Sorry, nothing technical's coming to mind (I'm utterly swamped with work related stuff), but I just had to vent.

Sharron's going to camp next week, so once again we're doing the "label everything that Sharron owns" ritual.

Neither Valorie or I are particularly handy with a needle and thread (or a sewing machine), so we look for shortcuts on the "label ritual".  Many, many years ago, we bought a self inking fabric stamp from one of those mail-in circulars that you get in the mail.  Unlike so many of the things you buy from those flyers, this one has lasted us for almost 6 years and a huge number of stamping on a wide variety of fabrics (ever tried to stamp a terry-cloth towel?  Not pretty).

Unfortunately, after six long hard years of work, the stamp finally bit the big one (it was close last year, but this year it didn't have the gumption to ink even a paper towel).

So we needed to go out and buy a new stamp.  Valorie spent some time yesterday looking and found a local stamp company, and I stopped by there on my way to work.  The store is quite fascinating, actually - their web site looks quite professional, but the store itself is in an old one family home in the heart of downtown Redmond.

For those of you that don't live in the Seattle area, Redmond is a rather fascinating mix of old and new.  New Redmond is all high tech and modern - brand new shops filled with the latest in stores.  It has its own outdoor mall called Redmond Town Center, with a 12 screen multiplex, and several other brand spanking new shopping centers.  New Redmond has street after street of planned ticky-tacky pseudo-urban environments with chiropractor offices on the ground floor and residential spaces above (all within a 4 story height limit).  It's like someone decided that because Redmond was a city, and cities had apartment buildings with businesses on the ground floor that Redmond had to have them to compete.

Old Redmond, on the other hand is more like a small town from the 1960s or 1970's.  It reminds me of the town I spent most of my childhood, Delmar, NY - relatively small streets, old 1970's style shopping centers.  Most of the buildings downtown date from the turn of the century or earlier.

The stamp store is a perfect example of old redmond - it's a tiny little stand alone building, painted white (and it needs a new coat of paint).  At the top of the building, where you'd find the "Mercentile" sign if this was a Western is the name of the business.  On the other hand, in the windows are crisp decals reminiscent of the web site.  I went inside, and found exactly what I'd expect from a professional stamp store - counter, stamps of various types, etc.  Nothing exciting at all.

I did my business with the owner, and ordered the stamp - we'll get our stamp tomorrow (awesome turnaround time, we'll probably go back to them again).

But the reason I'm writing this particular post is that the owner smoked.  In his store.

Man, that was a bummer.  You see (again, for those that don't live around here), Washington state is almost a 100% smoke free environment, at least indoors.  This means that I've not had to experience the utter joy of being in close proximity to a cigarette factory in many years (I have several co-workers that smoke, but they keep it outside).

As I was heading into work, I started realizing that I was still smelling the store.  It kept on, even after I'd gotten to my desk.

It appears that the 5 minutes I spent in the store were enough to imbue my clothing with the smell of the store.

So today, I smell like the inside of a chimney.