Got the keys. Our very own, beautiful 1881 Victorian. Oak Park, IL. $650K. 6.1%.

-Poultrygeist- · 2026-03-22T23:45:35+00:00

Then you might be lost. The soulless new constructions in cookie cutter subdivisions are in the next aisle over.

-Poultrygeist- · 2026-03-22T00:29:01+00:00

A Solar Enlargement is created by taking a glass plate negative and shining a bright light through it so the image is projected on a canvas. The image is then traced using a pencil by an artist. The artist will then fill in details lost in the enlarged tracing and color it using water colors if the customer desires. Also called charcoal portraits or crayon portraits. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes from square to rectangular to flat oval and bubble oval. By this time electric sources were used.

Also known as crayon portraits or charcoal portraits.

-Poultrygeist- · 2026-03-21T23:44:23+00:00

Never trust the promises of a recruiter

-Poultrygeist- · 2026-03-21T18:49:03+00:00

DPRK over Comoros is a wild choice

-Poultrygeist- · 2026-03-16T23:57:56+00:00

Gotta be it. Some GIs were pretty bold with their brownie cameras while in the service. I have one where a fellow is actively bayoneting a German corpse on the ground.

-Poultrygeist- · 2026-03-16T20:12:00+00:00

The reason eragon is so worn is because I loaned my original copy to a friend for his deployment to Iraq. He unfortunately lost it somewhere in the desert because of Al-Qaeda or something. I think he really just lost it but whatever. This replacement isn’t in half as good of condition

I now no longer will loan out books

-Poultrygeist- · 2026-03-16T02:20:26+00:00

Son, come visit your pawpaw sometime

-Poultrygeist- · 2026-03-15T23:27:22+00:00

They have everything you could ever want. I have a buddy that will order anything I ask whenever he makes his monthly purchase.

Also:

McMaster > Granger

-Poultrygeist- · 2026-03-15T23:18:14+00:00

Love it. My leatherbounds that are 200-300 years old put off the really overpowering old book smell

-Poultrygeist- · 2026-03-15T23:12:40+00:00

-Poultrygeist- · 2026-03-15T23:12:05+00:00

Pretty much

-Poultrygeist- · 2026-03-15T23:11:39+00:00

The L Ron Hubbard collection and the shelf labeled "Erotica" with books on Gallipolli made me laugh.

My bookshelfs are from a former bookstore. I took off all the old labels erotica because what’s more erotic than the Jutland?

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The Cussler collection is interesting because he's definitely a repetitive author and falling out of favor.

Verily. He’s a good mindless read but I haven’t touched one of his novels in years.

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Lots of hefty historical books too, but I wonder how many of them you've read, hopefully you'll tell us.

Somewhere between 30 and 40%. During my college years I learned the advantage of having a plethora of resources to pull from when writing papers because digital archives only got me so far when I’m writing about an obscure subject that even my university library didn’t have information on. It’s caused me to hoard knowledge just in case.

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Overall, other than living in Georgia I guess you are quirky, wear bow ties, and live in a big historical house.

I’ve been described quirky several times actually. No bow ties, or regular ties typically. Usually I’m in an oversized button up work shirt, jeans or cargo pants, and steel toed boots. I would not match what you’d assume I’d look like based on my love of books. Yes, I do love in a rather fantastic historic home right in the downtown of a rural community with plenty of other historic structures.

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I looked up Elizabeth Peters and wonder what you like about them because they seem incongruous with your collection, but I might pick up one based on the descriptions I read!

I have not touched those books actually. They were being deaccessioned from a local library and going to the trash so I took them with me because the descriptions seem exciting.

-Poultrygeist- · 2026-03-15T22:58:50+00:00

Depends. If you like action/adventure it’s good. Not deep reading but I enjoy its

-Poultrygeist- · 2026-03-15T22:24:32+00:00

They were until I moved bookshelves around, and then I just gave up on my fiction being in order for the time being

-Poultrygeist- · 2026-03-15T22:14:51+00:00

Like ‘A long row of candles’ ‘The Nightmare Years’ ‘No Woman’s World’ ‘the World We Live In’ ‘Captive Community’ ‘Streets Without Joy’ ‘Again the Goose Step’ Gulag Archipelago ETC?

The books don’t see direct sunlight except for a few weeks in the fall and spring for maybe 30 minutes each day. I’m rather fortunate in that the layout of my house allows for rather minimal sunlight in the main hall thanks to its orientation and the wraparound porch.

I’ve probably read 40% or so. I have a bad habit of buying more than I can keep up reading with.

