Volcom Hoodie

I found this freaky sweatshirt at Savers for $1. This particular Savers was due to be closed for forever the next week and the clothes were significantly "picked-over" which is another way of saying, "Other annoying people got there first and this is what they left."

This particular sweatshirt was in the women's aisle and when I bought it I had no idea the hoodie zipped up all the way. In fact, I didn't even know these types of sweatshirts existed.

Imagine my surprise when I went to try it on again at home, with my 6 year old standing by, and voila...THIS. My daughter was intrigued and I was seriously freaked out at my reflection in the mirror. Also, I'm claustrophobic and the fear of the zipper malfunctioning and me being stuck in this thing forever was terrifying. I tried to use my logical brain and knew that if the zipper malfunctioned, I should be more concerned with my scissor-happy child poking my eyes out or stabbing a major artery while trying to cut me free.  


How could this fun trip to a dying outlet thrift store result in these death-defying outcomes? I just wanted a lightweight sweatshirt that I could wear to the beach. 

That night as my husband worked on his computer, my daughter and I decided to try to scare the crap out of him, because why not. I think it would have worked except for my daughter's hysterical laughing as I waited patiently for him to notice me while trying not to pass out from the fear of my own reflection in the mirror. Without her laughs I may well have passed out before he noticed this beachy, Hawaiian masked stranger about to strangle him or even worse...delete the video he was working on. 

He slowly turned, smiled, and said: "What is this.?" I asked him why he wasn't more scared and he said: "You were too nice about it." I guess next time I try to make my husband scream like a little girl so I can never let him hear the end of the time I scared him with the freaky sweater mask outfit and he screamed like a little girl, I will NOT be so nice about it (evil-hands and squinted eyes emoji). The rest of the evening, the three of us took turns wearing the sweatshirt and trying to scare each other.  My daughter is the best at acting like she's scared. My husband should take a cue from her (in the name of humoring his wife once in a while...and in the name of acting). We live in a dramatic household. 

All dramatics aside, I found this very sweatshirt on Pinterest, eBay, and Riamart.  Volcom is the company that makes it and officially named it: "Boys Vacation Full Zip Youth Sweatshirt". I can think of some other names for it, but they may not be quite as politically correct. 

I found a couple of interesting articles on the "hoodie" which I will list below. Apparently, people that wear full-mask hoodies are sometimes, up to no good...I say sometimes, because when my daughter walks to the beach in this thing, I will stare down anyone who judges her intentions, as more than just an anonymous walk to beach, while preventing her face from being accosted by the cool ocean breezes, and who can blame her for that? 

I copied this from Pinterest: 

"Volcom is an action sports based modern lifestyle brand that embodies the creative spirit of youth culture."

Here are the hoodie articles: 


1) http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2012/03/trayvon_martin_killing_when_did_hoods_become_associated_with_illicit_activity_.html

2) http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/23/opinion/23wilson.html?_r=0

Do you know these people?

I found this California photo album at Savers for $2.99. Initially I was slightly disappointed that it wasn't empty and ready for my hundreds of past and future CA pictures to fill its very original and vintage-y shell.  But when I opened it and saw the story of Irving Hartivgson and his photo mate, who only refers to herself as "myself" I knew that it would be a shame to not take it home.  What if someone bought it, took it home, ripped out the nails and leather that hold the old, brown pages together and threw all these old pictures away?

So instead, I bought it and decided to research the main characters.  There are definitely more questions than answers, but that's what makes up interesting mysteries right? Actually mysteries are only fun when the answers are eventually found, but that's just me.

So what we DO know is that Irving was in the Navy. He was staying at or visiting the Hotel Casa de Manana in La Jolla, CA. This blog article, written by Ashley Mackin:
http://www.lajollalight.com/news/2014/dec/18/casa-manana-celebrates-90-years-village-history/
explains the history of this hotel and how in it's heyday it was a booming resort that even saw a celebrity once in a while. The interesting part is that it hosted men in the Navy who came home from combat, as a place for rejuvenation. Now, it is a retirement community, for any of you thinking of retiring soon...you'll need to shell out between $3200 and $9975 monthly...either that or go back in time and return alive from the Navy.

