And not forgetting THIS little type-in

Guzman y Gomez is a Mexican restaurant that is incredibly casual and relaxed, while the food is utterly amazing. The first shop opened up in Fortitude Valley a few years ago, and at the time it was placed nicely along the path I used to take from my old apartment in New Farm, to the hospital that Jane and I worked at.

Often Jane would work much later than myself, so I would often jump on my motorbike, spin by GYG and grab a bag with some burritos and stuff, and just rock up to Jane's office with a magnificent little portable dinner. I think it helped both of us keep our sanity during some pretty tough times.

I soon came to call it 'Mexican Crack' as it was almost addictive in its quality.

Those days are gone now. I miss living in New Farm, but then again GYG is now a fully-fledged chain restaurant and there's one about 10 minutes from where I currently live.

But Fortitude Valley, a district of Brisbane which is well known as the entertainment strip of the city - as well as for its very seedy past, always has a bit of romance to it that you won't find in some suburban shopping centre. And I felt it would be an interesting little spot to bust out with an impromptu type-in.

The benches at GYG are very conducive to having a few typewriters (along with food and alcohol) on them, and I just thought.... why not?

So Natalie an I popped into Ruby the Exxy and headed into the Valley to meet Steve Snow with a couple of my traveller machines that had excellent 'office in a case' covers.

We sat down, ate and talked. And eventually we busted out the typewriters and gave them a bit of a work-out. Oddly, it wasn't long till we attracted the attention of some kids at a table near by and we were soon enjoying the company of a very curious 8 year old girl, and an 11 year old boy.

It was lovely. I spend so much of my time at work just looking after sick children, that I found myself sitting back just enjoying the curiosity and enthusiasm of a couple of well ones for a change. There's something about curiosity that no matter how old you are, you always feel young when you indulge your own curiosity. 

It wasn't long before the two kids got their hands onto my typewriters - and then it was on for young and old as the kids found games that they could place with the two machines that they could both get into. While the boy was a proficient speller, the younger girl wasn't quite so good at forming sentences. But the young chap was happy for her to lead the play on the two typewriters, and it seemed incredibly civil. 

Every so often Natalie or Steve or even myself would wrestle control of one of the typewriters back, and we'd attempt to do some typing - maybe even writing a typecast. But before we could finish there would inevitably be some kind of demand made by our new audience, and we were soon back to playing games again. And it was fun! 

Natalie made a good stab at writing a children's story. A little while later the young girl asked me to write a story that involved 'A Shark and a Whale'. 

My very improvised 'Shark and a whale' story. (thanks Nat)

Natalie's Story. 

Yeah, my story seems like jumbled rubbish, but then again... That's what all the best kids stories do, right? 

Anyway. Another girl, a teenager from the same group soon came over, and she popped onto my Triumph Tippa and started writing something to a friend of hers. Photos of the letter still in the typewriter were taken, and facebooked - and soon she left with her copy of her secret tale in hand. And once again another piece of type-written love is out there in the community. 

We eventually packed the typewriters up and left the Valley. It was a lovely night, so Steve and I thought we'd show Natalie the view from Mt Coot-tha that looks across the city. 

An older photo of mine taken of the view at the top of the mountain. 

After that we ended up back at Steve Snow's place where we inspected some of the machines that he had stored up under his bed. Steve had a typewriter that belonged to a friend of his that had been filled with flood waters, and he had told them he'd have a look at getting it going. Steve was slightly optimistic about his prospects, but just wasn't sure what he'd be able to achieve. Of course, I get my claws onto it and without the assistance of anything other than a screw-driver I soon had the machine coming back to life. With a bit of a clean and a few tweaks I'd be confident that Steve would soon have another working Remington. 

I have never met a Remington so far that I haven't been able to fix. Maybe my Grandfather's somehow powering that through some kind of weird channeling across the universe, time and space. 

Naaah. 

I think Natalie was in love with Steve's Noiseless! 

So what can I say. A great night was had amongst friends and typewriter lovers and curious kids. It was lovely, and made for a great weekend. 

