The Ohio lot: story time & photos
Posted: 12 Jul 2016, 04:03
I drove over 400 miles to pick up some keyboards from Columbus, OH. Am I crazy? Probably.
My father and I have been there before; he wanted to attend a sporting event. Our GPS, an old Tom Tom with a sassy female British voice, led us down some... Interesting back roads. Marky Moe's, a trashy looking restaurant, and a "hillbilly drive in theater" are perhaps the best memories I had from the trip. Unfortunately, we missed the chance to snag a photo.
The restaurant was only funny because we were bored to death. Who names a restaurant something like that anyways? The drive in, however, is comedic gold. I had to see it again. Had to. I whipped out the good old Tom and followed her nagging directions to see if the edifice was still erect. I wasn't disappointed.
Your eyes aren't deceiving you. That is a massive projection screen jerry rigged onto the side of a semi truck trailer.
The rest of my drive wasn't notable. My arrival, on the other hand, was. The surplus location's lot was jam packed with old vehicles, several of which had advertisements for strip clubs on their sides. When the loading bay door rolled up, I knew I was in for a good time. The gentleman who greeted me was quite clearly three things:
1) nerdy as can be
2) eccentric, based on the straw hat he was wearing indoors
3) high as a goddamn kite
He wasn't my contact for the pickup, though. I was greeted moments later by a movie-star-handsome rebellious looking guy with camouflage fatigues and a mohawk. Looked like he should be driving a muscle car overflowing with hot women. I loaded up the 'boards and talked him into letting me tour the rest of the warehouse, which was chock full of random goodies. I literally had to climb over a forklift, a golf cart, floor cleaning machines, and office chairs to reach one portion of the shelving stacks. There were few keyboards of interest, but "nerdy" followed me around and chatted about his background in picking. He was told by "handsome" to make sure I didn't slip and die or anything. Heh.
There were a few nicer cars inside amongst the rubble. Like a Cadillac and a Porsche. Oh, and there was a Ferrari. A yellow Ferrari, surrounded by random shit.
Speaking of cars, I want to give a shout out to mine. It's a 1994 Subaru Legacy L sedan, FWD only. 266,000 miles and still going strong (knock on wood). The hood is wrinkly because it popped up and smacked the windshield on the highway one time. Don't worry -- it's safe now.
Back to keyboards. I found an AAK + TK and a random Cherry keyboard from what I assume was a mass spectrometer. Needless to say, I took those two home with me. Pictures and notes follow:
The M15! After some cleaning she works fine and looks great. Ohaimark owns a sexy Lexmark -- almost a tongue twister. A treasure for my collection, for sure.
A working OG Kinesis.
NCR G81-3077 with special OG dyesubs. She's done some sunbathing.
Cherry G80-0505 -- note the orange doubleshots, odd layout, mix of doubleshot/pad print keycaps, MX Lock switch, and gigantorific F row profile. Pretty cool.
AEK II with Salmon Alps and special, large font keycaps.
AAK + TK, mini cable attached, banana edition.
KB-7001 with Alps clones. Meh.
~~ The M15 is mine. I have people in line for the NCR, but the rest will go up in a small silent auction. ~~
My father and I have been there before; he wanted to attend a sporting event. Our GPS, an old Tom Tom with a sassy female British voice, led us down some... Interesting back roads. Marky Moe's, a trashy looking restaurant, and a "hillbilly drive in theater" are perhaps the best memories I had from the trip. Unfortunately, we missed the chance to snag a photo.
The restaurant was only funny because we were bored to death. Who names a restaurant something like that anyways? The drive in, however, is comedic gold. I had to see it again. Had to. I whipped out the good old Tom and followed her nagging directions to see if the edifice was still erect. I wasn't disappointed.
Your eyes aren't deceiving you. That is a massive projection screen jerry rigged onto the side of a semi truck trailer.
The rest of my drive wasn't notable. My arrival, on the other hand, was. The surplus location's lot was jam packed with old vehicles, several of which had advertisements for strip clubs on their sides. When the loading bay door rolled up, I knew I was in for a good time. The gentleman who greeted me was quite clearly three things:
1) nerdy as can be
2) eccentric, based on the straw hat he was wearing indoors
3) high as a goddamn kite
He wasn't my contact for the pickup, though. I was greeted moments later by a movie-star-handsome rebellious looking guy with camouflage fatigues and a mohawk. Looked like he should be driving a muscle car overflowing with hot women. I loaded up the 'boards and talked him into letting me tour the rest of the warehouse, which was chock full of random goodies. I literally had to climb over a forklift, a golf cart, floor cleaning machines, and office chairs to reach one portion of the shelving stacks. There were few keyboards of interest, but "nerdy" followed me around and chatted about his background in picking. He was told by "handsome" to make sure I didn't slip and die or anything. Heh.
There were a few nicer cars inside amongst the rubble. Like a Cadillac and a Porsche. Oh, and there was a Ferrari. A yellow Ferrari, surrounded by random shit.
Speaking of cars, I want to give a shout out to mine. It's a 1994 Subaru Legacy L sedan, FWD only. 266,000 miles and still going strong (knock on wood). The hood is wrinkly because it popped up and smacked the windshield on the highway one time. Don't worry -- it's safe now.
Back to keyboards. I found an AAK + TK and a random Cherry keyboard from what I assume was a mass spectrometer. Needless to say, I took those two home with me. Pictures and notes follow:
The M15! After some cleaning she works fine and looks great. Ohaimark owns a sexy Lexmark -- almost a tongue twister. A treasure for my collection, for sure.
A working OG Kinesis.
NCR G81-3077 with special OG dyesubs. She's done some sunbathing.
Cherry G80-0505 -- note the orange doubleshots, odd layout, mix of doubleshot/pad print keycaps, MX Lock switch, and gigantorific F row profile. Pretty cool.
AEK II with Salmon Alps and special, large font keycaps.
AAK + TK, mini cable attached, banana edition.
KB-7001 with Alps clones. Meh.
~~ The M15 is mine. I have people in line for the NCR, but the rest will go up in a small silent auction. ~~
