#Hamburg American Clock Company

[itsrockinronnie]

Hamburg Amerikanische Uhrenfabrik: The Clock Company with an Alias

This article traces the historical journey of a significant German clock manufacturer, ultimately absorbed by Junghans in the late 1920s. After providing a brief overview of its history, the article will delve into the specifics of the clock movement that is next on my workbench. Among clock collectors and admirers, the Hamburg American Clock Company is a well-known German company. It is…

[imagine-loki]

Gifted

Title: Gifted (Sequel to Giftless)

CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: 38/?

AUTHOR: nekoamamori ORIGINAL IMAGINE: 

Imagine that you are Stark’s niece and you secretly share a strong relationship with Loki since he entered the crew. One day you get hurt so bad during a mission that you are about to die.  Loki knows a spell that will save you and share his immortality with you but you and he will be linked forever sharing thoughts, pain, emotions…

RATING: T NOTES/WARNINGS:  Also on AO3 click here

Early the next morning, you and Loki had to make the portal to send Thor back home. He was livid when he found out about your 3:30am healing, but there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn’t stay here any longer, either. He had duties back home and had only been able to leave for your birthday. “We will find a cure, little sister,” he promised you before he stepped through the portal. You watched as it snapped closed behind him with a twinge of sorrow as you would miss him. He was a great friend and adopted older brother. He promised they would call you home to Asgard as soon as they found a cure. You smiled, glad that he thought enough of you to consider Asgard as your home as well.

You dragged Loki up to the infirmary after Thor had left so you could check on Veronica. You wanted to make sure all of your 3am healing took. Thankfully it had, she was asleep when you arrived, but the other healers assured you that she and the baby were both doing just fine. They shooed you from the infirmary as soon as they’d given you the update.  Julia was terrified that Fury or Tony would find you there. Apparently you were forbidden the infirmary anymore that day after the huge healing you had done the previous night. They really were keeping track of how much time and power you spent there.

“When is your first class?” Loki asked as you wandered to the kitchen to get breakfast. You got the biggest mug of coffee Helene had to offer. She gave you a disapproving look, but you flashed her a big reassuring smile and she let you have your coffee, as well as a huge plate of pancakes. You nodded your thanks and took your plate of pancakes to your usual table. You grinned when Loki sat across from you.

/Just like old times/ you thought at him. You had breakfast just like that almost every morning for the year you had both lived in the Tower together.

“Why are you two awake?” Tony asked when he joined you, pulling up a chair to sit at your two-person table.

[I have class] you signed at him. [I can’t miss any more classes this semester] you had only gotten out of the classes you had missed because Fury had told the school you were on an urgent mission for the Avengers. He wouldn’t help you skip classes for anything less than an emergency. Tony glared at you.  [I just have two classes today. We’ll be back by 1]

“Fine. Just be careful,” Tony replied. 

You rolled your eyes. [It’s going to suck] you signed, finally betraying some of your emotions to him.

“You like school,” Tony reminded you.  He was wrong, of course, but he was a moronic genius who tried to hard

[I want to be a qualified doctor] you corrected. [I doubt anyone there signs, and I’m already weird and a celebrity]

“Darling, it will be fine. I will be there to translate, and keep you company, and Mother is looking for a cure. She will find one soon, I am sure. Thor said that she was on the right track. He would not lie,” Loki added. You gave him a small smile, but you were still worried. “When is your first class?” he asked again.

[Sorry!] you signed. You had forgotten he had asked. [It’s at 9] you glanced at the clock and shoved your pancakes into your mouth faster. You didn’t have a whole lot of time. You stood and vanished your plate back to the kitchen. You used more magic to change your clothes from pajamas to your jeans, converse, and a hoodie stolen from Loki’s closet. Loki gave you a disapproving look at how grungy you looked, especially in his oversized hoodie.

“You are going out like that?” he asked. 

You rolled your eyes. /I’m a college student, Lo. This is how we dress/ you thought at him as you summoned your school bag, which had your laptop.

He sighed. “I can summon you something nicer,” he offered. You could tell he missed the dresses of Asgard. You sighed and held out your hand.

/Fine, but nothing too fancy. This is school/ you told him. You couldn’t help smiling when his expression lit up. /Nothing fancy!/ you reminded him. /No dresses/ you added for safe measure. He summoned a perfectly tailored pair of jeans instead of the fwumpy old ones you had been wearing and a soft green sweater that fit equally as well. At least he left you your converse. You reached up to braid your hair out of your way, but he spun you around quickly so he could do it himself. You just laughed while Tony rolled his eyes and made fake retching sounds. You flipped him off for his effort. You touched Loki’s cheek and used magic to give him an outfit too, a pair of jeans, a white button-down shirt, and a black tie and suit jacket. He looked at you confused, expecting that you would pick something more casual. You did his hair in a quick manbun, as that was the American standard for what to do with long hair on men. /It’s appropriate since you’re technically working as a translator/ you explained. /Plus you look nice in a suit/

“Only nice? My lady wounds me.” He held his hand to his heart with a mock-expression of pain. 

You laughed at him. /Fine. You’re hot and the most handsome man I have ever laid eyes on. Does that please you, peacock?/ you replied with more laughter.

“Whatever you two are talking about, knock it off before I puke,” Tony grumbled. 

You laughed and bent down to kiss his cheek. [See you after school] you signed at him.

“You’re staying here?” he asked.

[For now] you had your own apartment off campus, but you felt better right now staying in your suite here in the compound.

“See you later then, imp, other imp,” he directed the last to Loki, who nodded and offered you his hand in formal escort. You laughed and placed your hand on his. After the first step we took, he teleported you to the coffeeshop on campus.

/You’re a genius/ you told him as you stepped inside the coffeeshop. You could use more coffee. You walked up to the counter and found that your order was already being made. You weren’t terribly surprised. You ordered the same thing every time you went there.

“What did you order for me last time?” Loki asked you when you had reached the counter. You signed back the reply and he placed the order with the barista. You paid for both of your drinks and you waited by the other counter.

“Sigyn, your order is ready!” the barista told you. You smiled and took your cup from her with a nod of thanks. You never placed your orders under your superhero name, but they always gave it to you that way anyway. “Loki, yours will be right up,” she added. Loki thanked her. It was only a minute more before he had his drink as well. You grabbed his tie and pulled him from the coffeeshop by it when he pretended to flirt too hard with the barista. Everyone laughed at your antics.

You led the way to your first class. /I’m going to have so much homework/ you whined at Loki. You’d been gone for two weeks. 

Loki just laughed. “No, you will not,” he replied with a grin.

/You did it?/ you accused. He tried to look innocent. You just laughed. /You’re so bad at the innocent look, but thank you/

“You are welcome, darling,”

You took seats together in the small classroom your first class was in. This was the class you were afraid of. The professor didn’t like you already because you was a celebrity, and in a stupidly accelerated program. You didn’t think he’d take the fact that you couldn’t talk well.

“I don’t allow visitors in my class,” the professor announced when he walked into the room.

[This is Loki. He’s my interpreter. You can’t deny my right to have him here] you signed quickly. Loki translated flawlessly, getting your tone in the words. The professor looked like he was going to argue. [This has already been approved by the dean] you added. Even he couldn’t fight with the dean.

/What is a dean?/ Loki asked you after he had translated your words.

/The leader of the school/ you replied. The professor couldn’t argue that, especially in front of all of the other kids. They all loved you and would fight for your rights if you wouldn’t do it youself. You was just glad this class was graded entirely by multiple guess exams. You could get out of here with your A in a couple months. The professor kept asking you questions throughout the class, as if trying to trip you or Loki up. It was a useless endeavor on his part. He didn’t realize you could just tell Loki your answers telepathically if he couldn’t read the signs. He had no trouble, though and it just frustrated the professor even more. It would have been comical if it weren’t so annoying.

You were glad when class was over and you strolled to the student center with Loki to kill time until your next class. /Are you hungry?/ you asked on the way. It wasn’t quite late enough for lunch, but you knew his metabolism, especially after the magic he had gone through yesterday.

“I could eat,” he answered, which you took to mean that he was hungry. So you stopped by a little hamburger stand on the way to the student center. You thought Loki would hate the place on principle, since it was a greasy delicious college hamburger stand, but he surprised you by actually enjoying the burger.

/I love this place. Best greasy hamburgers in town/ you explained. He raised an eyebrow as you shoved a handful of the best french fries in the city in your mouth. /What? Surely the women on Asgard crave junk food too/

He sighed. “Next you will be demanding chocolate,” he said with a mock whine. You just smiled at him.

/Like you wouldn’t summon all of the chocolate in the city if I asked for it/ you replied.

“You are right, of course,” he conceded with a smile.

You hung out in the student center where Loki got to watch all of the college students while you caught up on social media and emails. You had missed a lot while you was in Asgard. you should have been doing homework, but social media was way more important. You would do the homework later. You had pictures to tag yourself in on social media, friends to catch up with, and school emails to make sure you read.

You second class of the day was much better than the first. Loki was welcomed by the professor, who absolutely adored you. She was a fan of the Avengers and knew Loki as well as you. He was a celebrity too, after all. She asked you a couple of questions, but you thought that she just wanted to watch you sign than actually do anything malicious.

You were still glad when classes ended and you could teleport home. The second you were safely back, you set your schoolbag next to your spot on your usual couch in the common room and magically changed your clothes back to pajamas.

You settled yourself in your spot on the couch and pulled out your laptop to do homework. Loki summoned a book to read. He was also in pajama pants and a t-shirt. You could get him to wear casual clothes around the tower, even if he wouldn’t wear them outside.

The commonroom soon got crowded when the kids and teens started coming home from school and the older supers were coming back from patrol. You looked over at Loki with a grin. /Want to have a little fun?/ you asked with a mischievous smile.

/Always/ he replied, not bothering to look up from his book. You gave him your plan quickly, without bothering to explain why it would be fun. /I hope this is as good at you are suggesting/ he told me.

He stood up on the seat of the couch, drawing everyone’s attention before he announced: “The floor is lava!” you tucked your feet up on the couch and laughed along with Loki as you watched all of the supers leap onto the nearest piece of furniture, or their neighbors and friends. Some used their powers to fly, teleport, or stick to the walls. Four people ended up on one small coffee table, all clinging to each other so they didn’t fall off. You laughed when they all toppled over and had overly dramatic ‘deaths’ in the lava.

Nat calmly walked over to one of the couches. “I’m a fire demon. I’m immune to lava,” she announced. You and Loki laughed, allowing it since she was Nat.

The game ended and everyone went back to what they were doing. “Does everyone know this game?” Loki asked in delight after it was over. 

You shrugged. /I think every American kid does/ you replied, already planning the next game, and silently apologizing to Loki because he was going to lose.

You got up to put a movie in the DVD player, and placed one finger to your ear as you were walking back to the couch. Someone saw you and mimicked your movement. Soon the entire room had their finger against their ear, as if we were all getting a message in an earbud. You grinned at Loki who was busy with his book and hadn’t noticed your antic until he caught your mood shift. He looked up just in time to get tackled to the floor. “Get down, Mr. President!” the supers yelled as everyone leapt on top of him, pinning him to the ground. You laughed and kissed his cheek while you were both pinned. You had been the first one to tackle him, and ended up on the bottom of the pile.

“What’s going on in here?” one of the older supers asked, seeing your dogpile.

“Mr. President was in danger,” one of the kids replied as our pile slowly dispersed.

“Of course. Who was the unlucky President today?” he asked warmly.

“Loki,”

“Well that’s hardly fair. Poor guy probably doesn’t even know the game.”

“Kat started it!” the kids protested. You all started laughing while you helped Loki back to his feet and gave him a proper kiss in apology.

“Silly Trickster,” he whispered in your ear, sending a shiver down your spine.

/I learned from the best/ you replied. He gave you an elegant bow, accepting the praise. You laughed and explained the rules of the game to him, so he would be prepared next time.

“What are you guys up to?” Tony asked, seeing the room in chaos as everyone tried to get back to their places from our latest game.

“The floor was lava, and then I was the President,” Loki answered calmly as you finally got to settle back in our places on the couch. Tony roared in laughter.

“I would have paid to see you get tackled by the entire group, Mr. President,” Tony chuckled. He didn’t notice until he saw you make the movement, that everyone had put a finger to their ear and he was the last one. He tried to run, but it was too late.

“GET DOWN MR. PRESIDENT!” Roared the crowd as Tony was tackled to the floor.

“I am going to kill you for starting this, imp,” Tony grumbled at you.  You held up your hands innocently.

[I didn’t say anything] you signed indignantly once everyone had removed themselves from Tony. You also healed someone’s nose that had gotten smashed in the excitement. Mr. President was not the safest game ever.

“Kat, we need you and Loki to go out on patrol tonight. Freeza and Nebula caught that stupid flu that’s going around,” Fury greeted you at dinner that evening. You and Loki nodded and agreed to go on the patrol. Loki was always your patrol partner when he was in town. You worked well together and had fairly complimentary powers, plus a stupid amount of healing power between the two of you. Fury gave you your patrol route and left. He didn’t socialize…ever.

As soon as you were done eating, you put your dishes away and changed into your armor. You made sure your dagger sheath was in place, then took Loki’s hand so you could teleport to the start of your patrol route.

You spent most of the evening just walking the streets of the warehouse district in uniform. Of course there were absolutely no illicit kisses during patrol. None whatsoever. You would never do such a thing.

