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1933 Goudey baseball cards

Dave Farquhar Baseball September 25, 2017February 1, 2022

1933 Goudey baseball cards are immensely popular with collectors. They weren’t the first baseball cards sold with gum, but the 240-card set was a landmark. It featured an attractive design, tons of star players, a size close to that of modern cards, and some big challenges.

It’s not hard to see why generations of collectors loved the set, and continue to do so. Collecting 1933 Goudey baseball cards takes money, patience, and imagination. Or at least two of the three. Yes, collectors of modest means who have patience and imagination can still collect Goudey, one of the most venerable of baseball card brands.

Where to buy Lionel trains in St. Louis

Dave Farquhar Toy trains September 22, 2017September 12, 2017american flyer, home improvement, lionel, lionel train, Mark Twain, marx, marx trains, o gauge, postwar lionel, Prewar Lionel, Standard Gauge

If you want to know where to buy Lionel trains in St. Louis, you have a lot of choices. It’s more than possible to make a day of train shopping in St. Louis.

I’ve never seen a comprehensive list of shops, so I made my own. If you know of any place I missed, I apologize. Please leave a comment and I will add it.

Can’t afford furniture? Here are some ideas.

Dave Farquhar Saving money September 21, 2017October 17, 2019estate sales, garage sale

When you can’t afford furniture, believe it or not, you have options. It’s also a more common problem than you may think. Here are some offbeat options to help you find furniture until you can afford something better. It’s entirely possible to furnish your home inexpensively if you need to.

How to use a Commodore 64

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing September 20, 2017January 29, 20191980s, apple, atari, commodore, commodore 64

The Commodore 64 is rather unlike modern computers. It has a CPU and memory like a modern computer does, but the operating system and overall user experience is alien to someone used to computers that run Windows or Mac OS. So to modern eyes, it’s not completely obvious how to use a Commodore 64.

Commodore had a dominance of the market in the 1980s that would have made Apple jealous at any point in its history, but ultimately Commodore lost, so the Commodore 64’s bloodline is extinct.

WAR in baseball statistics

Dave Farquhar Baseball September 19, 2017April 12, 2023Kansas City, kansas city royals

One of the new-school baseball statistics goes by the curious acronym of WAR. Here’s what WAR in baseball statistics means.

Essentially, WAR is an attempt to measure the value of a player more completely than traditional statistics. It’s more thorough and much harder to calculate than OPS, but these days, we do have computers readily available to help us calculate difficult statistics quickly.

How to disable a light switch

Dave Farquhar DIY September 18, 2017February 11, 2019

Sometimes you need to disable a light switch, such as when a light switch turns an outlet on or off and you want to plug something other than a lamp into that outlet. Here’s how to disable a light switch.

The good news is you can do this in such a way that it is completely reversible. If you want to replace the light switch at any point in the future, you will be able to.

The Lionel KW transformer

Dave Farquhar Toy trains September 15, 2017July 27, 2022american flyer, amps, KW, lionel, lockon, LW, marx, power cord

The Lionel KW transformer was the second largest transformer Lionel made in the postwar era. It delivered 190 watts of power and provided two handles to control two trains. Internally, the design is very similar to the ZW. If the ZW was Lionel’s Cadillac transformer, the KW was the Buick. I always thought Lionels were overrated until I ran a 675 locomotive with a KW.

There was a time when nobody made modern transformers the size of a KW or ZW. Now that they do, the ZW and especially the KW cost a lot less. I remember when a reconditioned KW cost $200. Today you can get one for under $100. An as-is KW with minor issues will cost half that. These days, the KW is a bargain.

Commodore 64 operating system

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing September 14, 2017September 12, 20171980s, apple, apple ii, commodore, commodore 64, unix

The Commodore 64 didn’t have an operating system in the traditional sense that we now think of one. It most certainly did have a method of interacting with the user and handling I/O, including disk files. But the way it all worked seems strange today. Here’s what made the native Commodore 64 operating system different, and the alternatives that surfaced during the 64’s long life.

The update is already installed on this system

Dave Farquhar security, Windows September 13, 2017March 17, 2023command prompt, vulnerability, Windows Explorer

I had an update on my work laptop in a partially installed state. Our vulnerability scanner determined one file, MSO.dll, was still out of date. It recommended a patch to apply. Running it gave me an error message. Here’s what to do when Windows says the update is already installed on this system and refuses to let you do anything but click OK.

Because hey, from a security analyst’s point of view, this is anything but OK. I get questions about patches in a partially deployed state all the time, so I figured I’d write about it. Here’s what I do when security updates fail to apply with this error.

Central Hardware, St. Louis history

Dave Farquhar Retail, St. Louis September 12, 2017May 6, 20241950s, 1980s, 1990s, american dream, consolidation, DIY, home depot, home improvement, Israel, Kansas City, Plumbing, sears

St. Louis-based Central Hardware was one of the first big-box home improvement chains. It peaked in 1993 at 39 stores in six states in the midwest, employing 3,700 people. It was once the 19th largest hardware retailer in the United States.

Central Hardware’s motto was “everything from scoop to nuts,” a play on the English idiom “soup to nuts,” which means beginning to end. Their inventory was over 40,000 SKUs, comparable to today’s home improvement stores. Its stores regularly exceeded 50,000 square feet. That’s about half the size of a typical home improvement store today, but it was large for the 1970s and 1980s. Traditional hardware stores ranged in size from 2,000 to 10,000 square feet. Its employees wore orange vests so customers knew who to ask for help.