing your day, your to-dos, all the loose bits of information swirling around in your life was oh-so-very appealing. So much so that I went for the "Monarch" size, the full 8.5"x11" magilla, with leather cover, desk stand, fancy punch, snazzy ruler page marker... the works. It was Big. It was Black. It smelled Great. I wrote down everything in that monster, including plans for the wedding and honeymoon. Oh, and it went on the honeymoon, too. Yes indeedy, it was The Answer. Sort of. What it was was Heavy. And Bulky. And Awkward To Use. My new bride had the good sense to go with a half-page size, which didn't require a regimen of bicep curls. Buyers remorse had settled in with a fury. Then came the Newton.

Sleek. Black. Digital. Full of coolness and elegance and intelligence... most of the time. I lusted for one being a long-time Apple junkie, but was well-behaved and Did Not Buy. The Franklin looked more like a boat anchor and less like the One True Path. I opted to trade down a size on the planner as a nod to my need for portability. I even got the one made from recycled soda bottles, so I was feeling very green indeed, before being such a thing was cool, at least in the Midwest. Flash forward a few months: a new job opening in California, and me fully disgruntled at the old one. My new bride had quit some weeks before, and I'm thinking should I do it? Can I do it? it was time for a clean break. I did it. Ditched the barely-used planner along with about a third of our mutual belongings as we prepared for our Grand Adventure West.

No time to think or plan in the new job, at least not at first. Working in San Francisco during the height of the dot-com boom, who had time to plan? Everything's emailed anyhow, just get it done, chugga chugga chugga. Ooh! Palm Pilots! Gotta get one of those. And then the upgrade. And a keyboard. Ooh, and the new model! Even better. The most used feature of all: the beeping alarm warning me that I have a meeting to be at in 10 minutes. Developed mad graffiti skillz and was inseparable from the little digital brain for a few years. Oh sure, it ate batteries, and yes, firmware upgrades were a nightmare -- don't unplug it halfway through or it's ruined! And lo, a son was born.

Suddenly the commute seemed offensive, taking me away from my family. Time became the enemy, up at 5:30, on the train by 7:00, in the door by 8:00, and then reverse it all at 5:00. "He walked today" was the impetus for change. A few re-organizations later, and I worked out a telecommuting deal, home in the extra room with the laptop and DSL, my toddler son coming in to share his goldfish crackers. Meetings became a non-issue as I was out of sight, so far more important became the Work Log, my own system for keeping myself honest and focused by jotting down what projects I had worked on. Just an old spiral notebook from college and a Bic. The Pilot's batteries died and I never noticed.

A few more reorganizations later, and I'm back on the commute again, showing up with New Responsibilities. Managing staff! Preparing presentations! Arranging weekly meetings! It was all so complicated... perhaps it was time to dig out the old Palm again, fire it up, take it to meetings... hrm... still kind of clunky... and slow... and battery-gobbling... um, maybe not. On a lunch-break walk one day, I stumbled across the San Francisco Franklin Covey store. Maybe just a quick peek inside... what harm can it do?

Sigh. Back in the cult.

And that's where I was in spring of 2004, with my shiny new "Pocket" size planner (kangaroo pockets, maybe.) Diligently filling out the daily to-do list and its A/B/C priorities. Buying the annual refills and archiving the previous year's. A good little soldier, I.

Now flash forward to spring 2007, me with credit card in hand on the Franklin web site, trying to find the cheapest refill possible. I had just dug out my old Shaeffer fine-nibbed fountain pen, and was trying it out on my planner. Horrible, horrible bleed through. Luckily, I had my share of empty pages to test the pen on. And then something finally clicked: I've spent over $120 in four years to buy paper I barely use. What am I doing? Vast swaths of the planner went totally unused, except for days when I filled the pages. To-dos were either mostly empty, or completely packed. This was not a workable system. So I started reading up:

• hPDAs looked useful and low-budget, though I'd like to use my Sheaffer...
  
• FPN recommended Levenger papers pen-friendliness, and luckily
  
• The Levenger catalog kept gracing my mailbox thanks to my regular Franklin purchases
• But... what is this D*I*Y Planner thing I keep reading about?
  

And that did it. My self-imposed "trial year" ended in May, and I'm pleased to be using a system that actually works with me. 3x5 cards handle the bulk of my task-tracking needs, and they are punched and bound with the Rollabind system (equivalent to Levenger's Circa product.) My tickler file keeps me on track with all the little reminders that need to get done on a certain day, and my DIY planner handles calendars, book lists, birthday gift ideas, typewriter models, and all the other mental detritus that needs a reliable place to be noted down. And at the core of this is David Allen's Getting Things Done methodologies and their emphasis on offloading your brain into a trusted, physical system. I cannot praise this enough, since the combination of all of these factors really loosened me up, loose enough that I was willing to try a little something different last fall and write a novel, and then think about doing this year's novel on a typewriter, and then bothering my father to send along his mother's old typewriter, and then growing impatient and taking matters into my own hands, and then starting this silly blog about it and all the other little mechanical obsessions I have, and in turn meeting a number of people who share the same manias.

Anybody need a Franklin planner?