You did come across some robbers trying to rob a bank. You just smiled at Loki. /Shield/ You told him before the robbers noticed you. He smiled and you saw the flicker of green light around him. You stepped into the bank and the robbers turned to face you.

“Hello boys,” you greeted them. Before the second word was out, they were all on the ground unconscious. Loki made the call in to the cops, not knowing if the curse from Balder would work across the phone line. Neither of you wanted to take the chance. The cops picked up the robbers, who were still unconscious. This curse from Balder sucked, but it did make patrol a bit easier in this one case.

The next fight you came across was a lot harder, since there were too many civilians around for you to use that particular power. There was a trio of bad guys, including a firestarter. You and Loki took out the firestarter easily. He wasn’t the problem. The super strength guy got his hands on you and threw you into a nearby wall hard enough to break bones through your shielding. You cursed under your breath, throwing fireballs and daggers with your unbroken arm. The third one was throwing lightning at Loki and all of Loki’s illusions and clones. You cursed again silently and threw up walls of flames around the two remaining villains, buying you a little time. The civilians were busy taking pictures and video. Just what you needed when you were both bleeding and bruised, and your arm was hanging limp at your side.

You speed dialed the cops and summoned a bunch of heavy chain. You let the flame die around the super strength man and used your telekinesis to wrap the chains around him as quickly as you could, using fireballs aimed at him to keep him from being able to fight the chains. He couldn’t fight both at the same time. Loki had the lightning super disabled at the same time. It didn’t take the cops long to arrive to collect the villains. You and Loki  waved to the crowd and he teleported you out of there and back to your suite in the compound.

“Did you forget to shield?” Loki asked you as he helped you sit on your couch. 

You shook your head. /This was damage done through my shields/ you replied.

“Damn, he was strong,” he commented as he looked over your wounds. He hesitated. “I need to see your arm to heal it,” he finally said. You nodded and vanished the top of your armor, leaving you in just your bra. He had seen you in less yesterday, plus this was for healing. Tony rushed into the room while Loki was looking over your side and arm, seeing how bad the damage was.

“Kat? Fury said you were back from patrol. I didn’t see you come in. Is everything ok? What the hell?” Tony demanded. “Why aren’t you in the infirmary and where the hell is your shirt?” he added more loudly when he saw that you were injured. You gestured to Loki with your good arm. You rolled your eyes and sat quietly while Loki got to work healing your injuries.

“We found a couple of villains with powers. One of them hurt Kat through her shielding. I can heal her just as easily, if not more so, than the healers downstairs, and she does not have to step foot in the infirmary. I needed to see her injury, and had you knocked, you would not have to see your niece in nothing but her bra,” Loki answered calmly, but grumpily while he worked. It didn’t take him long to fix the damage. You gave him a kiss when he was done. He pulled the throw blanket off of the couch and wrapped it around your shoulders to cover you. 

[I’m fine, Tony] you signed at him tiredly. [We caught some robbers and some supervillains. It’s late and I just went through a healing. Yell at us tomorrow if you insist on yelling]

“Sorry, Kat. I just worry about you. I hate when you get attacked on patrol. You know that,” Tony said, coming over to give you a hug. “I’m glad you’re ok. Go get some rest before your eyes do that creepy black thing again.” You rolled your eyes at him, but got up from the couch and shoved him from your sittingroom, closing and locking the door firmly behind him. You looked Loki over to make sure he wasn’t injured. He only had a couple scrapes and bruises, which only took a pinch of power to fix. You summoned some pajamas and smirked when you realized in your exhaustion that you had summoned one of his Asgardian tunics to wear to bed. It had apparently become a habit. He grinned at you too when he realized what you had done.

“You are adorable, darling,” he told you, when he realized what you wereYwearing. you blushed at the unexpected compliment, but kissed him again before you both fell into bed. You was tired of the long days already and you hadn’t been home very long at all.

[eldritchsurveys]

436.

What is the most annoying thing about your life right now? and how can you change it? >> I can’t really think of anything except, like, being sensory-defensive, which I can’t change.

What was the flavor of the last smoothie you had? >> ---

Do you think you get enough protein? >> I probably do.

What is your favorite time of day to run? >> I don’t run.

How many 5ks have you ran? >> Exactly zero.

What is a current concern of yours right now? >> I don’t have any concerns.

What color shirt are you wearing? >> Black. I’m actually wearing a shirt for once, because it’s chilly tonight.

When was the last time you talked to your mom? >> ---

What's one unpopular opinion you have? >> I don’t have any sense of moral outrage about the existence of paedophiles and I strongly believe that the stigma should be lessened so that they can go to therapy without fearing the dire consequences of revealing their pathology.

What's a dream you've had since childhood that hasn't left you? >> ---

Do you parents crush your dreams? >> ---

What's a show you remember the very first episode of? >> Well, I mean, a lot of shows. I remember the very first episode of American Horror Story because I literally rewatched it yesterday.

Did you sleep in today? >> I don’t sleep in, I just sleep until I’m done sleeping.

Do you hate sleeping in? >> I hate sleeping too much, which usually happens when my sleep is interrupted and my internal clock is all thrown off.

How late do you consider too late to sleep in? >> I don’t like to still be sleeping past like 9a.

What is something of yours that is falling apart? >> I can’t think of anything.

Does your phone have a good camera on it? >> It’s serviceable.

How long have you had a smartphone? >> I’ve had this one for a year. I’ve been using smartphones in general for maybe 5.

How old were you when you got your first smartphone? >> Late 20s.

Do you have a crush on someone right now? >> No.

When was the last time you saw your crush? >> ---

If applicable, what is stopping you from pursuing your crush? >> ---

Did you ever regret letting someone go? >> No.

Who is someone you wish were still in your life? >> ---

When was your due date, and when were you born? >> I don’t know when my due date was. I was born on the 28th of May.

Do you want to have kids? >> Not particularly.

Do you keep lists of names that you like? >> No.

How long does it normally take for you to fill a journal? >> ... It’s weird how many of these questions were on the other survey I just took.

What are you behind on? >> Nothing.

Do you have a good doctor? >> I don’t have a doctor at all.

Do you like to sit on the floor? >> Sometimes, as long as I have back support.

What color is the toolbar at the top of your screen? >> Black.

What website do you usually check first when you get online? >> The first thing I check when I open my browser is the browser extension for my email accounts.

Have you ever butt-dialed someone? >> No.

Have you ever sent a text message to the wrong person by accident? >> No.

What is your favorite type of pizza? >> Veggie or pepperoni.

What is your favorite pizza place? >> Jet’s.

Do you enjoy eating at 50's diners? >> I mean, sure.

What are your favorite girls' names? >> ---

What are your favorite boys' names? >> ---

What do you want to be for Halloween this year? >> I haven’t thought about it.

What do you do to make money? >> I’m on a federal fixed income.

Name someone you know who has everything handed to them. >> I don’t know anyone like that.

Do you know anyone who is spoiled or stuck-up? >> No.

Do you believe life is fair? >> No, and I don’t need it to be.

Have you ever made a fan account on Instagram? >> No.

Have you ever bought a youtuber's merch? >> No.

Name three people you want to meet in Heaven. >> ---

Do you believe in Heaven and Hell? >> I do not.

If so, do you believe you are going to Heaven? >> ---

What was the best time of your life? >> ---

Do you feel loved or appreciated for who you are? >> I don’t think I’ll ever feel that way about anyone outworld, but I always feel that way about inworlders.

What could be the theme song of your life? >> ---

Don't you hate being all alone? (if applicable) >> Not at all.

Do you believe rich people are worth more than those who are poor? >> No.

When was the last time you read the Bible? >> It’s been a few years. I always forget I even own a copy of it.

Do you have any embarrassing health issues? >> No.

What are you longing for? >> Nothing.

Who do you wish you could talk to? >> ---

What was the name of the college you went to? >> I didn’t.

Were your college years the best years of your life? >> ---

Who was your first roommate? >> I don’t remember.

Who lived across the hall from you your first year of college? >> ---

What was your favorite food they served in the Dining Commons? >> ---

Do you consider the lunch ladies your friends? >> ---

Have you ever had a janitorial job? >> No. I’d have a meltdown a minute if I tried to work a job like that.

Have you ever worked in food service? >> Briefly.

What was your first job? >> In food service.

What year did you graduate high school? >> 2004.

What's something of yours that is missing right now? >> Nothing of mine is missing right now.

Do you lose or misplace things a lot? >> No.

Have you ever had a nasty rumor spread about you? >> Yeah.

Has anyone ever tried to ruin your reputation? >> I don’t think I’ve ever had a reputation.

What is your favorite flavor of frosting? >> ---

What is your favorite type of donut? >> Krispy Kreme glazed.

What is the name of your favorite bakery? >> ---

What is your current favorite Starbucks drink? >> ---

Have you ever been to the very first Starbucks in Seattle? >> No.

When was the last time you wrote someone a letter? >> ---

Do you write mostly in cursive or in print? >> Mostly print, because I usually only write longhand when I’m filling out a form or something like that.

Have you ever called a teacher "mom" by mistake? >> No.

Do you like the color of your eyes? >> Sure.

What color are your eyes? >> Dark brown.

What was the name of the street you grew up on (if you don't live there now)? >> Broadway. (Not that one, lol.)

What was the name of the first dorm you lived in? >> ---

What was the name of your first imaginary friend? >> The first inworlder that I can remember is a girl named Clodagh. I must have been about 6 or 7.

Does it still feel like summer where you live? >> Eh, some days. The temperature is kind of up and down.

What is today's date? >> 27 September.

Who's birthday is today? >> Beats me.

What do you usually get for your birthday? >> A daytrip to Chicago. Sometimes a whole weekend.

Who's birthday is coming up next? >> Sparrow’s.

What is the last thing that came in the mail for you from Amazon? >> A pair of shorts.

Do you have a Paypal account? >> Yeah.

Have you ever had a brand or company reach out to you on Instagram? >> No.

What is the last thing you purchased from Etsy? >> A perfume oil.

Do you sell on Etsy? >> No.

What is a childhood dream that hasn't stuck with you? >> ---

What is something you want to change about your life? >> I’m not looking to make any changes right now.

What is one thing you are looking forward to coming up? >> *shrug*

Have you decorated for fall yet? >> I don’t decorate for seasons.

Do you type fast? >> I do.

What color was your bedroom growing up? >> I don’t remember.

Who was your first favorite cartoon character? >> Johnny Bravo, maybe. I didn’t get to watch many cartoons, and in fact, that’s the only one I can remember watching.

Who is your favorite Disney princess? >> Moana.

Do you enjoy typing? >> Sure.

What bank do you use? >> Flagstar.

What grocery store do you shop at the most? >> Meijer.

What is your favorite fast food place? >> I don’t have one.

Do you get sauce on your pizza? >> Yeah.

Do you like hamburgers? >> Sure.

Do you like Coca Cola? >> No.

Do you like McDonald's french fries? >> Sometimes. Sometimes they’re not salty enough.

What color is your hair? >> Dark brown.

Did you get your hair color from your mom, your dad, or a grandparent? >> All of them, I guess.

What is your name (first and middle)? >> Mordred Shadow.

What are some other names your parents' considered when naming you? >> My parents did not name me.

What would you have been named if you had been born the opposite gender? >> ---

Do you prefer tea hot or cold? >> Hot.

What is the best fall drink? >> Apple cider or mulled wine.

Who was the last person you know who had a baby? And what was the baby's name? >> Sparrow’s sister, Liz. The baby’s name is Elliot.

If you had a boy and a girl, what would they be named? >> ---

Do you clean your room often? >> No, I don’t have to clean it that often.

Who taught you how to drive? >> No one. (I don’t drive.)

What color is your dresser? >> White.

Do you have a hope chest? >> No, but I had one as a child. 

Do you have a favorite aunt, and if so, who is it? >> ---

Who is your favorite cousin? >> ---

Do you look like your mom? >> ---

What does your middle name rhyme with? >> I don’t know, what does “shadow” rhyme with?

What does your first name mean? >> I don’t feel like copy-pasting that again.

Have you bought next year's calendar yet? >> I don’t buy calendars, although that Bananya... however that shit is spelled... one that I saw recently was tempting, lol.

What year did/will you turn 30? >> I turned 30 in 2017.

Have you found your first gray/white hair yet? >> Yeah, a few years ago.

Is your hair long or short? and which way do you like it best? >> Short. It hasn’t been long since childhood, so.

What's a food that you like, but it makes you feel sick? >> ---

Do you have a problem with needles? >> No.

Have you ever had to use an epi pen? If so, do you get a bruise when you use it? >> No.

Have you ever ridden in an ambulence? >> Yeah, both in the front and the back.

If applicable, what color are your glasses? >> ---

Do you like the name Addison? >> It’s fine.

Is there anything that you regret getting rid of? >> No.

What have you been saving up to by for a while? >> Nothing.

Does anything bother you about your past? >> I mean, sure, if I bother thinking about it.

Do you get bullied on facebook a lot? >> ---

Why do you think people bully others? >> That’s not something I have any insight about.

Have you ever stood up to a bully? >> No.

Do you post on youtube regularly, if you have a channel? >> ---

Which famous person do you think you could be friends with? >> I don’t know enough about any famous person to say.

If you could sit down and talk to anyone for an hour, who would it be? >> ---

Do you own striped tights? >> No.

