Comic books

While I'm on the subject of magazine collections, I must write about comic books. From childhood into my teens, I read lots of comic books. 

At some point, I started saving some of them, too. When I went away to college, I had two bags of comics saved at home. One was a mixed group of comics, the other was my favorite, a nearly complete collection of early X-Men comics, including #1. I think I had about 20 of the first 25 issues. This one was years later:

I also was a charter member of the Merry Marvel Marching Society:

Years later, I couldn't find the X-Men collection. My mother said that, during her several years as a substitute elementary school teacher, she let her students cut them up to help learn reading. She didn't realize their value to me, but I never forgave her.

The remaining bag contains over 40 comics, including 

• a handful of Classics Illustrated
• 11 of the 13 original issues of Not Brand Ecch
• a bunch of 12-cent comics
• a bunch of 25-cent King-Size Specials

Click here to see a photo album of twenty of them, plus those buttons.

P.S. (April 2024) I recently bought this to partially make up for the lost bag of comic books. (Sadly, it's all black-and-white.)

To the Moon

Long before I worked at JPL, I was a space enthusiast. In 1968-69, I saved many books and magazines about NASA going to the moon. The magazines are a little beat up, but 50 years later, I still have them. Here's an overview:

Now, take a look at my entire collection.

Sweepstakes and a minor rarity

I enter sweepstakes all the time. I win small prizes now and then. In recent years, I've won a digital camera and a couple of $100 gift cards. My largest wins, years ago, have been travel: my Katmai and Puerto Vallarta trips. I also won $10,000 cash in an LATimes sweepstakes. That was in 2010, and helped me decide to retire in 2011.

In the current Albertsons Monopoly sweepstakes, I won $5 cash in the first weeks and again last week. I've also won a free bagel twice. The other day, I got this game ticket:

It's good for a $5 gift card, and it's highly unusual. It's uncommon for one game ticket to have even two pieces for the same prize. This one has four! Since this prize requires exactly those four pieces, this is a winner all by itself! Unheard of!

When I turned it in, the clerk agreed she had never seen this before.

Autographs — Deji Bryce Olukotun

Deji Bryce Olukotun has written novels, short stories and essays. He has one story in this collection. He read a great short excerpt from his latest book at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, and I got his autograph afterwards.

(Index of autographs)

Autographs — Chisholm, Duretta, Lorino, Sisco

Nick Duretta is a personal friend, and a member of the book discussion group I'm in. He has a short story in this book. At the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books yesterday, I made sure to stop by the book's booth while Nick was there. I bought the book, and Nick and several other contributing writers signed my copy.

The autographs are from Sara Chisholm, Nick Duretta, Gabi Lorino, and Cody Sisco.

(Index of autographs)

Loltun cave ― Dec. 1994

Inside the cave

Of our many travels around Yucatán, one of the more unusual was to see the cave at Loltun. We went with our California friend Jeffery, one of the few times we've traveled with someone else. Jeffery took this photo of Victor and me at Loltun:

Loltun is hard to get to, or at least it was in 1994. From Mérida, the closest we could get by bus was Oxkutzcab. That took well over an hour, and we were still about 7 km from Loltun. We hired a car to take us to the cave.

The cave is great, worth the trip. (For more photos and details, see, for example, this write-up.) Because it's remote, there were few other visitors. As we left, I spotted this sculpture, part of El Culto Falico:

Finally, we were faced with how to get back to Oxkutzcab! We waited a bit to see if any car might arrive, drop off passengers, and be available for us. After a while, Jeffery convinced us to try hitchhiking. To my surprise, that pretty quickly worked. When a truck driver stopped, Jeffery, whose Spanish is good, explained what we wanted. The truck driver said we were welcome to join the vegetables he was hauling. We hopped in and got back to Oxkutzcab. I wish I had a photo of us among the vegetables. This remains the only time I've ever hitchhiked.

DescriptionMérida

DescriptionMérida

Visa progress

Sudden, silent rule changes

Progress, but not quite complete.

We finally made it through the interview, but now they require us to mail in several documents: an updated official police report showing that Victor still hasn't been arrested (we had one a year ago; now they want another), and both Victor's and my birth certificates (see "rule changes" below). At least we don't have to return to Juarez!

We are also to include Victor's current passport. That's a sign that they will, finally, paste a visa in it!

Victor's interview appointment was for 8:15 am Thursday. He was at the consulate just after 8 am. He did not get out until just before noon! He spent more than three hours waiting in multiple lines.

This time, we only spent one night in Juarez. We flew in Wednesday, had the interview Thursday morning, and flew out Thursday night.

Sudden, silent rule changes

I can't understand why they need our birth certificates, since they've seen our passports! 

Also, Form I-134, about my finances, has a section asking about my U.S. citizenship: if I was born in the U.S., give city and state and SSN. It does not ask for any documentation of that. I had to attach tons of documentation about my finances, but nothing about my citizenship. This form, last updated in February 2019 (!), was one we just submitted at the interview. 

I guess they just changed the rules in March, deciding that now they need documentation.