Monday morning report

I’m having a light breakfast at IHOP this morning while the guys at Gateway Tire fix the slow leak in the right front tire of my ‘94 Honda del Sol.

I noticed it was very low last night and found it was down to 11 psi this morning.

Once again, the Sears Craftsman air compressor earned its keep. The three other tires were about 5 psi shy of the recommended 32 psi, to I aired all four up to spec and hauled ass into town.

I’m helping out with a project for Maria’s paper and have an 11 a.m. interview with a bank president, so this is no time to be immobilized.

We had a pleasant low-key weekend that failed to inspire any blog entries. I hate to let a day go by without refreshing the content because it discourages readers, but I just wasn’t motivated.

We went to a gun show at the county fairgrounds yesterday afternoon. I used to haunt gun shows back in Indiana because some of them included vendors with Third Reich militaria, which I collected at the time.

The only such item I saw yesterday was an SA dagger that the guy wanted $300 for. It bore the Wusthoff proofmark and everything looked genuine about it, but:

• The eagle and swastika weren’t flush with the grip, suggesting it was a “parts” dagger – one that was assembled after the war with leftover parts for the souvenir market
• There was no scabbard, so there’s no way to know whether it was originally an SA (storm trooper) or an NSKK (National Socialist Motor Corps) dagger. SA scabbards were brown, NSKK scabbards were painted black.
• It had been sharpened. All proper Third Reich edged weapons have dull blades, since they were intended to be big costume jewelry, rather than functional weapons.

So what we’re left with is a rather impressive letter opener of no particular value to anyone who wants to collect the real stuff. I thanked the guy for letting me look at it, put it down and walked away.

Sometimes I surprise myself at how much of this stuff I remember, since I haven’t been an active collector in almost 20 years.

And now breakfast is done, my blog entry is done and it’s time to go pick up my car.