Have you ever made your own Halloween costume out of clothes from ur closet? >> I mean, clothes from my closet is basically what I wear every Halloween, because I’ve never worn a costume.

Do you own any antique furniture? >> No.

What year were you born? >> 1987.

What is your favorite alcoholic beverage? >> That’s hard to say, I like a lot of them.

Do you set goals for yourself? >> No.

Which country has the coolest flag? >> I don’t know.

Do you like your country's flag? >> No, it’s not that aesthetically pleasing to me.

Which country do you live in? >> USA.

What is your heritage? >> Hm.

When was the last time you received a hug? >> I don’t remember.

Do you believe hugs are necessary for survival? >> If they are, I guess I should be dead.

Do you have anyone who hugs you regularly? >> No, because I prefer not to be hugged frequently (if at all).

Who gives the best hugs? >> I don’t know.

Would you rather have the bottom bunk or top bunk? >> Top.

Window seat or aisle seat? >> Window, always.

Have you ever thrown up on an airplane? >> No.

Have you ever seen anyone else throw up on an airplane? >> No. I’m tempted to believe that’s just a thing that happens in movies, but of course my experience isn’t like... comprehensive or anything.

Have you ever gotten sick in the car? >> No.

What color pen do you write with the most? >> Black.

Do you still wear clothes from the children's section? >> I wear children’s underwear.

What were your favorite stores when you were in high school? >> Hot Topic was one.

Do you watch Bethany Mota on youtube? >> No.

What color is your watch? >> ---

What color was the last pair of flip-flops you wore? >> Black.

What is your favorite season? >> Spring or autumn.

Were you born in your favorite season? >> Spring, yeah.

Have you eaten oatmeal lately? >> No, but now that summer is almost over I will probably start eating it again. (I don’t like eating heavy breakfast foods in warm weather.)

If you have bangs, do you cut them yourself? >> ---

What color was the last cup you drank out of? >> Yellow and white.

Do you enjoy graphic designing? >> I don’t know anymore, I haven’t done it in years.

Do you enjoy editing photos? >> Meh.

What is your favorite app on your phone? >> If we’re going by how often they’re used, Gems of War or CloudLibrary.

Do you answer your phone every time it rings? >> I never answer my phone.

Have you ever called the wrong number? >> Not that I can recall.

Do you usually pick Truth or Dare? >> I don’t play Truth or Dare.

Was your first kiss magical? >> ---

Do you like kissing? >> Not unless it’s inworld.

Who do you want to be best friends with? >> ---

Do you like to decoupage things? >> No.

Do you have a printer? >> Not anymore.

How many tabs are open on your browser right now? >> Two.

Which Internet browser do you use? >> Chrome.

Did you have a Myspace page back in the day? >> I sure did.

Do you miss Myspace bulletins? >> No.

Did you ever learn HTML? >> I used to be pretty proficient at it back when I was on MySpace and Vampirefreaks constantly. I do miss that about the first era of social media -- it encouraged learning how webpages worked so you could get stupid creative with yours. (And, of course, people that used to make Geocities and Angelfire sites had a leg up on all of us late bloomers, lmao.)

Have you ever wanted to start a business? >> Not seriously.

[truemanblack]

A/N: I’m speedy since I’m chilln’ so here’s part one in full!!! I really really like this idea so - thanks! 

📍 Location: Amelia Ellis dropped a pin in Santa Monica, California (GMT -08:00)  ‘You're the one that's always running through my day dreams, I I can only see your face when I close my eyes’ - PROLOGUE 

📍📍

I was back at work, I was tired, sunburned and still thinking about Harry. I had no fucking idea why I was still letting him run through my mind, I wondered if he was getting tired. I hadn’t told my friends, thought they were eyeing me every time I would giggle at my phone or started blushing at phone screen. I hated Los Angeles, I hated the scene, the idea of having to become a star. Maybe I just hated downtown LA, not all of it, because there are some good spots. I was telling Harry about a place in the fashion district that has the best pasta.

Amelia: It’s the best, sadly their menu is seasonal, so my favorite thing is in the summer only. Harry: That’s no good, you’ll have to take me sometime. Amelia: I keep talking about food, sorry. Harry: It’s okay, it’s not like my normal texts I receive. Amelia: What’s a ‘normal’ text to you. Harry: Asking me for something, usually. Amelia: That sucks, what do you do? Harry: I’m in music. I wondered what type of music he played, I didn’t want to pry too much since I only told him I was an artist – he hadn’t asked to see my work, so I’ll wait until he asks me. It was lunch, I saw that I missed a few texts from him. We were raving about our favorite things, from flowers, chocolates – to now talking about the correct things that go on a hamburger.

Harry: Bacon, but the bacon I’m used to – not what you Americans are. Harry: Good cheese too, I love a good cheese. Harry: Are not replying because you agree or because you’re busy? Harry: I sound needy, sorry ‘bout that.” Amelia: Sorry! I was working lol. Harry: I forgot you were working, my fault, love. I’ll let you get back to it. Amelia: I’m on lunch, so I’m free until I ghost you. Harry: Don’t joke about ghosting me, I enjoy talking to you. Amelia: How’s Jamaica? Harry: Harry dropped a pin in New York City, New York Harry: Not there anymore. Amelia: Wow! World traveler, you are. Harry: Ha! I wish it was for pleasure. Amelia: Still more fun than Los Angeles. I’d love to live in New York, can’t bring myself to move away from my family.

I had found my favorite food truck up the street, I’d been tracking them for the last month and they were gonna be right by the museum. They made these fancy sandwiches, always toasted, always fresh bread – couldn’t resist. Harry was good at texting, there were times we’d ghost each other, but usually he would make it up to me. Our time zones were so far apart so calling wasn’t an option. Though, I would love to hear his voice again – northwest was where his accent was located. I had spent about an hour listening to the accents of England, which was weird for me – I’m just used to Americans. It could be why I was very light on the subject of calling him, once and while he would send me a voice memo – usually at night. He made it a ‘thing’ for us. I would send him one usually me saying ‘goodnight, Harry. Sweet dreams.” And he would send one back, longer, telling me about the moon outside, or give a pause and let me hear the ocean against the phone. I had a feeling he was romantic, I didn’t hate it. He was in music. I wondered what he did, if he was a singer, couldn’t be drums – his hands were too soft. His fingers were a bit callused, so maybe guitar.

Harry: I get what you mean, I hate being away from my family. Amelia: Tell me about your family. Harry: My parents are divorced, I’m really close to my mother. I have a sister, I’m close with her too. My mother is remarried to an amazing man, love him to bits. Amelia: I don’t get how people can’t be close to their families. Harry: I agree, what’s your family like? Amelia: I was adopted as a baby, so I have two amazing mothers, and our dogs. If I could say my animals are my siblings, I would. Harry: Ha! Cats would be my siblings. Amelia: Cats are sneaky, but I like that about them. Harry: Right? They surprise you with affection. But look, I’m going to ghost you for a bit. I’m sorry. Amelia: It’s okay! I’m going back to work anyway.

I felt like the work day went by quickly, usually I took my lunch as late as possible, so I could only have a few hours left until I needed to leave. I bid my goodbyes to my coworkers before dealing with the traffic. I lived in Santa Monica, I loved it, it was the busyness of the city but with a more relaxed vibe. I lived above a restaurant (very fitting of me) in a loft. Unfinished artwork cluttering the living space and my bed taking up the corner by the window. I liked waking up the crashing of the ocean, the sunrise being my personal alarm clock. I was making myself some dinner when a dig went off.

Harry: How was work? Amelia: It was work. How was work for you? Harry: It was also work. Are you free to call? Amelia: Yeah!

I ran to find my headphones somewhere in this apartment. I could hear my phone ringing. I answered it before my headphones where untangled.

“One second,” I huffed as I set the phone down on the counter and finished getting the knot out. I plugged it in and tried to compose myself as I tucked my phone into my pocket. “Sorry about that!”

              “It’s no problem.” He chuckled, I liked it. I liked actually hearing him rather than a ‘lol’ or a ‘HA!’ as he liked to send. “What are you doing?”

              “I’m cooking dinner, what about you?” I suddenly felt nervous, it was just a phone call. We’ve been texting for the last two weeks. I knew a lot of the surface things about him, we’d only really get intimate on the audio messages he’d send me. I was trying not make too much noise as I was cooking, quietly cutting carrots putting everything in bowls so I can have one loud part of the call.

              “What are you cooking? It’s about six for you, right?” He ignored my question which was funny to me, he really didn’t like talking about himself, he always wanted to know what I was doing, how I slept, but I wanted to know the same things.

              “Stir fry with noodles, and yes it’s about six thirty. What are you doing?” I asked again, I wanted to mostly hear him.

              “That sounds delicious. I just got back to my hotel.”

              “Hmm, how’s the big apple treating you?”

              “Crisp. Very crisp.”

              “Sounds like a good apple to me.” I tried to quietly cook food in a pan hoping it wouldn’t bother him too much. “I’m sorry it’s so loud.”

              “It doesn’t bother me, not one bit.” Of course, it doesn’t, I felt like I was apologizing too much.

              “Okay good, what did you do today. And before you ask me, I just worked. I was thinking later about riding my bike down the pier.” I heard him chuckle, I really liked hearing that.

              “I had a few business meetings about my album, mostly. I had lunch with a few friends.”

              “Where did you have lunch?”

              “Some café, I can’t be bothered with the name, it wasn’t that great.”

              “I’m sorry your lunch sucked, ruins the day until dinner.” I was finally done cooking and was sitting down to eat. I felt more uncomfortable about eating on the phone. The idea that the microphone was right by my mouth, and I was eating noodles and it was going to be slurpy, I hated it. “Did you still want to stay on the phone with me even if I was eating?” I was hoping for a no, then he would call me back or something.

              “I’m fine with that.” Oh, fucking Christ. I hummed into the phone and I could hear a creek from his side. “Sorry, I just needed to lay back, didn’t notice how loud the bed was.” We both laughed, and my mouth was full of food, so I was trying not to talk, or chew loudly. “I’ll talk while you eat. I know you live in California since you use that stupid ‘find your friends’ app and your location is shared with me. I’ll be coming out in a few days, I was thinking we could do something together, something low key.”

              “As long as you don’t stalk me anymore, I’ll do it.”

              “I can’t help that iPhones share your every move with me. I had to turn mine off, I had it on that night in Jamaica because I wander when I’m drunk.”

              “I can see that; my friends and I use it for tinder dates.”

              “Are you on tinder?” I coughed from laughing. “I’m taking that as a no, you don’t seem the type.”

              “I’m not, my friends just go on these random dates and it’s easier to get a location and a codeword rather than just guessing.”

              “I’m assuming you save everyone then?”

              “Sometimes, I’m usually have more free time than them.” I shrugged, he wouldn’t see it. My friends were very much actively dating, while I just liked to sit and talk with people before dating them. Though, I feel like Harry just asked me on a date, or did he ask me to hang out. “Did you ask me on a date or to hang out?”

              “Um,”

              “Shit, I’m sorry I shouldn’t have asked that.”

              “It can be a date if you want it to be.”

              “No, I just. It’s not that I wouldn’t want to go on a date with you, it’s just I’d rather hang out first.��� He was laughing, like a really deep laugh. I remembered he had dimples, and I imagined them being there while he was laughing. “God, I’m nervous talking to you if you want me to be honest.” I was putting my bowl in the sink.

              “I would like for you to be honest with me.” I started slipping on my shoes, I figured that I could go on a walk while were on the phone. It was better than doing random shit around the house while we were on the phone. “I’m quite nervous too.”

              “Why are you nervous?” I heard him exhale and suck on his teeth. “I’m nervous because I haven’t been, I guess I would use this word, intimate with a man in a while. Women? All day, but it’s different with a man.” I tended to enjoy the company of a woman rather than a man, I was a bit more masculine than most women, just my mannerisms, the way I dress, how I deal with things. It was hard finding a man who was fitting for the femininity I was searching for and always found in other women.

              “Hm, I guess the best way to put it is, you make me feel so normal. You probably think you bore me with your little mundane updates, but I quite enjoy them.” It felt good to know I didn’t bore him. “Do you prefer only women, I don’t mean to pry.”

              “No, I don’t really have a preference.”

              “Me neither, I think the idea of knowing someone completely and fully before even getting intimate.”

              “Me too,” We were in silence for a bit, I was walking around the pier. “What do you do, I know you’re in music, but what do you do?”

              “I was in a band, I’ve gone solo now.”

              “What band, if you don’t mind me asking.” I heard a chuckled from him.

              “You really don’t know, do you?”

              “Should I really know? I’m shit at listening to new music.”

              “No, no, I love that you don’t know.”

              “Are you going to tell me?”

              “One Direction.” I couldn’t help but to laugh, I couldn’t place him in a boy group like that. “What’s funny?”

              “I’m more of an N*Sync girl myself. I was placing you in an entire metal band.”

              “Sorry, I was in Nine Inch Nails,” He laughed, and I couldn’t help but laugh with him.

              “I’m more of a Deftones fan, but that’ll work too.”

              “I’m shocked you don’t know. I loved being in that group, it was amazing, but having people who just have no idea who I am is great.”

              “I’m still listening to Celebrity by N*Sync, so I’ll make some room to fit your music into there.”

              “Tell me what you think, honest opinions only.”

              “I’ll put in on my work playlist.”

              “What do you do at work?”