What else do we know? That's about it other than he was chilling on La Jolla Beach with this beautiful chick. Since, she doesn't identify herself or the nature of their relationship, I'm going to assume they are dating. In this picture they are holding hands. I would think if they were married she might refer to him in a less formal way, like, "Irv" and maybe would have at least mentioned her own name.

It's really discouraging for family members  (or for nosy-sounds-better-than-creepy strangers like myself) to find the real answers they seek when the historian fails to identify the people in the photos. That's okay. Maybe she was too shy about their relationship, or maybe it was that generation of patriarchy that made it more important to mention his name versus her name. Or maybe because she is the owner of the album, she didn't need to be reminded of her own name.  That's the more likely version.

If anyone knows any of these people please feel free to email me at crapifoundyou@gmail.com.

                                                         Do You Know These People?

Partial-face-letter-holder-sculpture...thing

I found this at Savers. I'm tempted to say that it "literally" spoke to me, pun intended, because of its mouth, however, I know my brother would roll his eyes and lecture me about the literal meaning of the word "literal." If it "literally" spoke to me, it would have spoken real words and addressed me, by name. So, no it did not "literally" speak to me, however, it did whistle to me...just joking. I couldn't leave Savers without it, even though I wasn't exactly sure what it was. I thought it might be a letter holder. I'm such a sucker for functional art. My friend said her husband told her it was a "dictation holder". My research did not turn up anything, so as far as I know, this is a one-of-a-kind sculpture. I thought it might be sculpted from rock, but my husband said it was just clay.  I'm not a geologist, but I thought clay is what God uses to create rocks, but I think I got a B in Geology 103, so I'm not sure...which reminds me that I need to share with you my poem entitled: "Poem written after getting a B in Geology 103". 

The scale of this sculpture called to me as well (metaphorically, sheesh). It's only about 1.5 Burt's Bees Chap-stick's high (Someone stole my tape measure). It's all good though because I've learned from watching "Curious George" that one can use licorice sticks to measure height, when deciding if a monkey is tall enough to ride a roller coaster, so using, this logic, one can use chap-stick's to measure the height of a partial-face-letter-holder-sculpture...thing. 

To put it another way, it's miniature and miniature things are always so cute. They don't take up much room and when they also serve a function, who can deny that? Not me.

Let's find out about Telephones...David C. Knight

So, I found this literary treasure at a book sale for .50. It was in the children's section and I chose it over several other temptations including a Curious George Puzzle book.  This book by David C. Knight was published in 1967. Before I read the publication year, I half expected the smartphone to make an appearance at the end, bringing us into the 21st century. That didn't happen.  This book ends with the push button phone and boasts that there is one phone for every two people in the United States.

According to this smart person website: https://gigaom.com/2012/10/22/the-average-us-subscriber-owns-1-57-mobile-devices/ the average person owns 1.57 mobile devices.

At first, I felt kind of awkward buying a book so overtly outdated, just for sport (not to mention historical reference), however my very brief research on the author David C. Knight, revealed that he wrote a lot about ghosts and the supernatural as well as space. In fact, one of his book titles (as shown from Amazon) is entitled: The first book of Mars: An Introduction to the Red Planet. You can buy this on Amazon for $58 for the hardcover (no affiliate links here) just the info:

 http://www.amazon.com/first-book-Mars-introduction-planet/dp/0531007979/ref=la_B001HPFZG6_1_16?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1462285757&sr=1-16&refinements=p_82%3AB001HPFZG6.

He also has a ton of other space books which I'm sure seem pretty futuristic back in the day.  He may not have been able to predict the evolution of the telephone or "phone" as the book shares it is sometimes called...but he definitely was not too far off with his space books. Disclaimer: I have not read his space books, just the titles.

You can get this book for only a .01 on Amazon: The title is:

Colonies in orbit: The coming age of human settlements in space

http://www.amazon.com/Colonies-orbit-coming-human-settlements/dp/0688220967/ref=la_B001HPFZG6_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1462286075&sr=1-8&refinements=p_82%3AB001HPFZG6

I hope everyone has had the chance to see Matt Damon in "The Martian".  That's an aside because I love that movie, but my main point is that there are some people not even involved with NASA who's life goal is to to space exploration become a reality. I'm sure you've heard of this controversial guy:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/mar/21/dotcom-space-race.