A Rainy Day in California

Our governor has declared a drought emergency in California. While I know it is childish, it is safe to say that our governor can beat up your governor.

As I wandered around downtown in the rain today during this emergency, I decided to grab that picture of Palo Alto Blueprint & Supply Company while I could. I've been hammering away at cyanotypes again the past few days, and I have had success. So it is on my mind.

I also took care of recycling with my son, and dropping things off at the dump that I no longer want as I try to organize my life - well, my garage - making room to work around my Takach etching press and for the things my wife is buying in preparation for the new child coming into our lives. A weekend of making way for the new, and discarding the old. Including the table I had gotten from my mother. I really no longer use it.

My son handed me my camera at the Palo Alto recycling center. After they rearranged everything at the recycling center recently (and eliminated recycling of styrofoam), I noticed that they had specific bins for recycling blueprints. I thought "How odd." when I first saw it three weeks back. My son said a worker compressing some recycling eyed me with boredom today as I took some pictures. I poked a bit around on the web when I got home and I suspect that blueprints are recycled separately because they were processed with ammonia?

How many kids growing up today know what a blueprint is? How long before the only knowledge of the word blueprint is its second definition?

I've never gone into Palo Alto Blueprint and Supply. I'm tempted to. Because that is a mighty big pencil in the window.