              “Oh! I restore paintings. Like old paintings.”

              “That’s cool, so you work at the museum or this a private practice.”

              “Well it’s a private practice so I’m contracted by the museum, mostly.”

              “That’s quite a cool job, do you do your own art?”

              “Yeah, I mainly post it on Instagram.” I started to find my way back home, the sun was going to be setting soon and I would rather be in my loft watching it. Harry hadn’t responded for quite some time, but I saw that he was still on the phone. I suddenly got a notification.

@harrystyles started following

“How’d you find that so quickly, oh my god?”

              “Your phone number you, nut.” I laughed, mostly because I’ve called him a nut a few times, to hear him say out loud was hilarious to me.

              “Don’t call me a nut, you’re a nut.” I giggled, there were a few times we’d just sit in silence on the phone, I didn’t mind it at all. I’m not a huge fan of talking on the phone, my moms would always call me on speaker when they were cooking or watching TV, or Lucy would call me when she’s rushing around her apartment asking me if I was coming out or not. Harry just wanted to talk. So, we did, we talked until the sun went down. I’m assuming it’s still sunny for him. We talked about how we were in high school, I was just a year younger than him. He was way more successful than I was. We talked about the music we liked, and got on the subject on best rapper which we had an agreement it was Kendrick, all the way.

I told him about the time I went to Coachella and saw him, he asked if I wore a crazy outfit – which I didn’t. We walked more about our families, about how we both have a mother named Anne, his was Anne, mine was Ann. He told me about his sister, and the article she wrote about him.

              “I was bursting into tears, I really did.” He told me.

We were talking about movies, he told me he was in one that should be coming out soon – though, he couldn’t give me the details about it. We talked about our pets, his cat dusty. He told me how we wanted a hairless cat, which I told him was an awful want. It was around nine for me, and I was growing tired, still from the trip, and knowing that I was going to be up at six am.

              “You’re yawning,” He hummed into the phone, he’d just finished dinner, a burger, with fries, all the extras on the burger. “I should let you sleep,”

              “Ugh, I’ve just enjoyed talking to you,” My phone was dying, and I was trying to rush to my bed to put it on the charger.

              “I’ve enjoyed talking to you too, nut.”

              “Hey, now, I can take it all back.” He was chuckling. I imagine him laying back on these big fluffy pillows, the sheets were probably all white. I imagined him in jeans, maybe a white tee. He smelt good the night I met him, very expensive. It was weird how it was all coming back to me. I was looking up at the ceiling, I bet he was doing the same thing. We both were breathing on the phone, maybe he was thinking about what I was doing too. “What are you thinking about?”

              “I had dream last night, about Jamaica, I was very drunk the night I met you, but I could remember your face. I’m just trying to piece it in my head, it’s been awhile.” I hummed, that was too sweet.

              “I was drunk too, I remember the way you smelled, which is weird.”

              “S‘not weird, s’not at all.”

              “You have dimples right, I’m not just making that up?”

              “Yeah, you want me to take a picture of myself and send it to you?”

              “No, I’ll ruin the excitement until I see you again.”

              “I like that idea.”

              “I won’t even look at your Instagram, I don’t have photos of myself on there, so you can look at mine.”

              “No listening to my old band, the covers have me on it.”

              “Deal.” I hummed and closed my eyes. I could see us, dancing and giggling. It was really hot that day, it rained the next. I could smell the ocean, maybe it was because my bed was next to the window.

              “I’m going to be honest with you, Amelia.” He liked calling me that instead of Aimee, he said it suited me. “I’m scared once you find out all about me, you’re not going to want to hang out with me anymore. I’m scared once we start hanging out, the media knows your name, the internet knows this sweet little woman – they’ll rip you apart. You’re so normal and I want that, but that’s not me. I’m actually quite jealous. You can get gas on your own, you can grocery shop without anyone bothering you.”

              “I guess there’s upsides to being a nobody. But don’t envy me, green doesn’t look good on you.”

              “How would you know, green looks great on me.”

              “Shut up, oh my god.” We were laughing again. “I’m tired.”

              “I know you are, and I’m being selfish by keeping you on the phone.”

              “Shush, I’m going to hang up, we can do this again tomorrow. I promise.”

              “Okay, Amelia.” I hadn’t hung up, I was hoping he would hang up on me, maybe end this. I didn’t want to be the one to hang up. “Neither of us are going to hang up? Hm, I can’t wait to see you, you pick the time and the place, and I’m all yours. I can pull some strings to get some privacy.”

              “Hmm, you said you’re here next week?” I was rolled up in my bed, I could knock out any second. “How about next Thursday, one of my favorite days of the week.”

              “Thursday is your favorite day of the week?”

              “Friday Eve.” He chuckled.

              “Okay, I’ll be there, Petal, Thursday, pick a time. But sleep first.” I hummed into the phone. “Sweet dreams, Amelia.”

              “Sweet Dreams, Harry.”

[hooliainprague-blog]

family

26.4.2018

Today’s the day my family arrives in Prague, but they won’t be here until night. This makes it particularly difficult to wait around during my day of no classes. Sadie and I fed the birds like we usually do, but today the pigeons decided that they wanted to eat directly from our hands. Clearly, we weren’t mad.

After that, I just had a relaxing day in the dorm because I knew we’d have a lot to do this weekend.

I was supposed to meet my family at the hotel around 7:30, but it ended up being at 9:30 because the car company didn’t show up to get them because the flight was delayed. While I was waiting for them, I got a chance to see the projection of the Astronomical Clock for the first time, which is a lot more underwhelming than I expected. 

When they finally arrived, I hugged them all and my mom gave me a giant box of Cheez-its. Yeah, I’m happy!!

We walked to a restaurant for dinner and then walked to the Charles Bridge so they could see at least a little bit of Prague upon their arrival. 

27.4.2018

I slept in my dorm last night because I didn’t bring any clothes, and during breakfast, both my mom and my sister texted me that they think my dad got lost on his morning walk. Spoiler: he did. I also had breakfast in the hotel when I got there because I couldn’t resist. We started the morning by walking through Old Town Square and going to Vojanovy Sady, my favorite peacock park. 

We went to the Lennon Wall, but unfortunately, the pictures were ruined by graphic graffiti. We saw the big baby statues on Kampa Island and went to my favorite souvenir shop. 

We then headed to the Prague Castle on their first tram ride to see the changing of the guards and go through the main parts. There were a bunch of American flags on military vehicles, and my mom and I asked the only man who spoke English what it was about. He said it was some kind of celebration for WWII and 100 years since Czechoslovakia was proclaimed as a country. He gave us each a free pin for asking the question. 

I took them to lunch at the cafe I go to alone sometimes. I got a backpack full of things to spend the night at the fancy hotel. We stopped to feed the birds, walked across the Charles Bridge, and went to Tesco for some drinks and snacks. My dad is so impressed that he can buy 8 beers, 6 cokes, and a giant water bottle for under 8 USD. We dropped that stuff off at the hotel and proceeded to Wenceslas Square to get some fried cheese sandwiches. We also saw the Kafka head. 

I found the best juice ever at a grocery store, too.

28.4.2018

We all slept until almost 10 am and simultaneously almost missed breakfast at the hotel. Me, my mom, and my dad all got ready super fast and ran down to catch it while my sister kept sleeping. We then went to Petřin hill and almost died on the way up with my mom. We realized about halfway up that there was a stop for the funicular, so my mom, sister, and I jumped right on that while my dad continued to walk up. While we waited for dad to get to the top, we waited in the botanical garden up there and took some pretty pictures.

We then waited in line for the tower and did some climbing. I didn’t realize how much you can feel it swaying in the breeze from the top. 

We got my sister a hamburger and my dad a beer and went back to the garden so dad could see it. 

After that, we got on some public transportation to Vyšehrad because my family wanted to see something cool that didn’t have a lot of people. We walked around up there for a while. 

My favorite part about this picture is that you can see my mom in the bottom, and it shows how big this cathedral is. 

We tried to go to the raclette cheese restaurant for my sister, but it was closed. We went to Lokal instead, and I was thoroughly impressed. 

We just walked around for a while after that, stopped back at the hotel, and went back out to see the sunset over the river. 

29.4.2018

Today I ate breakfast in the hotel with just my mom. It was nice. We took the tram to Letna to see the metronome and hang out in the beer garden for a while. We drank some cider and beers and had a sausage and doner kebab.

We went souvenir shopping and then went back to the hotel so my mom and sister could nap. There was a man on the street playing music by running his finger over crystal glasses. That was fun to hear and see.

We continued on to get a glimpse of the dancing house and an island in the river. We ate some pasta at the Atmosphere Cafe/Pub for dinner, kept shopping some more, and got some gelato. 

Then my mom, sister, and I all went on an evening walk down some pretty streets and fed the birds the slice of bread mom had in her purse. I showed them another little town square, we bought some paprika pringles, and we walked across the Charles Bridge before going back to the hotel.

30.4.2018

I had class this morning, and it started 30 minutes late at least because people didn’t know that we were in the other building today. I went to the hotel while my family checked out. We stood outside for a while waiting for their car to the airport, and my mom and I ran quickly to a cute little souvenir shop to buy some t-shirts that were on clearance. We said our goodbyes until the end of May, and I watched their car drive into the crowds of Old Town.

I sat in bed for a little while, and then I went to the bus station with Sadie and Erin so they could try to get their money back for a bus ticket that they cancelled. We went to the Vodafone store to sort out our data situation, and I only had to pay $10 to top up my plan. We then took a tram for 14 stops to Pražačka for Walpurgis Night, which is a Czech tradition of burning witches. They were singing on stage with kids and had bonfires to cook sausages.

Sadie and I then ate some Chinese food and watched some youtube.

[greenkeepery]

What is Labor Day all about? 

Many celebrate Labor Day with barbeques, pool parties, camping, and general summertime activities (socially distanced in 2020 of course).

But celebrating the end of summer was not the original intention of the holiday.  For most Americans, the first weekend in September signifies the end of summer and the transition into fall and back to school, even though the actual end of summer is still a few weeks away.

What is Labor Day all about? 

Labor Day is the U.S. national holiday held the first Monday of every September. The first Labor Day occurred in New York City in 1882, under the direction of the Central Labor Union and the focus of the day really was labor.  We often forget that 40 hour work weeks are now normal because of the hard work of early labor unions.   

Why do we have Labor Day? 

For most of the 1800’s factory workers clocked 60 to 70 hours a week on average. Not only was that amount of time taxing on their mental and physical health, it also had implications for the economy. With so little time to rest, workers were not able to even spend their hard-earned paychecks. It was time for a break.  

Because it was hard to get private companies, let alone the government, to recognize the first Monday of September as a holiday, a one-day strike in the city was declared. All striking workers walked in a parade followed by a picnic, which could be why the Labor Day barbeque is still so popular.  

Why don’t I get Labor Day off? 

Even though it is an official government holiday, that often means that only federal employees are guaranteed the day off. Many private employers also grant the day off for their employees, though it is not required to be a paid holiday.  

How to celebrate Labor Day 

If you would like to embrace the true spirit of Labor Day, we suggest taking the day off, but certainly not at the risk of losing your job! If you are one of the many Americans who have already been granted the three-day weekend, try doing nothing. Yes, we said it. Nothing. Labor Day is supposed to be a day of rest from the workweek, so just relax a little. Maybe throw some hotdogs and hamburgers on the grill, gather the family or some close friends and celebrate the art of not working. Just for one day.  

