SHE WHO LIVES IN THE SHADOWS

Occasionally I look at the calender and break out in a cold sweat. I realize that object hanging on my door is just heavy paper stock with pretty pictures, but recently flipping its pages has caused the passing of time to shoot off into hyper drive.

January, February, March so forth and so on—it all moves through this time frame we call days, weeks and months. So now the door of the cafe is covered with dust, old paper cups and plastic trash bags. The winds of time have blown scattered thoughts into a heap of unrecognizable trash blocking the entrance.

I have spent the last few days attempting to tidy up the place, pour out the old coffee from the coffee maker, and put some rhubarb pie on the shelf. Perhaps a few new customers may stop by if we put some smooth jazz on the new sound system.

So, what's been going down? Well some of you know I have been lured into the world of high finances, rolling the dice and gambling online, hoping to scare up a few dollars here and there. The game—E-bay. Odds were good for a while as I dug through box after box of old, rare and vintage books, then a pile of collector “stuff” that always filled up one corner after another since after I undertook the joys of apartment living.

Truth is I had a goal in mind and met stage one rather quickly and with great joy. I purchased a $700 plus scanner to restore old photographs, slides and negatives. I started first by looking at downsized hundred dollar film scanners, which more or less were toys. As I kept reading articles by those who know more than myself, I was forced to slam on the brakes before the next level, which would have been over a thousand dollars. The scanner is an Epson 750 Pro, for those who are interested. With it came three separate programs such as Photo Shop and Silverfast for restoring and editing film and/or digital pictures.

As you can see above, and sorry I only kept one "before" picture (PLEASE CLICK ON BEFORE PICTURE OF THE GIRL), but believe me the other photographs were in pretty rough shape, the results are pretty amazing. There is a learning curve and climbing though the curves has become a hair pulling event, but soon there will be victory and knowledge will fill my damaged brain.

I haven't even started on the hundreds of slides and negatives strewn about my room, but time will handle that problem also. Right now, between learning and real life, I am still working the e-bay game trying to reach goal number two--a new computer to run all the programs I have downloaded. My Sony is still a great computer, but it was built before duo processors and other nice things that live in the black box which I know not what makes it tick. I will avoid trying to speak Geek.

There is always a great story. I write many of them, but this is a story of victory because as most of you know I live on a very limited income. There is no good months or bad months, just months of little chunks of government dollars. The idea of going into a business that required well over a thousand dollars was to me, impossible, but E-bay, plus all my junque has allowed this to happen. I hope by mid-July to have the new hand built computer sitting under my desk. If not, then I will continue to trudge on until that goal is met. To me, what has already happened is not only a blessing, but a miracle.

In the months to come I hope to start a new blog site and download rescued orphaned photos that time has erased. Old photos can be very telling. The car guy above is one of many unknown people who once existed, who, well likely nobody knows, but now he is with us again. Of course, as a business, I want to restore family photos, slides and negatives to climb out of the government sponsored poverty program.

Not to worry, a few stories and photos will grace the walls of Shelly's Cafe. So here I am again. So as I wave howdy, I must return to the decades time has forgotten.