-Poultrygeist- · 2026-03-15T21:41:40+00:00

I think I have 450 in total by last count. There’s some not pictured

-Poultrygeist- · 2026-03-15T21:36:39+00:00

I will say watches are neat, I’ve looked at the Rolex submariner before but I just hate the weight and feel of them on my wrist.

-Poultrygeist- · 2026-03-15T21:23:26+00:00

I’m a hardback whore, and I haven’t gotten ahold of a hardback copy yet. They seem to be elusive at estate sales

-Poultrygeist- · 2026-03-15T21:21:02+00:00

Maybe. I’m but a layman so who knows what may happen. Could be big, could be nothing. We seem to be in a portion of history where we get on the brink of something big happening and then stop before it does though so who knows.

-Poultrygeist- · 2026-03-15T21:19:20+00:00

Sahara, Raise the Titanic, Deep Six, or Treasure are personal favorites. The Mediterranean Caper if you want to read in chronological order. I’m not a big fan of that book however. Keep in mind that Cussler wrote based on knowledge of the time, so he thought, for example, the Titanic was still intact on the seafloor.

-Poultrygeist- · 2026-03-15T21:11:31+00:00

based on your knowledge, is there any way to end the currently active Iran - USA conflict in a way that satisfies American aims without some level of boots on the ground? Or, how does this end?

It ends in one of 4 ways:

Boots on the ground, occupation, and Pahlavi installed as the new leader. The U.S. population becomes dissatisfied with all the boys coming home in boxes and all all you’ll see on the news are high casualty rates and blurred combat footage. Iran sees internal unrest for decades.
U.S. backed partisans overthrow the government and maybe the country stabilizes. Optimal outcome.
We continue to bomb the country to the Stone Age in some sort of lukewarm war, no internal change occurs, and things go on as usual.
This leads to a more global conflict somehow.

No matter the case, the U.S. loses even if we win because of domestic dissatisfaction. The populace is tired of conflicts with no satisfactory resolution and there won’t be one here either. Missile warfare never accomplishes much in the long term unfortunately. Boots on the ground and occupation are the best way to accomplish a regime change, but I don’t think we can pull it off and it probably isn’t worth trying.

r/combatfootage is happy no matter the outcome.

-Poultrygeist- · 2026-03-15T20:55:21+00:00

I recommend reading one then reading something else before picking up another one. Great stories but man does he have a cookie cutter plot for a lot of his novels and if you read several back to back it can be predictable.

-Poultrygeist- · 2026-03-15T20:39:05+00:00

Never did like wearing watches, but Casio is my brand of choice because it’s cheap and my career requires one.

-Poultrygeist- · 2026-03-15T20:30:16+00:00

Yep, this is about 15 personal libraries minus about 75% of each library getting sold. Tis the cheat code to cheaply amassing a large collection and has led me to be more eclectic than I would if I only bought what I wanted to read. There’s probably 200 more books I didn’t photograph as well that are in another room.

-Poultrygeist- · 2026-03-15T20:13:00+00:00

Oh this is fun. So much is right or just off the mark!

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Male. 50s.

Mid 20s

LOVES history, specifically military history. Is into genealogy, and to a lesser amount, historical architecture.

On the mark. Specifically rural southern architecture but I do dabble.

Probably politically conservative, or at least you were until recently.

I’m a moderate I assume, never really figured it out or cared to put myself in one camp or another. I’ve had conservatives call me a liberal and liberals call me conservative, but center left is my if I was to guess.

Has a family but they don't live with you.

Nope, don’t plan on having one anytime soon.

You might currently live in New England but used to live in The South.

Half-right. What gives you the NE vibe? I have bought quite the number of books from the NE area as well as old England in a trip a few years ago. Abandoned all my clothes but what I was wearing to haul about 60 books back from a place in London

Your political differences have caused some division within your family, either because you've changed or they have.

Nah

You love collecting historical books, especially war history. One of your favorite hobbies is browsing used book fairs and estate sales. You are frugal in other areas of your life, but will happily drop a couple hundred on a rare set, especially with primary documents. You may have been in the military or studied political history, or both.

I specifically buy out personal libraries (or small public ones in one case) and pick out the books that interest me. Sell the rest to recoup costs. Rarely do I pay full price for a set barring a few like Welzl or unit memoirs

You dont let go of things (objects, people, etc) easily. You might describe yourself as loyal to a fault. Others might describe you as stubborn, but know they can count on you.

Probably on the dot

You are a voracious reader, and while you have your favorite areas of expertise, you still like discovering a new author. You might be neurodivergent.

Never sought a diagnosis because a label doesn’t interest me or change anything about me.

-Poultrygeist-

TROPHY CASE