Some companies have found Labor Day to be a great time to have end-of-summer sales. Though most Receptra employees will be enjoying barbeques and picnics, we still encourage you to check your email over the Labor Day weekend. We wouldn’t want you to miss anything! (wink-wink) 

The post What is Labor Day all about?  appeared first on Greenkeepery.

source https://greenkeepery.com/what-is-labor-day-all-about/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-is-labor-day-all-about

[supremearticle]

Advertising, Toys and Historic Objects, Many of Them Canadian, will be in Miller & Miller's June 20 Online-Only Auction

New Hamburg, ON, Canada, Jun 6, 2020 -- A Kuntz tin lithographed beer tray made in Canada and featuring a St. Bernard dog graphic, a Canadian J.M. Fortier Cigar framed lithograph from the 1890s, and an American Coca-Cola school policeman sign from the 1950s are just a few of the expected top lots in Miller & Miller Auctions, Ltd.’s online-only auction planned for June 20th. The 687-lot Advertising, Toys & Historic Objects auction is bursting with advertising and signs, toys, general store items, petroliana (gas station collectibles), automobilia, breweriana and historical ephemera, much of it Canadian in origin. There will be no in-person event to attend, but bidders will be able to tune in to a live telecast on June 20th to watch lots close in real time. Internet bidding will be facilitated by LiveAuctioneers.com, Invaluable.com and the Miller & Miller website (www.MillerandMillerAuctions.com). Phone and absentee bids will be accepted. “Demand is strong for items that hearken to a simpler time,” said Ethan Miller of Miller & Miller Auctions, Ltd. “Experienced and novice collectors alike will be pleased with this well-rounded, market-fresh offering of advertising, toys and nostalgia. Many of these items have been unlocked from old time collections. There’s never been a better time to surround yourself with the past.” Mr. Miller added, “To a brewerianist, finding a Kuntz Brewery ‘St. Bernard’ tray is equivalent to finding King Tut’s tomb. This one is entirely untouched, and it will likely never surface again.” The highly detailed, 13-inch tray, boasting exceptional color and gloss, is a candidate for top lot of the auction. It’s estimated to bring $6,000-$7,000 (all prices quoted are in Canadian dollars). Among Canada’s most highly sought beer trays, this one features an image of a St. Bernard dog behind a bottle of Kuntz’s Special Export Lager. It’s marked “Kaufmann & Strauss Co.” (N.Y.). The J.M. Fortier Cigar framed lithograph, housed in a 35 ½ inch by 27 ½ inch gilt plaster frame with moulded tobacco leaves, is marked “Heffron & Phelps, Lithographers” (N.Y.) lower right (est. $3,000-$5,000). The Coca-Cola school policeman sign, 60 inches tall, is the “fishtail” logo version. It has two lithographed metal panels standing on a cast metal base (est. $2,500-$3,500). Petroliana and automobilia will feature three items all carrying high estimates of $3,000. The first is a Goodyear 8-foot-by-2-foot single-sided porcelain sign, made in Canada in the 1930s and showing great color and gloss. The sign is marked “Property of Goodyear Co. General Steel Wares Product” on the lower edge. Its only flaws are some minor patches of porcelain loss. The second is an Arno Model 31A pedestal air meter, made by Romort Mfg. Co. (Oakfield, Wisc., USA) in the 1940s and featuring a lighted case. The third is a Canadian Clearvision visible gas pump from the 1930s, 9 feet tall, with a hail screen. The base, nozzle and brass plate on the body are all stamped. The gas pump has a fresh coat of paint but is non-functioning. The toys category is plentiful and will include the following examples: - A fully restored Sturditoy “Pumper No. 7” pressed steel fire truck, made in the U.S. in the 1930s, modeled after a 1927 LaFrance fire truck, with a functioning bell and water pump, marked “Sturditoy Made by Pressed Metal Co.” (Pawtucket, R.I.) (est. $1,500-$2,000). - A circa 1890s J & E Stevens (Cromwell, Conn. USA) baseball-themed Darktown Battery mechanical toy bank, cast iron, non-functioning (needs a new spring), and showing two patent marks (to the underside and coin door), has some surface loss (est. $1,200-$1,500). - A Buddy “L” water tower fire truck toy, made in America from heavy pressed steel in the 1930s with rubber and brass components, having functioning pump action, professionally restored, with all the wheels stamped “Firestone Buddy ‘L’ Balloon (est. $1,200-$1,500). General store items will include an 1880s Canada Paint Company paper lithograph under glass in the original marked frame, 35 ½ inches by 25 ½ inches, free of restoration (est. $2,000-$3,000); and an early 20th century Snow Drift Baking Powder clock, made for the Canadian market by W. F. Baird Co. (Plattsburgh, N.Y. USA) and with movement by Seth Thomas (est. $1,500-$2,000). A Butler Dawes Brewery black horse statue, 18 inches tall, plaster cast in the 1930s by the famed Woodstock, Ontario artist Ross Butler (1907-1995) is expected to gallop off for $2,000-$3,000. Butler was famous for his butter sculptures at the Royal Winter Fair. For this piece, he was commissioned by the Dawes Black Horse Brewing Company. It’s incised with Butler’s name. Also offered will be a Pepsi Marquis Cleveland neon clock (“Say Pepsi Please”) that lights and functions, made in America in the 1950s and measuring 32 inches by 36 inches (est. $1,400-$1,600); and a rare, early De Laval Cream Separator single-sided porcelain flange sign, made in the U.S. in the 1920s with text, “World’s Standard, Over 1,500,000 in Use” (est. $1,200-$1,500). Miller & Miller Auctions, Ltd. has three major auctions planned for the fall. A Music Machines, Coin-Op & Advertising auction, featuring the Ken Vinen collection, will be held on Saturday, Sept. 19, at 9am Eastern. Online bidding begins on Aug. 21. The auction will be online and live in the New Hamburg gallery, at 59 Webster Street. The deadline for consignments is Aug. 24. Just added is a Canadiana & Historic Objects auction, featuring the Brian Stead collection, slated for Saturday, Oct. 24, also at 9am Eastern time, online and live in the New Hamburg gallery. Then, a Watches & Jewellery auction that was originally planned for June 6th but was deferred due to COVID-19, has been re-scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 21, at 9am, online and live in the gallery. Online bidding will begin on Monday, Nov. 2. The deadline for consignments is Oct. 23. To learn more about Miller & Miller Auctions and the firm’s slate of upcoming auctions, visit www.MillerandMillerAuctions.com. Media Contact: Ethan Miller Miller & Miller Auctions, Ltd. 59 Webster Avenue New Hamburg, Ontario, Canada N3A 1W8 (519) 573-3710 info@millerandmillerauctions.com http://www.millerandmillerauctions.com Read the full article

[theclocks]

(After I took it apart, I could identify it as a Hamburg-American.)

From my notes:

7/20/18- It looks like a 1930's radio or something, looks sort of German to me. I thought it's kind of neat, though I usually don't like the silvered and brass dials like this one, I thought it would clean up well, so I bid on it at 11:30pm going to sleep, and the auction was over at 3:00am and I was the only bidder. I haven't received it yet.

7/23/18- I received this clock, pretty neat. And runs just fine. I brought it to show Gerd and he says the movement looks German to him too, from around 1925 or so. Nice gong tone, it will clean up really well, all pressed-oak case.

8/5/18- I ultra-sounded and oiled this movement today, and found a trademark on it. Two crossed arrows, and some numbers. The arrows turn out to be the trademark of "Hamburg American Clock Company"' (listed in one place not as in Hamburg, or America, but in Schramberg, Germany), which company used this trademark from 1897-1930, when they were absorbed by their sister company Junghans. 

So Gerd nailed the date. The movement is very nice, shiny brass, well made and expensive looking, and runs fine. I will clean up this case next, put the clock together, and set it up.

[itsrockinronnie]

Hamburg Amerikanische Uhrenfabrik | Servicing an 8-day Countwheel Strike Movement - Part II

I am currently working on a mantel clock from the Hamburg American Clock Company. This is Part II in a two-part series. For Part I go here. The Hamburg American Clock Company is otherwise known as Hamburg Amerikanische Uhrenfabrik or HAU and in many parts of the world, it is simply known as HAC. HAC mantel clock circa 1926 In Part I, I described the steps taken so far which are disassembly,…

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 5.10

28 BC – A sunspot is observed by Han dynasty astronomers during the reign of Emperor Cheng of Han, one of the earliest dated sunspot observations in China. AD 70 – Siege of Jerusalem: Titus, son of emperor Vespasian, opens a full-scale assault on Jerusalem and attacks the city's Third Wall to the northwest. 1291 – Scottish nobles recognize the authority of Edward I of England pending the selection of a king. 1497 – Amerigo Vespucci allegedly leaves Cádiz for his first voyage to the New World. 1503 – Christopher Columbus visits the Cayman Islands and names them Las Tortugas after the numerous turtles there. 1534 – Jacques Cartier visits Newfoundland. 1655 – England, with troops under the command of Admiral William Penn and General Robert Venables, annexes Jamaica from Spain. 1688 – King Narai nominates Phetracha as regent, leading to the revolution of 1688 in which Phetracha becomes king of the Ayutthaya Kingdom. 1768 – John Wilkes is imprisoned for writing an article for The North Briton severely criticizing King George III. This action provokes rioting in London. 1773 – The Parliament of Great Britain passes the Tea Act, designed to save the British East India Company by reducing taxes on its tea and granting it the right to sell tea directly to North America. The legislation leads to the Boston Tea Party. 1774 – Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette become King and Queen of France. 1775 – American Revolutionary War: A small Colonial militia led by Ethan Allen and Colonel Benedict Arnold captures Fort Ticonderoga. 1775 – American Revolutionary War: Representatives from the Thirteen Colonies begin the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia. 1796 – War of the First Coalition: Napoleon wins a victory against Austrian forces at Lodi bridge over the Adda River in Italy. The Austrians lose some 2,000 men. 1801 – First Barbary War: The Barbary pirates of Tripoli declare war on the United States of America. 1824 – The National Gallery in London opens to the public. 1833 – The desecration of the grave of the viceroy of southern Vietnam Lê Văn Duyệt by Emperor Minh Mạng provokes his adopted son to start a revolt. 1837 – Panic of 1837: New York City banks suspend the payment of specie, triggering a national banking crisis and an economic depression whose severity was not surpassed until the Great Depression. 1849 – Astor Place Riot: A riot breaks out at the Astor Opera House in Manhattan, New York City over a dispute between actors Edwin Forrest and William Charles Macready, killing at least 22 and injuring over 120. 1857 – Indian Rebellion of 1857: In India, the first war of Independence begins. Sepoys mutiny against their commanding officers at Meerut. 1864 – American Civil War: Colonel Emory Upton leads a 10-regiment "Attack-in-depth" assault against the Confederate works at The Battle of Spotsylvania, which, though ultimately unsuccessful, would provide the idea for the massive assault against the Bloody Angle on May 12. Upton is slightly wounded but is immediately promoted to brigadier general. 1865 – American Civil War: Jefferson Davis is captured by U.S. troops near Irwinville, Georgia. 1865 – American Civil War: In Kentucky, Union soldiers ambush and mortally wound Confederate raider William Quantrill, who lingers until his death on June 6. 1869 – The First Transcontinental Railroad, linking the eastern and western United States, is completed at Promontory Summit, Utah with the golden spike. 1872 – Victoria Woodhull becomes the first woman nominated for President of the United States. 1876 – The Centennial Exposition is opened in Philadelphia by U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant and Brazilian Emperor Dom Pedro II. 1877 – The lower chamber of the Romanian Parliament sanctions the Declaration of Independence from the Ottoman Empire, proclaimed the previous day in the Senate by Mihail Kogălniceanu. 1881 – Carol I is crowned the King of the Romanian Kingdom. 1904 – The Horch & Cir. Motorwagenwerke AG is founded. It would eventually become the Audi company. 1908 – Mother's Day is observed for the first time in the United States, in Grafton, West Virginia. 1916 – Sailing in the lifeboat James Caird, Ernest Shackleton arrives at South Georgia after a journey of 800 nautical miles from Elephant Island. 1922 – The United States annexes the Kingman Reef. 1924 – J. Edgar Hoover is appointed first Director of the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and remains so until his death in 1972. 1933 – Censorship: In Germany, the Nazis stage massive public book burnings. 1940 – World War II: German fighters accidentally bomb the German city of Freiburg. 1940 – World War II: German raids on British shipping convoys and military airfields begin. 1940 – World War II: Winston Churchill is appointed Prime Minister of the United Kingdom following the resignation of Neville Chamberlain. On the same day, Germany invades France, Belgium and Luxembourg. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom occupies Iceland. 1941 – World War II: The House of Commons in London is damaged by the Luftwaffe in an air raid. 1941 – World War II: Rudolf Hess parachutes into Scotland to try to negotiate a peace deal between the United Kingdom and Nazi Germany. 1942 – World War II: The Thai Phayap Army invades the Shan States during the Burma Campaign. 1946 – First successful launch of an American V-2 rocket at White Sands Proving Ground. 1948 – The Republic of China implements "temporary provisions" granting President Chiang Kai-shek extended powers to deal with the Communist uprising; they will remain in effect until 1991. 1954 – Bill Haley & His Comets release "Rock Around the Clock", the first rock and roll record to reach number one on the Billboard charts. 1960 – The nuclear submarine USS Triton completes Operation Sandblast, the first underwater circumnavigation of the earth. 1962 – Marvel Comics publishes the first issue of The Incredible Hulk. 1967 – The Northrop M2-F2 crashes on landing, becoming the inspiration for the novel Cyborg and TV series The Six Million Dollar Man. 1969 – Vietnam War: The Battle of Dong Ap Bia begins with an assault on Hill 937. It will ultimately become known as Hamburger Hill. 1970 – Bobby Orr scores "The Goal" to win the 1970 Stanley Cup Finals, for the Boston Bruins' fourth NHL championship in their history. 1972 – In the Vietnam War, the US had two fighter ace crews. The USAF's Ritchie and DeBellevue scored their first kill while the USN's Cunningham and Driscoll scored their third, fourth and fifth kills. 1975 – Sony introduces the Betamax videocassette recorder in Japan. 1981 – François Mitterrand wins the presidential election and becomes the first Socialist President of France in the French Fifth Republic. 1993 – In Thailand, a fire at the Kader Toy Factory kills 156 workers. 1994 – Nelson Mandela is inaugurated as South Africa's first black president. 1996 – A blizzard strikes Mount Everest, killing eight climbers by the next day. 1997 – The 7.3 Mw Qayen earthquake strikes Iran's Khorasan Province, killing 1,567, injuring over 2,300, leaving 50,000 homeless, and damaging or destroying over 15,000 homes. 2002 – FBI agent Robert Hanssen is sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for selling United States secrets to Russia for $1.4 million in cash and diamonds. 2005 – A hand grenade thrown by Vladimir Arutyunian lands about 65 feet (20 meters) from U.S. President George W. Bush while he is giving a speech to a crowd in Tbilisi, Georgia, but it malfunctions and does not detonate. 2012 – The Damascus bombings are carried out using a pair of car bombs detonated by suicide bombers outside of a military intelligence complex in Damascus, Syria, killing 55 people and injuring 400 others. 2013 – One World Trade Center becomes the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere.

