enrguerrero’s photo of a Lincoln/Obama paste up mashup on the corner of Larkin and Myrtle streets in San Francisco.

Walking north on Valencia I heard the characteristic snap snap snap of an old manual typewriter’s hammers striking paper on the platen.

I was more than a bit curious about who might still use such a classic machine even before its operator called out to ask if I wanted to buy a poem. Still, it’d been a full day exploring The Mission with a fabulous host and the time for my flight home was nearing.

“A poem?” I asked, and before I could inquire what the poem might be about or demand to review samples of his previous work, this sales savvy poet asked my name and the purpose of my visit and started hammering away on the faded blue portable Remington.

His name is Zach Houston, and in addition to running the Poem Store on various street corners around San Francisco, he also just opened a show in a gallery on the other side of The Mission.

But if he’s running a store, if this was a commercial transaction, I wanted a receipt. Into the typewriter went the remaindered piece of the shipping labels that he uses as a canvas for his work and in several more snaps he tapped out a suitable bill of sale.

As noted here, I’m going to WordCamp in SFO in early August.

Matt describes it as a BarCamp-style event (where “’BarCamp-style’ is a code phrase for ‘last minute’”) with “a full day of both user and developer discussion.” I’m just going for the free t-shirt, of course, but I can imagine a number of folks will get a good value out of the sessions and discussions that will likely run, especially all the developer stuff.

Also, if you’ve got some suggestions about what else I should be doing in San Fran, leave a comment or contact me with any suggestions.

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I told Vincent that I didn’t really care much for cars. It was my sister, I explained, that wanted to look. Vincent agreed quickly and said it was rock climbing that excited him most. Cars, it turned out, were just a family thing he had to play along with.

Still, he told me about the Lotus‘ under 2000 pound dead weight, noted the tiny engine that gets nearly 30 miles a gallon yet delivers 0 to 60 in better than five seconds, then opened the door and suggested I shoehorn myself inside.

There I discovered a spartan, yet strangely comfortable interior (perhaps it was just swaddling), a removable hard top, and a cockpit built for piloting around sharp turns at high speed. A scooter this wasn’t. A box this wasn’t.

I’ve never been so prepared to drop 50 grand as I was at that moment. I feel dirty.

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