Hi, this is Chris Hubbs.

I don’t know why you’re listening to this, but since you are, let’s talk about bucket lists.

I used a phrase a couple weeks ago that it seemed odd, and I probably have never used before.

I described something as being on my home office bucket list.

What I was talking about there, and this goes along with my love of libraries, which I’ve talked about before, is I’ve always kind of had on my mental wish list that if I could find an old library card catalog cabinet that I would love to have it for my home office.

If you’re as old as I am or older, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Back in the days before electronic library catalogs, all the library’s holdings were cataloged in little index cards that were in these card cabinets in the library.

Usually when I’ve looked at and seen these online, they’re on the neighborhood of five feet tall and three feet wide, have like 60 little drawers, each of which pull out, and you have a drawer full of these index cards listing each of the books and their topic and author and their call number, so you could look up the book and then go find the book.

I have fond memories of these from when I was a kid, and just the resources that the information in that cabinet unlocked for you.

And as those have been retired out of libraries, as things have moved to digital, I thought, how much fun would it be to have one of those?

And I’m not even entirely sure what all I’d store in it, but sort of the nostalgia value is enough to make me interested.

It turns out those are semi-challenging to find.

Maybe not so much challenging as to find is to find one nearby at a price that I want to pay.

I can certainly find some online at outrageous prices, and have found a couple kind of on the, like, Facebook Marketplace type things nearby, but none that just kind of hit the sweet spot for me.

As a side note, one of the interesting places you can find things is a place called GovDeals online, where governments that want to dispose of old equipment can put stuff up for online auction.

And I’ve had a card catalog query as a saved search on there for a few months now, and I actually got a hit on it last night for three big card catalogs that are up for auction.

The downside is they’re in Atlanta, Georgia, and even if I could get them at a ridiculously good price, transporting them back to Iowa would be a little bit of a challenge, and I don’t really need three of them, even though there are three available.

But, you know, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t stop for a minute and do the math of how far is the drive, how much would it cost me in gas, could I go pick them up?

I’m not going to.

I’ll keep looking.

So one of these days, though, if I find the right card catalog at a price that I like, I definitely will be looking to buy it, add it to my home office.

Again, not sure what I’ll store in it or what all will go with it, but as a nostalgia piece, a lot of things I’m not really nostalgic about in, like, an antique or history sense, but I think a library card catalog would just hit the sweet spot for me.

So we’ll see.

Off this weekend to enjoy a little bit of time out of the office.

My wife and I will probably hit a few antique stores while we’re out.

Maybe I’ll trip across something there.

I have my doubts, but you never know what you might find.

That’s the fun of going out and looking.

So we’ll talk later.