[gwnlane068677247-blog]

Kid And What To Expect

Rotterdam is actually a metropolitan area in the Netherlands. Sound Induced Hearing Reduction or (NIH), may be actually caused by a single direct exposure to an intense instinct noise, or even through ongoing exposure to loud sounds over a prolonged duration. For ecological power make use of, regularly reprocess your light weight aluminum cans. Comply with the OSHA rules and your company's warnings in protecting your hearing. Lots of people decide to go it alone as well as do well in saving on their own worry, time and money. If possible, discover green hotels and resort, b and b, or hostel for your visit.

Right now I discover that it is actually certainly not visiting be sophisticated and also as clever as your gadget and a considerable amount of folks are going to be impacted through this frequency but is going to be short and also if it operates at that point I'll live and also damage the unit on my delighted lifestyle. Households today are trying to find budget plan welcoming summertime holiday breaks that are actually budget friendly choices to taking a trip much coming from home on a costly get-away in the summer months. . Because my physical body is able to reenergize during my fasting opportunities, I feel lighter and also much healthier all around. Reciprocatory rates for individuals with hearing loss have a tendency to become much higher and need more education and learning help. Health and wellness vegetarian meals Delhi is actually quickly on call in the many vegan restaurants that lie around the urban area. Such a green Porta John is the environment-friendly method to go for social and also various other activities. Assist him iron out all his organisation and reveal every last one of Bad habit Urban area's tips in our comprehensive video game guide. Junk food restaurants that supply hamburgers, poultry and club sandwiches abound, but lunch counter that offer Chinese, Italian, Mexican as well as Middle Eastern meals likewise are plentiful. Nevertheless, this is lower than ten per-cent of soul concerns in dogs. July also participates in lot to Cinema en Plein Air, the urban area's outdoor homage to the fine art of movie, while the last Sunday in May is the worldwide renowned French Ping pong Open up. A more healthy fast-food dish possibility Toby Amidor advises is a Wendy's Jr. Hamburger paired with a Caesar Side Salad topped along with one packet of Lime Garlic Caesar Dressing and a bottle of water, which clocks in at just under five hundred calories for the entire dish. Due to the metropolitan area's new recognition click for info hockey enthusiasts, supporters of a variety of home entertainment behaves that go to the region, and individuals who just like to gamble, a brand new great deal of restaurants have been developed, specifically in the region of the Wyoming Lowland Shopping Mall as well as the Sector.Charming spot to remain, very supporting, really good atmospheres, wonderful setup, possessed some beautiful times walking in the countryside. Also in stereo system mode, the voices showed up loud and also reasonably clean and people acquiring decision were able to hear and respond back alright without any complications.( HealthDay)-- Americans' love affair along with fast food proceeds, with 1 in every 3 adults devouring on the fare on any kind of offered time. Some website visitor's have disclosed hearing infants crying. Chroniclers eventually have actually formed a very little picture of her early lifestyle.

[technato]

Morse Code’s Vanquished Competitor: The Dial Telegraph

In 1842, French watchmaker Louis-François Breguet invented a simpler to use but less efficient alternative

Photo: Technical University of Madrid

Over the years, I’ve played with interactive telegraph exhibits in science centers and museums. I can tap out the common ••• – – – ••• of the emergency distress signal, and I know the letters H (••••) and E (•), but beyond that, Morse code’s patterns of dots and dashes run together in my brain. Stories of telegraph operators who could decipher hundreds of characters a minute still amaze me.

Recently, though, I learned about the needle telegraph. On both the sending and receiving end, the needle or needles would simply point to the desired letter. Finally, a user-friendly telegraph system, provided the user knew how to read.

The first needle telegraph was patented by William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone in Britain in 1837. The design used a set of magnetic needles arranged in a row, with letters of the alphabet arranged above and below them in a diamond grid pattern. Each needle could point left, right, or neutral; to indicate a letter, two needles would point so as to outline a path to that letter. The sending operator controlled the direction of the needles by pressing buttons that closed the circuits for the desired letter combination.

  Image: Universal Images Group/Getty Images

No Code Needed: William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone’s needle telegraph required no special training, but its use of multiple telegraph lines made it expensive to operate.

Although any number of needles could be used, Cooke and Wheatstone recommended five. This combination allowed for 20 possible characters. They omitted the letters C, J, Q, U, X, and Z. Early telegraphs were mainly used for transmitting simple signals, rather than discussion-style communication. For example, to indicate whether a one-way tunnel was clear, an operator might send the short message “wait” or “go ahead.” So the absence of a few letters wasn’t a huge shortcoming.

Operators needed minimal training to use the system, which their employers appreciated. But the system was otherwise costly to operate because it required a wire for each needle plus an additional return wire that completed the circuit. Maintaining multiple wires proved expensive, and many British railroads adopted a version that used just one needle and two wires. A single-needle system, however, required that operators learn a code to send and receive signals. Gone was the ease of simply reading letters.

Cooke and Wheatstone must have realized there was room for improvement, because in 1840 they came out with a dial (or ABC) telegraph, whose face displayed all the letters of the alphabet. The operator selected the desired letter by pressing the appropriate button and turning the handle; the needle on the receiver’s dial would swing around to point to that letter. However, a dispute between the two inventors kept this version of the telegraph from being commercialized. Only after the 1840 patent had expired did Wheatstone return to the dial telegraph, eventually patenting several improvements.

Meanwhile, the French had been using an optical telegraph system that Claude Chappe developed during the French Revolution. It relied on semaphore signals transmitted along a line of towers. By 1839, Alphonse Foy was in charge of over 1,000 optical-telegraph operators, but he saw the need to investigate the growing development of electric telegraphs. He sent Louis-François Breguet to England to study Cooke and Wheatstone’s needle telegraph. The first result was the Foy-Breguet telegraph, which used two needles that mimicked semaphore signals.

Image: Class Image/Alamy

Watch and Learn: French watchmaker Louis-François Breguet studied designs for the needle telegraph before devising his own dial telegraph.

Breguet was manager of his family’s watchmaking company, Breguet & Fils, and not long after, he developed a dial telegraph that had both the appearance and the working mechanism of a clock [receiver shown at top]. When activated by an electric current from the sender, a spring connected by gears rotated the needle around the dial; an escapement—the toothed-wheel mechanism that in a clock moves the hands forward—kept the needle in place in the absence of a signal.

Breguet divided the face into 26 slots, with an inner ring of numbers and an outer ring of letters. The starting position was at the top, noted by a cross, leaving room for 25 letters. At the end of each word, the needle would return to the starting position. Some versions omitted the letter W; others omitted the letter J.

After French railroads adopted the Breguet telegraph and made it standard equipment, it became known as the French railway telegraph; it remained in use until the end of the century. Breguet’s system was also exported to Japan, connecting Tokyo and Yokohama as well as Osaka and Kobe. A new face for the telegraph incorporated Japanese katakana characters.

Photo: Postal Museum Japan

Big in Japan: This print depicts a Breguet system in use at the Yokohama telegraph office. The man in Western-style clothing is Scottish engineer George Miles Gilbert, who was hired by the Japanese government to oversee the introduction of telegraphy.

Of course, even Breguet’s dial telegraph was limited in the range of characters it could transmit. Operators of the needle and dial telegraphs had to somehow deal with missing letters—perhaps they just made their best guess based on context, or perhaps companies devised their own codes for specific letters or symbols. Louis-François Breguet couldn’t properly transmit the cedilla in his own name, but maybe he accepted it as a limitation of the technology.

As it happens, as early as the 1840s, Friedrich Clemens Gerke, the telegraph inspector for the Hamburg-Cuxhaven line in Germany, was noting similar shortcomings with Morse code. The code, developed by Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail in the United States, was fine for the unaccented English alphabet. To accommodate European languages, Gerke added accented letters; he also significantly revised the patterns of dots and dashes for letters and numbers, making the entire code more efficient to transmit. His version, which became known as Continental Morse Code, spread throughout Europe.

Despite the expanded code’s popularity, the International Telegraphic Union took many years to embrace it. In his 2017 book The Chinese Typewriter: A History, Thomas Mullaney describes the slow, conservative evolution of Morse code. In 1865, the ITU settled on a set of standardized symbols that were decidedly Anglocentric. Three years later, it confirmed the standard codes for the 26 letters of the English alphabet, the numerals 0 to 9, plus 16 special characters—mostly punctuation, plus the e-acute, É. In 1875, the ITU elevated É to a standard character and added six more accented letters as special characters: Á, Å, Ä, Ñ, Ö, Ü. It wasn’t until 1903 that the ITU accepted these supplemental characters as standard. Languages based on nonalphabetic characters, such as Chinese, were never incorporated, although some countries adopted their own telegraphic codes. Thus did the technology of telegraphy connect and also divide the world in new and unexpected ways.

The Breguet telegraph receiver that touched off my inquiries is on display at the Museum of the School of Telecommunication Systems Engineering at the Technical University of Madrid. The museum was started in the 1970s by a small group of professors, who scoured antique shops and flea markets to collect artifacts representing the history of communications. Rather than confining its objects to a dedicated space, the museum maintains exhibit cases in hallways throughout the school, where students, visitors, and others can stumble upon them every day.

I wonder if those who see the Breguet dial telegraph draw connections to modern technology. The set of characters on computer keyboards, for example, vary from place to place and language to language. I remember attending a student conference in Istanbul in 1998 and being unable to access my email. I didn’t realize that Turkish keyboards have both a dotless and a dotted i key, and so I kept hitting the wrong one. A few months later I met students in Hamburg who were using American keyboards to do their computer programming. They’d discovered that German keyboards of the era required three keystrokes to make a semicolon, which slowed down their coding.

Such tales are good reminders of the persistence and the fluidity of language, which adapts to new technologies just as new technologies are molded by their users.

An abridged version of this article appears in the September 2018 print issue as “The ABCs of Telegraphy.”

Part of a continuing series looking at photographs of historical artifacts that embrace the boundless potential of technology.

About the Author

Allison Marsh is an associate professor of history at the University of South Carolina and codirector of the university’s Ann Johnson Institute for Science, Technology & Society.

Morse Code’s Vanquished Competitor: The Dial Telegraph syndicated from https://jiohowweb.blogspot.com

[adambstingus]

The International Competition Where Master Lock-Pickers Do Battle

This story first appeared in WIRED 13.02 published in February, 2005.

For a lock picker, the world is a different place. Take, for example, a typical suburban house, with a bicycle in the front yard and a five-pin Weiser bolting the front door—a basic pin-and-tumbler lock, employed by millions of home owners.

When most people see that lock, they see security. But a lock picker sees a game. And maybe 15 seconds with a rake pick and a tension wrench. As for the bike Kryptonited to the railing out front? Please. Ten seconds, tops, with a Bic Round Stic ballpoint.

Or take a jewelry store on Main Street. The world sees the shatterproof Lexan windows and stone walls. Sure, you could melt the Lexan with a lighter or turn that wall into lava with a few strokes of a battery-powered thermal lance, but that’s not fair, that’s forced entry. Besides, why bother when you can go through the door? The dimpled 437-rated high-security lock, the one Underwriters Laboratories considers a 20-minute pick job? A 12-year-old with a bump key could hack it in 20 seconds.

To understand how, drive two hours north of Amsterdam, to a small brick building in the Dutch village of Sneek. The Sneek Wigledam Youth Hostel appears to be nothing special, just bunk beds and a bar-and-breakfast space of unpainted wood and colorful furniture—something like an Ikea Gulag. But to a lock sports aficionado, this is Wimbledon.

Arthurmeister, the Master of the Universe

It’s 20 hours before the third annual Dutch Open lock-picking competition will begin, but the room is already packed with 50 or so men and women wielding burglar tools and representing the international steel bolt-hacker diaspora. By the kitchen you’ll find Jean-Marie, a debonair French military “surreptitious entry” instructor in a black commando sweater, chatting with a lock enthusiast about his collection of Abloy disc tumblers. At the door is Barry Wels, the event’s host and a coinventor of the CryptoPhone. He’s hacking an expensive, high-security, dimpled Mul-T-Lock using only a filed key and a steak knife handle. Behind the bar, a pair of locksmiths are speculating about which of the newbies is really an undercover cop. By the pool table, a gaggle of Dutch programmers probes the latches of a combination padlock with a broken tape measure, while behind them a German cyberpunk sells a hand-milled Kryptonite skeleton key to an American satellite engineer: 100 euros – cheap.

Arthur Bhl, the Dutch Open lock-picking champion. Charles Graeber

Standing above them all, with a beer stein in one hand and a cigarette in the other, is Arthur Bhl, a private dick from Hamburg and one of the most successful lock pickers of all time. Even in this crowded, smoky room, you can’t miss him—he’s the one standing 6’5″ in snakeskin boots, with a kidney-length mullet cascading over the broad shoulders of his double-breasted zoot suit. Bhl’s Fabio-the-Barbarian look stands out. So does his record. Although he’s never won a Dutch Open, he’s won most everywhere else, earning him Germany’s ultimate lock-picking accolade: Master of the Universe.

“Arthurmeister!” booms Arthurmeister. Across the room, beer mugs chink at the cry of his name. The Master of the Universe ranking reflects his cumulative lock-picking score—it’s a title that the lock sport commissioners bestow on the world points leader. IfBhl wants to keep it, he has to keep winning. Tomorrow, his sights will be set on toppling the current Dutch Open champion—a slight, mustachioed man in a T-shirt and acid-washed jeans named Julian Hardt. Back in Germany, Hardt works as a rainmaker, piloting his twin-prop to seed thunderheads with silver iodide.

