I left Colombia for the foreseeable future one week ago today, and several days later I encountered a machine that provided me with an apt bookend to my time across the Caribbean Sea. (I still plan on writing several blog posts about Colombia, specifically about the recent 10-day trip I took with my parents, but non-linearity has always been a hallmark of Xlog Xave's.) No, I'm not talking about a literal bookend-making machine, though that would have given me the great pleasure of being able to apply the word "literally" to a phrase that is almost always figurative.
As a matter of fact, the machine in question is a guitar pick-making machine, the likes of which I had never seen before. A music store near my parents' house here in Palo Alto, California has this do-it-yourself machine sitting out in the public area of the store, with an attached sign giving old credit cards as a suggested use.
I was delighted to realize that I did, in fact, have recently-outdated cards given my time in Colombia. So I took out my Cedula, the Colombian ID card which is kind of like a SIN but with a photo ID, briefly wondered whether I might need it at some point before noticing the expiry date of July 22, 2010, the day before I fly back to Canada, and went to work. The result:
In retrospect, if I had been more efficient (and as an industrial engineer, that should always be the first thing on my mind), I might have been able to get four. Furthermore, it would have been cool to get a fingerprint-pick, though that probably would have ruled out the face-pick, which I was only half-successful in creating anyway.
Nevertheless, three perfectly good guitar picks. And given the presence of most of my name, my year of birth, and part of my face, I might even be able to use this as ID!
If it turns out that I do need this for some reason, like to get back into Canada, I can always re-build.
You should have been able to get a "nose pick" ; figuratively, I mean...
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