UPDATE: photos posted on flickr

*ding*

Another one of my technological loves is pinball machines. Can I blame this on educational television? These classic "Sesame Street" clips that are surely responsible for planting the seed. I can remember them vividly, and are my favorites: 1-2-3 and counting to twelve (sing along!) Years later, I remember ignoring my loved ones during a family vacation at Salt Fork so I could waste away time playing Haunted House down in the game room. I'd already played a lot of pinball, and would seek out those machines even during the heyday of arcade mania that was about to hit even our sleepy little town. The unpredictability and challenge of playing a game with an actual physical element to it was far more interesting than the purely twitch-based play of an arcade machine. Our childhood summers were spent at the local pool, which featured a 1960s-era table set up near the jukebox and sun-faded Space Invaders machine, off on the deck just under a shady roof. This was a Real Machine with score wheels, electro-mechanical parts that really buzzed and clunked and thunked, and that wonderful gut-loosening knock that you felt when you made a match or crossed 57,000 points and won a game. I can still smell the chlorine in the air when I see one of those old machines. One of these days I will have to make a pilgrimage down to Lucky Ju Ju and relive this thrill. Typewriters and cameras are functional remnants of a past time, but pinball machines are purely entertainment, and live to be played.

I'm in awe of those who have the technical and artistic knowhow to restore these beauties. Pinball machines are harder to come by these days, usually being a heavily-played model tucked back in the corner of a birthday venue. Sticky flippers, filthy gameboard, broken elements... it's sad to see. Like other mechanica obseleta, pinball machines are unwieldy, expensive to maintain, noisy, prone to misuse and abuse, and very complex... everything I love, in other words. Unlike all the other machines that I'm dragging home these days, I have no room in my home for pinball machines: actually, I have no room for the other stuff, either, but being a pinball collector requires a certain degree of insanity that even I have not yet attained. Emulated tables in software are good enough for me for now, though it's far from the feeling of the real thing. I keep the old rites alive on modern technology, and keep my eyes open in corners of cafes and coffee shops, looking for a chance to drop a quarter and reacquaint with an old friend.

*tick*

Old clickthings always have a story attached to them, and if we're lucky, it's revealed to us. The story of my great-grandfather's watch is exactly this way. I first met the watch when my sister and I would rummage through my mother's jewelry box. Here was this large, heavy railroad watch with some brassing on the case sitting in amidst the bracelets and necklaces. It didn't work any more, but it was still a family treasure, and thus too valuable to part with. I loved this watch, even though it was more inert than functional. I loved its spindly arms and delicate numerals, and the unfufilled promise of the small second-hand dial sitting where the "6" belonged. If you knew the secret, you could remove the back and admire all the intricate detailing inside the works, and the luxurious promise of a "nineteen jewel movement," (whatever that meant.)

Years later, The Watch (now capitalized in my mind) was restored and given to me for a college graduation gift. The crystal had been replaced, the setting/winding mechanism reconnected, the entire thing cleaned and brightened, and now it made the most subtle tick-tick-tick as the second hand swept through its miniature dial. The Watch now sat in a small cloth bag inside a bracelet box supplied by the jeweler who repaired it, and inside the box was a typed note that spelled out in a few sentences the life of the owner.

Born in Ohio, my great-grandfather moved with his family west to Kansas to homestead, but were driven back east but dust storms. He met my great-grandmother, and took a job as the switchman and telegraph operator on the railroad junction near his home. I imagine his thumb wearing the finish away from the case as he checked the schedules to know when to throw the switches to keep the lines running on time. The Watch passed through the family, landing in my care. Since that time I've carried it for two graduations, my wedding, the Christening of my children, and briefly as an everyday watch. It's since lived in three states beyond Ohio, had its mainspring replaced once, and its crystal replaced one. It's been neglected, then cleaned, then worn, and then dropped (argh!), and now just kept safe in a drawer, wound daily so that my children can share in the same whispered tick-tick-tick that a man four generations distant used to measure out his day.

*click*

I don't know who planted the first seed in my mind, but it was certainly in place when I was very young. I've always been fascinated by machines and things that whirr, move, and click (hence the title of this blog.) As I've gotten older, this need to be closer to "outdated" technology has gotten stronger, to the point where I'm now raiding junk shops for treasures to covet and rescue (as I explain it to my ever-tolerant wife.) What was the genesis of this old-tech love? Messing with things that click.

I've certainly inherited my paternal grandfather's love of cameras and photography. I've since given a home to all of his old equipment that sat in his darkroom basement, a solid cinder-block structure smack in the middle of the room -- his own personal Holy of Holies, with its red bulb mounted by the door warning the uninitiated to stay away. I remember being perched on one of the stools in there watching him work: the smell of fixer strong in the dim amber light, experiencing the magic of images suddenly appearing on paper, watching for that moment when the rush of blacks would start pooling into recognizable shapes. When I picture him in my mind's eye, though, he's always squinting through a viewfinder or peering down into a focusing hood, lining up the shot, framing the image, freezing a little slice of time. A visit to his house always meant lots of time playing in the yard with my sister, gathering sticks and acorns from the yard, raking and piling leaves, tossing balsa wood gliders into the air and retrieving them from the dense pachysandra that formed a broad moat around the front of the house. Always in the background, though, "Chub" was standing by, usually with a Rolleiflex in hand, peering down into the hood, occasionally winding and clicking away at his grandkids. The smell of old cameras moldering in thrift stores is a visceral reminder of those times. I used his old equipment for a while, snapping photos of my new son, and I took photography courses in processing and composition through the local adult education program. When my second child came along, the bathroom-as-darkroom wasn't nearly as workable, and my Free Time became Daddy Time (a worthwhile trade!) so the equipment was all carefully boxed and wrapped and stacked in the storage closet for a time when it can be pulled out again and the old rituals performed anew.

Over time, I've accumulated other cameras: the old folding Kodak from my maternal grandfather that shot my mother's first birthday photo, another folder I bought from an antique shop in Ann Arbor, a wind-up movie camera from a church sale, and so forth. Few of them work any more, due to light leaks or utter lack of film availability, but I cherish them all. We're on our fourth digital camera now, which is simply far more convenient for taking snapshots of the (now three) kids, but the cameras are still there, sitting just above the wrapping paper and board games, a reminder that developer and fixer run in my blood.