“For me, a lock is an intellectual puzzle, like chess!” Julian the Champ yells in Bavarian-accented English. He yells because two men behind him have started pithing a steel safe with a cobalt-tipped drill. “But when you break a lock, when you crack that first puzzle, when you feel pins click and the cylinder go – it’s like a drug,” he continues. “So then you want to try a harder one!”

Arthurmeister throws an arm around Julian the Champ and laughs as only a Master of the Universe should. “Ja, life is good,” he declares. “But tomorrow, you are mine.”

Hardt smiles in concession. His eyes level at Arthurmeister’s chest hair. “Arthur, tomorrow is tomorrow.” Hardt says. “Why not have another beer today?”

‘Death is a fantastic motivator.’

Marc Weber Tobias is the author of Locks, Safes, and Security: An International Police Reference, a two-volume, 1,400-page compendium referred to here as De Bijbel. Last summer, Tobias’ report on how to use a ballpoint pen to hack tubular locks—locks with circular key interfaces, like those made by Kryptonite—made headlines coast to coast. Much to the company’s horror, Tobias publicly ridiculed their bike lock as an overpriced horseshoe. “Those people are unbelievably arrogant,” he says with a smirk. “I can’t wait to break their next design and destroy that company.”

Tobias shrugs off the notion that by publicizing the vulnerability, he’s creating a crime wave. “People are just mad because they wasted 50 bucks,” he says. “People trust their lives and safety to these locks. But most locks are garbage. Look around, they’re easy to open. Not knowing that doesn’t make you safer.” Tobias rolls his eyes and waggles his head incredulously. “I mean, what do people want—security through ignorance? Wake up.”

This rumpled 59-year-old ur-nerd isn’t in Sneek to compete. He’s staying in this “godawful miniature prison” to give a PowerPoint presentation (“Vulnerabilities of Master Key Systems”) and to videotape the newest attacks against the latest locks. So he’s perfectly happy to offer a few friendly tips to a fellow American who’s new to the sport and struggling to learn the ropes.

“You’re retarded,” Tobias says, watching the neophyte wrestle with the pins. Tobias takes the lock and looks inside to make sure it isn’t broken. It’s fine. “I’ll tell you how they teach it in covert-entry camp,” he says, laying a hand on the poor picker’s shoulder. “First, I stick you in a cage. Then I lock the door.” Tobias straightens and smiles. “End of story. Trust me, it works,” he says. “Death is a fantastic motivator.”

The Master of the Universe Is Ready to Rock

Diamond picks, snakes, rakes, combs, shallow picks, and handmade tension wrenches of black spring steel—the tools are readied for battle. It’s 10 o’clock the next morning in the tournament hall. The competitors sit before their instruments.

The rules are old-school, head-to-head. Each person gets a different lock. Eight minutes to open your lock, then switch locks across the table and begin again for another eight. That’s a round. At the end of each round, whoever has a shorter combined time is the winner. The rounds continue until it’s only two, then one.

It’s locksmith against space engineer, programmer against undercover cop, French commando against American college student. Julian the Champ, who grips the lock in one hand as he picks it with the other, dries his fingers on his pant leg and tries to remain calm. Arthurmeister prepares his vise. Amazingly, although last seen at 4 am manning the keg and shouting his own name, Arthurmeister is downstairs looking fresh in a double-breasted suit and vest, a key insignia on his red silk tie. His meaty hands are shaking and his eyes are bloodshot, but the Master of the Universe is ready to rock.

“Three, two, one, go!” The pickers grab their tools and begin. Most combine the tension wrench with a rake—a tool with multiple heads that can be dragged quickly over all the pins at once. As they work, they stare down at the table or into space. They’re visualizing, using the pick like a catfish uses its whiskers, mapping the dark recesses by feel. It’s a cold hard world inside the keyway. There are special pins, mushrooms, telescopes, wedges. Pins designed to foil people, pins that don’t cooperate. And always, there’s the pressure of the clock.

“This isn’t pressure,” Tobias says. “Try real-world covert entry. Either you pick the lock fast or you get shot or arrested. End of story.”

“Open!” says Julian the Champ.

“Open!” yells Arthurmeister.

It’s Like Chess, But Without a Chessboard

Round after round, the competitors fall away, until finally, inevitably, only these two remain. They sit down across from each other at a table. The spectators and fallen competitors gather around.

A lock is placed in front of the Champ. He scoops it up and squints into its mysterious darkness. It’s a Lips 8042C, a five-pin cylinder with a straight keyway. It’s tough, but fair.

Arthurmeister receives its sister lock, the Lips 8362C. It’s a six-pin high-security model. Several of the pins are mushroom-shaped. Working them with a pick is difficult, made all the more so by the keyhole. It’s paracentric, shaped something like a thalidomide lightning bolt, and expressly designed to hinder the motion of a picker’s tools. In technical terms, the 8362C is a bitch.

Arthurmeister stubs out his cigarette and tightens the demon lock in his vise. Then he rubs his hands and leans over his challenge like a hungry giant. Go! The opponents wedge in their tension wrenches and begin.

Not much is happening at the tables. It’s like watching a chess match, only without the chessboard. But to a knowledgeable lock picker, this is an epic showdown. “Intense!” whispers Tobias.

Hardt works his picks in his cupped hand as if he’s applying lipstick to a hand puppet. Arthurmeister scrapes away at the monster in his vise like a dentist on Benzedrine. The tools of the trade look like toothpicks in his oversize mitts.

“Open!” cries Arthurmeister. He smooths his plumage back and sits upright in his throne, triumphant.

The other lock pickers gasp. Someone claps. Arthurmeister has picked the 8362C in only 20 seconds. It was a rake pick on a supertough lock, an opening that uses luck almost as much as skill.

Meanwhile, Julian the Champ can’t pick his lock at all. The clock runs out at eight minutes.

Julian looks up through his tangled eyebrows. “Oh, Arthur,” he sighs. He sucks his teeth and grimaces like a beaver. They switch locks. The Champ has to beat Arthurmeister’s time or he loses. It’s almost impossible. Julian works at the 8362C intensely, but 20 seconds is not time enough. It’s over. He stands, defeated. His opponent inhales him in a bear hug.

The crowd claps and hoots. “Arthurmeister!” they yell.

“Beer!” Arthurmeister booms back. The Master of the Universe lopes to the bar to celebrate, more, again. And a new Dutch Open champion is born.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/the-international-competition-where-master-lock-pickers-do-battle/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/172952927012

[samanthasroberts]

The International Competition Where Master Lock-Pickers Do Battle

This story first appeared in WIRED 13.02 published in February, 2005.

For a lock picker, the world is a different place. Take, for example, a typical suburban house, with a bicycle in the front yard and a five-pin Weiser bolting the front door—a basic pin-and-tumbler lock, employed by millions of home owners.

When most people see that lock, they see security. But a lock picker sees a game. And maybe 15 seconds with a rake pick and a tension wrench. As for the bike Kryptonited to the railing out front? Please. Ten seconds, tops, with a Bic Round Stic ballpoint.

Or take a jewelry store on Main Street. The world sees the shatterproof Lexan windows and stone walls. Sure, you could melt the Lexan with a lighter or turn that wall into lava with a few strokes of a battery-powered thermal lance, but that’s not fair, that’s forced entry. Besides, why bother when you can go through the door? The dimpled 437-rated high-security lock, the one Underwriters Laboratories considers a 20-minute pick job? A 12-year-old with a bump key could hack it in 20 seconds.

To understand how, drive two hours north of Amsterdam, to a small brick building in the Dutch village of Sneek. The Sneek Wigledam Youth Hostel appears to be nothing special, just bunk beds and a bar-and-breakfast space of unpainted wood and colorful furniture—something like an Ikea Gulag. But to a lock sports aficionado, this is Wimbledon.

Arthurmeister, the Master of the Universe

It’s 20 hours before the third annual Dutch Open lock-picking competition will begin, but the room is already packed with 50 or so men and women wielding burglar tools and representing the international steel bolt-hacker diaspora. By the kitchen you’ll find Jean-Marie, a debonair French military “surreptitious entry” instructor in a black commando sweater, chatting with a lock enthusiast about his collection of Abloy disc tumblers. At the door is Barry Wels, the event’s host and a coinventor of the CryptoPhone. He’s hacking an expensive, high-security, dimpled Mul-T-Lock using only a filed key and a steak knife handle. Behind the bar, a pair of locksmiths are speculating about which of the newbies is really an undercover cop. By the pool table, a gaggle of Dutch programmers probes the latches of a combination padlock with a broken tape measure, while behind them a German cyberpunk sells a hand-milled Kryptonite skeleton key to an American satellite engineer: 100 euros – cheap.

Arthur Bhl, the Dutch Open lock-picking champion. Charles Graeber

Standing above them all, with a beer stein in one hand and a cigarette in the other, is Arthur Bhl, a private dick from Hamburg and one of the most successful lock pickers of all time. Even in this crowded, smoky room, you can’t miss him—he’s the one standing 6’5″ in snakeskin boots, with a kidney-length mullet cascading over the broad shoulders of his double-breasted zoot suit. Bhl’s Fabio-the-Barbarian look stands out. So does his record. Although he’s never won a Dutch Open, he’s won most everywhere else, earning him Germany’s ultimate lock-picking accolade: Master of the Universe.

“Arthurmeister!” booms Arthurmeister. Across the room, beer mugs chink at the cry of his name. The Master of the Universe ranking reflects his cumulative lock-picking score—it’s a title that the lock sport commissioners bestow on the world points leader. IfBhl wants to keep it, he has to keep winning. Tomorrow, his sights will be set on toppling the current Dutch Open champion—a slight, mustachioed man in a T-shirt and acid-washed jeans named Julian Hardt. Back in Germany, Hardt works as a rainmaker, piloting his twin-prop to seed thunderheads with silver iodide.

“For me, a lock is an intellectual puzzle, like chess!” Julian the Champ yells in Bavarian-accented English. He yells because two men behind him have started pithing a steel safe with a cobalt-tipped drill. “But when you break a lock, when you crack that first puzzle, when you feel pins click and the cylinder go – it’s like a drug,” he continues. “So then you want to try a harder one!”

Arthurmeister throws an arm around Julian the Champ and laughs as only a Master of the Universe should. “Ja, life is good,” he declares. “But tomorrow, you are mine.”

Hardt smiles in concession. His eyes level at Arthurmeister’s chest hair. “Arthur, tomorrow is tomorrow.” Hardt says. “Why not have another beer today?”

‘Death is a fantastic motivator.’

Marc Weber Tobias is the author of Locks, Safes, and Security: An International Police Reference, a two-volume, 1,400-page compendium referred to here as De Bijbel. Last summer, Tobias’ report on how to use a ballpoint pen to hack tubular locks—locks with circular key interfaces, like those made by Kryptonite—made headlines coast to coast. Much to the company’s horror, Tobias publicly ridiculed their bike lock as an overpriced horseshoe. “Those people are unbelievably arrogant,” he says with a smirk. “I can’t wait to break their next design and destroy that company.”

Tobias shrugs off the notion that by publicizing the vulnerability, he’s creating a crime wave. “People are just mad because they wasted 50 bucks,” he says. “People trust their lives and safety to these locks. But most locks are garbage. Look around, they’re easy to open. Not knowing that doesn’t make you safer.” Tobias rolls his eyes and waggles his head incredulously. “I mean, what do people want—security through ignorance? Wake up.”

This rumpled 59-year-old ur-nerd isn’t in Sneek to compete. He’s staying in this “godawful miniature prison” to give a PowerPoint presentation (“Vulnerabilities of Master Key Systems”) and to videotape the newest attacks against the latest locks. So he’s perfectly happy to offer a few friendly tips to a fellow American who’s new to the sport and struggling to learn the ropes.

“You’re retarded,” Tobias says, watching the neophyte wrestle with the pins. Tobias takes the lock and looks inside to make sure it isn’t broken. It’s fine. “I’ll tell you how they teach it in covert-entry camp,” he says, laying a hand on the poor picker’s shoulder. “First, I stick you in a cage. Then I lock the door.” Tobias straightens and smiles. “End of story. Trust me, it works,” he says. “Death is a fantastic motivator.”

The Master of the Universe Is Ready to Rock

Diamond picks, snakes, rakes, combs, shallow picks, and handmade tension wrenches of black spring steel—the tools are readied for battle. It’s 10 o’clock the next morning in the tournament hall. The competitors sit before their instruments.

The rules are old-school, head-to-head. Each person gets a different lock. Eight minutes to open your lock, then switch locks across the table and begin again for another eight. That’s a round. At the end of each round, whoever has a shorter combined time is the winner. The rounds continue until it’s only two, then one.

It’s locksmith against space engineer, programmer against undercover cop, French commando against American college student. Julian the Champ, who grips the lock in one hand as he picks it with the other, dries his fingers on his pant leg and tries to remain calm. Arthurmeister prepares his vise. Amazingly, although last seen at 4 am manning the keg and shouting his own name, Arthurmeister is downstairs looking fresh in a double-breasted suit and vest, a key insignia on his red silk tie. His meaty hands are shaking and his eyes are bloodshot, but the Master of the Universe is ready to rock.