Ah. So my writerly love. 

The box.

About a month ago Ms Jane and I popped by her mother's house after we both finished work. Joy (her mother's name) had called and said that her partner, Andrew, had something that he wanted to give me that would need a bit of explaining.

Andrew had previously worked for a little company called 'IBM'. You may have heard of it. He was a call-out serviceman. 

It was during this period of Andrew's working life that he and Joy first met and forged a friendship that has lasted several decades. In the most recent couple of years they have grown quite close to each other, and now have a strong relationship. 

We arrived a Joy's place at about the time that most civil people would have been doing the dishes after dinner. My work clothes smelled of hospital, and I'm sure my face looked like it had been sprayed with Domestos. I was tired.

Joy was just settling in for the evening in her slippers and comfortable clothes, but Andrew had only recently gotten home from work himself and was quite bright and chirpy. Actually, he seemed quite excited.

We talked a little about the kind of day we'd all had, and then Andrew disappeard out the back door of the house, and downstairs to a cupboard under the house. He returned with a dusty old box that had originally carried canned fruit sometime in the 80's, but now hosted a collection of much more interest.

When Andrew began working at IBM, their biggest product was the Selectric II/III typewriters. They also were in the process of rolling out their wheelwriters, and variable type wheelwriters. While I sat there, both Andrew and Joy fondly spoke about these variable type machines, and the typewriters of their era. Andrew himself had a few interesting stories to tell  of his days of servicing these machines. 

Andrew settled into a glass of red wine, and started to tell me about what all of the parts inside the box where. As we talked, he would often excitedly go off on another tangent with stories of his work life with IBM, and it was a fascinating and interesting conversation.

Inside of the box were parts and tools from when IBM's typewriters were king. There were ribbons (likely dried out now) tools, cleaning swabs, parts and even a parts guide. And to my amazement, these weren't just parts stripped from a broken down machine. These were new and unused parts.

IBM selectric III 'Golf ball', still in original retail plastic.

Not 'just' any parts. But this collection of components covered some quite crucial pieces - including complete shaft assemblies for several different types of machines, and more importantly - a complete IBM  'Through-kit'; a kit that contained commonly replaced parts, that you would just automatically use to refurbish a machine.

 A complete and unused shaft, still in its plastic.

Part of the 'through-kit', with a few extras thrown in. 

Andrew suggested that I could use these parts to trade and swap for parts with other typewriter enthusiasts. He knew that I had a couple of Selectrics, and knew that the variable type wheelwriters are rather hard to find in Australia.

But I had other ideas. The implications of such a collective of parts to me were huge. Sure, I could just swap these and have a couple of machines going. But then again, these were unused and unground parts. In the hands of someone with enough engineering knowledge and CADD skill, along with the right tools, this was a nearly priceless collection of reference parts. Parts that could be reversed engineered, modeled digitally, and potentially used to produce many more parts via the more modern 3D printing and prototyping technology that is available today.

Because these parts are unworn, they present the possibility of being able to take far more accurate measurements that could produce better end products. It will take a lot of hard work though. 

Ms Jane replaced the old box with a new one the moment we got home, as the old box barely survived the trip in the car without spilling its contents everywhere.

While we were at Joy's house, Joy decided to bring out hew own typewriter to show me. It was a marvelous Imperial Model 6, which has sat in her cupboard for several decades quite neglected. 

The metallic blue/green of the machine was actually quite eye-catching, and in person quite attractive. The machine has quite a collective of daily use muck in it, and a bit of plasticizer seepage on two keys. 

With a bit of work, I think this Imperial beauty has real potential to come up looking near new, and I look forward to taking the time to service and clean up a machine that means something to a family member.

There is also something of a family story attached to this machine. Joy has owned this typewriter since it was bought new for her by her Aunty, and has probably typed all kinds of wonderful things over the years. 

I think it is a thing of beauty, and it's great that she's kept it. 

I'm really excited about the box of parts, and it was great to talk to Joy and Andrew about their stories of using and fixing these typewriters. 

Thanks guys!