When my Dad started to need a cane, I knew he was too proud to ever use a cane that made it look like he needed assistance walking. But, I thought he might use a cane if he could pass it off as an accessory. I looked and looked an finally found a cane that was sturdy enough to take his full weight, had a rubber tip, but didn’t look like an old man’s cane. I gave it to Dad and hoped he’d use it. I even told my Mom and sister to say stuff like ‘With that cane you look like a wizard from one of Doc’s books.’ It was a brilliant and well executed plan if I do say so myself.
It just didn’t work. Dad refused to use a cane under almost all circumstances. It did get me started on collecting canes and walking sticks though. The black and gold one was originally a table leg. The frosted one on the left is full of light emitting diodes. When you hit the base on the ground, you toggled the power on and off. It’s currently in need of new batteries and repairs. The silver cane in the middle was ordered from Wish. It shrinks down to about 1.5" and pops up to full length with the pull of a string. If dexterity wasn’t my dump stat, I could do magic tricks with it.
I collect way too much of too many things (dachshunds, typewriter ribbon tins, books, robots, bats, fan motif majolica, perfume bottles, Art Deco pochoir, fruit crate labels from Santa Paula ONLY, matte green glazed pottery, snuff bottles). No time to take pictures of everything!
Oh, I also collect rabbits. Czech glass cracker jack animals (only dachshunds, bears, and rabbits). Bears! My first collection started with my first teddy bear. I just started accumulating miniature glass dice (with some dice-like pieces).
When I go on road trips, I take along a plastic storage box to collect assorted travel-related ephemera I pick up along the way. I decorate the outside of the boxes with stickers from attractions and places that give them out for free. It’s basically the same idea as an old suitcase covered with hotel and far-off exotic destination travel patches. Here’s a small sample from recent outings:
My friend found a foxy quilt and pillowcase set at Christmas Tree Stores for only $20; it costs $60 at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. I asked him to buy it for me, promising I’d pay him back.
He said, “You know what? Your birthday is coming up. This’ll be your present.” So now I have a new quilt, to replace the blanket that was coming apart at the seams, and two pillowcases:
What a waste having all of those old #s lying around - listen to Johnny & make something with them. About 60 of mine are now, collectively, hanging in my closet having been turned into a jacket that I wear before races. A friend converted a bunch into a tote back that she uses to bring her gear to races in.
I also converted 35-40 shirts into a nice blanket.
I have quite the collection of attire from all of the events that I’ve done. Have a good collection of Matchbox (& other) Ambulances (Ambuli?); they really are the red-headed step child of emergency services & are much less common than police cars or firetwucks.toys/models.
My extremely modest metallic element collection. All cylinders are 50x50 mm:
Anyone care to guess which is which (I’m sure you can guess one of them)? They’re all fairly common, but you may have never handled a few of these. They are in density order, given a certain zigzag. The variation in density is as high as can be reasonably achieved given cost and reactivity.
I have this one too! About 5-6 years ago, Walmart had a whole bunch of different kitchen towels with fox patterns for fall. I of course bought at least one of each.
Yep, that’s where I got it. I bought as much foxy stuff as I could from Walmart that year, including a few other things I already have above, like the coffee mug.
Well, I’ll accept that answer anyway . Technically it’s steel, but a mild steel that’s >99.5% pure, which is good enough for me. Between the two of you, you’ve got it: from lower-left to upper-right, it’s Tungsten, Copper, Iron, Titanium, Aluminum, Magnesium.
All but tungsten I machined myself on a lathe. I would like to add some others, but unfortunately mostly lost access. I was able to borrow a mini lathe to machine the magnesium a while back.
I’d definitely like to add some more: tin, zinc, and nickel are no brainers. Lead too, but I don’t think I can machine that; I might have to construct a mold. I might go for silver at some point. Not cheap, but <$1000 so not completely insane.
The tungsten really is amazingly dense. When you first pick it up, you feel like something is wrong with it, like it’s glued down or there’s a magnetic field or something, but no, it’s just that heavy. After a while, you sorta get used to it, but then when you pick up something normal like aluminum, it feels like cheap plastic.
The tungsten has >10x the density of the magnesium, which is just super weird.
So now I have a new quilt, to replace the blanket that was coming apart at the seams, and two pillowcases:
. Technically it’s steel, but a mild steel that’s >99.5% pure, which is good enough for me. Between the two of you, you’ve got it: from lower-left to upper-right, it’s Tungsten, Copper, Iron, Titanium, Aluminum, Magnesium.