“Three, two, one, go!” The pickers grab their tools and begin. Most combine the tension wrench with a rake—a tool with multiple heads that can be dragged quickly over all the pins at once. As they work, they stare down at the table or into space. They’re visualizing, using the pick like a catfish uses its whiskers, mapping the dark recesses by feel. It’s a cold hard world inside the keyway. There are special pins, mushrooms, telescopes, wedges. Pins designed to foil people, pins that don’t cooperate. And always, there’s the pressure of the clock.

“This isn’t pressure,” Tobias says. “Try real-world covert entry. Either you pick the lock fast or you get shot or arrested. End of story.”

“Open!” says Julian the Champ.

“Open!” yells Arthurmeister.

It’s Like Chess, But Without a Chessboard

Round after round, the competitors fall away, until finally, inevitably, only these two remain. They sit down across from each other at a table. The spectators and fallen competitors gather around.

A lock is placed in front of the Champ. He scoops it up and squints into its mysterious darkness. It’s a Lips 8042C, a five-pin cylinder with a straight keyway. It’s tough, but fair.

Arthurmeister receives its sister lock, the Lips 8362C. It’s a six-pin high-security model. Several of the pins are mushroom-shaped. Working them with a pick is difficult, made all the more so by the keyhole. It’s paracentric, shaped something like a thalidomide lightning bolt, and expressly designed to hinder the motion of a picker’s tools. In technical terms, the 8362C is a bitch.

Arthurmeister stubs out his cigarette and tightens the demon lock in his vise. Then he rubs his hands and leans over his challenge like a hungry giant. Go! The opponents wedge in their tension wrenches and begin.

Not much is happening at the tables. It’s like watching a chess match, only without the chessboard. But to a knowledgeable lock picker, this is an epic showdown. “Intense!” whispers Tobias.

Hardt works his picks in his cupped hand as if he’s applying lipstick to a hand puppet. Arthurmeister scrapes away at the monster in his vise like a dentist on Benzedrine. The tools of the trade look like toothpicks in his oversize mitts.

“Open!” cries Arthurmeister. He smooths his plumage back and sits upright in his throne, triumphant.

The other lock pickers gasp. Someone claps. Arthurmeister has picked the 8362C in only 20 seconds. It was a rake pick on a supertough lock, an opening that uses luck almost as much as skill.

Meanwhile, Julian the Champ can’t pick his lock at all. The clock runs out at eight minutes.

Julian looks up through his tangled eyebrows. “Oh, Arthur,” he sighs. He sucks his teeth and grimaces like a beaver. They switch locks. The Champ has to beat Arthurmeister’s time or he loses. It’s almost impossible. Julian works at the 8362C intensely, but 20 seconds is not time enough. It’s over. He stands, defeated. His opponent inhales him in a bear hug.

The crowd claps and hoots. “Arthurmeister!” they yell.

“Beer!” Arthurmeister booms back. The Master of the Universe lopes to the bar to celebrate, more, again. And a new Dutch Open champion is born.

Source: http://allofbeer.com/the-international-competition-where-master-lock-pickers-do-battle/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/04/15/the-international-competition-where-master-lock-pickers-do-battle/

[itsrockinronnie]

Hamburg Amerikanische Uhrenfabrik | Servicing an 8-day Countwheel Strike Movement - Part I

Among clock collectors and admirers, the Hamburg American Clock Company is a well-known German company. It is otherwise known as Hamburg Amerikanische Uhrenfabrik or HAU and in many parts of the world, it is simply known as HAC. Time and strike mantel clock, shown without the crown and as purchased About the Company The company was formed in Germany in 1873 by Paul Landenberger and Phillipp…

[allofbeercom]

The International Competition Where Master Lock-Pickers Do Battle

This story first appeared in WIRED 13.02 published in February, 2005.

For a lock picker, the world is a different place. Take, for example, a typical suburban house, with a bicycle in the front yard and a five-pin Weiser bolting the front door—a basic pin-and-tumbler lock, employed by millions of home owners.

When most people see that lock, they see security. But a lock picker sees a game. And maybe 15 seconds with a rake pick and a tension wrench. As for the bike Kryptonited to the railing out front? Please. Ten seconds, tops, with a Bic Round Stic ballpoint.

Or take a jewelry store on Main Street. The world sees the shatterproof Lexan windows and stone walls. Sure, you could melt the Lexan with a lighter or turn that wall into lava with a few strokes of a battery-powered thermal lance, but that’s not fair, that’s forced entry. Besides, why bother when you can go through the door? The dimpled 437-rated high-security lock, the one Underwriters Laboratories considers a 20-minute pick job? A 12-year-old with a bump key could hack it in 20 seconds.

To understand how, drive two hours north of Amsterdam, to a small brick building in the Dutch village of Sneek. The Sneek Wigledam Youth Hostel appears to be nothing special, just bunk beds and a bar-and-breakfast space of unpainted wood and colorful furniture—something like an Ikea Gulag. But to a lock sports aficionado, this is Wimbledon.

Arthurmeister, the Master of the Universe

It’s 20 hours before the third annual Dutch Open lock-picking competition will begin, but the room is already packed with 50 or so men and women wielding burglar tools and representing the international steel bolt-hacker diaspora. By the kitchen you’ll find Jean-Marie, a debonair French military “surreptitious entry” instructor in a black commando sweater, chatting with a lock enthusiast about his collection of Abloy disc tumblers. At the door is Barry Wels, the event’s host and a coinventor of the CryptoPhone. He’s hacking an expensive, high-security, dimpled Mul-T-Lock using only a filed key and a steak knife handle. Behind the bar, a pair of locksmiths are speculating about which of the newbies is really an undercover cop. By the pool table, a gaggle of Dutch programmers probes the latches of a combination padlock with a broken tape measure, while behind them a German cyberpunk sells a hand-milled Kryptonite skeleton key to an American satellite engineer: 100 euros – cheap.

Arthur Bhl, the Dutch Open lock-picking champion. Charles Graeber

Standing above them all, with a beer stein in one hand and a cigarette in the other, is Arthur Bhl, a private dick from Hamburg and one of the most successful lock pickers of all time. Even in this crowded, smoky room, you can’t miss him—he’s the one standing 6’5″ in snakeskin boots, with a kidney-length mullet cascading over the broad shoulders of his double-breasted zoot suit. Bhl’s Fabio-the-Barbarian look stands out. So does his record. Although he’s never won a Dutch Open, he’s won most everywhere else, earning him Germany’s ultimate lock-picking accolade: Master of the Universe.

“Arthurmeister!” booms Arthurmeister. Across the room, beer mugs chink at the cry of his name. The Master of the Universe ranking reflects his cumulative lock-picking score—it’s a title that the lock sport commissioners bestow on the world points leader. IfBhl wants to keep it, he has to keep winning. Tomorrow, his sights will be set on toppling the current Dutch Open champion—a slight, mustachioed man in a T-shirt and acid-washed jeans named Julian Hardt. Back in Germany, Hardt works as a rainmaker, piloting his twin-prop to seed thunderheads with silver iodide.

“For me, a lock is an intellectual puzzle, like chess!” Julian the Champ yells in Bavarian-accented English. He yells because two men behind him have started pithing a steel safe with a cobalt-tipped drill. “But when you break a lock, when you crack that first puzzle, when you feel pins click and the cylinder go – it’s like a drug,” he continues. “So then you want to try a harder one!”

Arthurmeister throws an arm around Julian the Champ and laughs as only a Master of the Universe should. “Ja, life is good,” he declares. “But tomorrow, you are mine.”

Hardt smiles in concession. His eyes level at Arthurmeister’s chest hair. “Arthur, tomorrow is tomorrow.” Hardt says. “Why not have another beer today?”

‘Death is a fantastic motivator.’

Marc Weber Tobias is the author of Locks, Safes, and Security: An International Police Reference, a two-volume, 1,400-page compendium referred to here as De Bijbel. Last summer, Tobias’ report on how to use a ballpoint pen to hack tubular locks—locks with circular key interfaces, like those made by Kryptonite—made headlines coast to coast. Much to the company’s horror, Tobias publicly ridiculed their bike lock as an overpriced horseshoe. “Those people are unbelievably arrogant,” he says with a smirk. “I can’t wait to break their next design and destroy that company.”

Tobias shrugs off the notion that by publicizing the vulnerability, he’s creating a crime wave. “People are just mad because they wasted 50 bucks,” he says. “People trust their lives and safety to these locks. But most locks are garbage. Look around, they’re easy to open. Not knowing that doesn’t make you safer.” Tobias rolls his eyes and waggles his head incredulously. “I mean, what do people want—security through ignorance? Wake up.”

This rumpled 59-year-old ur-nerd isn’t in Sneek to compete. He’s staying in this “godawful miniature prison” to give a PowerPoint presentation (“Vulnerabilities of Master Key Systems”) and to videotape the newest attacks against the latest locks. So he’s perfectly happy to offer a few friendly tips to a fellow American who’s new to the sport and struggling to learn the ropes.

“You’re retarded,” Tobias says, watching the neophyte wrestle with the pins. Tobias takes the lock and looks inside to make sure it isn’t broken. It’s fine. “I’ll tell you how they teach it in covert-entry camp,” he says, laying a hand on the poor picker’s shoulder. “First, I stick you in a cage. Then I lock the door.” Tobias straightens and smiles. “End of story. Trust me, it works,” he says. “Death is a fantastic motivator.”

The Master of the Universe Is Ready to Rock

Diamond picks, snakes, rakes, combs, shallow picks, and handmade tension wrenches of black spring steel—the tools are readied for battle. It’s 10 o’clock the next morning in the tournament hall. The competitors sit before their instruments.

The rules are old-school, head-to-head. Each person gets a different lock. Eight minutes to open your lock, then switch locks across the table and begin again for another eight. That’s a round. At the end of each round, whoever has a shorter combined time is the winner. The rounds continue until it’s only two, then one.

It’s locksmith against space engineer, programmer against undercover cop, French commando against American college student. Julian the Champ, who grips the lock in one hand as he picks it with the other, dries his fingers on his pant leg and tries to remain calm. Arthurmeister prepares his vise. Amazingly, although last seen at 4 am manning the keg and shouting his own name, Arthurmeister is downstairs looking fresh in a double-breasted suit and vest, a key insignia on his red silk tie. His meaty hands are shaking and his eyes are bloodshot, but the Master of the Universe is ready to rock.

“Three, two, one, go!” The pickers grab their tools and begin. Most combine the tension wrench with a rake—a tool with multiple heads that can be dragged quickly over all the pins at once. As they work, they stare down at the table or into space. They’re visualizing, using the pick like a catfish uses its whiskers, mapping the dark recesses by feel. It’s a cold hard world inside the keyway. There are special pins, mushrooms, telescopes, wedges. Pins designed to foil people, pins that don’t cooperate. And always, there’s the pressure of the clock.

“This isn’t pressure,” Tobias says. “Try real-world covert entry. Either you pick the lock fast or you get shot or arrested. End of story.”

“Open!” says Julian the Champ.

“Open!” yells Arthurmeister.

It’s Like Chess, But Without a Chessboard

Round after round, the competitors fall away, until finally, inevitably, only these two remain. They sit down across from each other at a table. The spectators and fallen competitors gather around.

A lock is placed in front of the Champ. He scoops it up and squints into its mysterious darkness. It’s a Lips 8042C, a five-pin cylinder with a straight keyway. It’s tough, but fair.

Arthurmeister receives its sister lock, the Lips 8362C. It’s a six-pin high-security model. Several of the pins are mushroom-shaped. Working them with a pick is difficult, made all the more so by the keyhole. It’s paracentric, shaped something like a thalidomide lightning bolt, and expressly designed to hinder the motion of a picker’s tools. In technical terms, the 8362C is a bitch.

Arthurmeister stubs out his cigarette and tightens the demon lock in his vise. Then he rubs his hands and leans over his challenge like a hungry giant. Go! The opponents wedge in their tension wrenches and begin.

Not much is happening at the tables. It’s like watching a chess match, only without the chessboard. But to a knowledgeable lock picker, this is an epic showdown. “Intense!” whispers Tobias.

Hardt works his picks in his cupped hand as if he’s applying lipstick to a hand puppet. Arthurmeister scrapes away at the monster in his vise like a dentist on Benzedrine. The tools of the trade look like toothpicks in his oversize mitts.

“Open!” cries Arthurmeister. He smooths his plumage back and sits upright in his throne, triumphant.

The other lock pickers gasp. Someone claps. Arthurmeister has picked the 8362C in only 20 seconds. It was a rake pick on a supertough lock, an opening that uses luck almost as much as skill.

Meanwhile, Julian the Champ can’t pick his lock at all. The clock runs out at eight minutes.

Julian looks up through his tangled eyebrows. “Oh, Arthur,” he sighs. He sucks his teeth and grimaces like a beaver. They switch locks. The Champ has to beat Arthurmeister’s time or he loses. It’s almost impossible. Julian works at the 8362C intensely, but 20 seconds is not time enough. It’s over. He stands, defeated. His opponent inhales him in a bear hug.

The crowd claps and hoots. “Arthurmeister!” they yell.

“Beer!” Arthurmeister booms back. The Master of the Universe lopes to the bar to celebrate, more, again. And a new Dutch Open champion is born.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/the-international-competition-where-master-lock-pickers-do-battle/