I got a call from the mail room at work today. The fellow on the phone said that I had received a couple boxes and that they were "real heavy"… could I come down to pick them up?

That could only mean one thing. My monotype moulds had arrived. I opted to ship them UPS because I thought there'd be less chance for problems. I also had them sent to me at work so that they'd get signed for. When I arrived at the mail room, there were 3 boxes sitting on the floor for me. The lightest one was 43 pounds… naturally, UPS had managed to break 2 of the cardboard boxes they were shipped in, and there were packing peanuts falling out.

Worried that there'd be a problem, I took them to my desk and unpacked them. Luckily, it doesn't look like they were damaged, but I'll only know for sure once I try to use them. There were a total of 6 English moulds, and 12 American; that should be plenty to get me started…

Those of you interested in following my Monotype (mis)adventures can read about it at my monotype adventures page.

I've received a number of great tips for developing C-language modules for Pike over the years. Some of them I had the foresight to save, others are trapped in mailing list archives.

In order to prevent the loss of great tips, I started to jot them down. You can check them out here development tips. Feel free to mail me any of your tips, too!

Getting my own typecasting equipment has been a "dream" of mine ever since I attended the American Typecasting Fellowship (ATF) Conference back in September. While there, I had an opportunity to cast my own type and I was hooked. These machines went out of popular use decades ago, so obviously, this is not the sort of stuff you can just go out and pick up.

After several months of fruitless search, I got a lead. This past weekend, I travelled to California to take a look at some Monotype casters that were recently made available. I got there, and after an educational afternoon with Harold Berliner and Hans-Ulrich Frey, I was the proud owner of 2 British Monotype Composition Casters. As soon as I get some photos of my new babies, I'll be posting those. How, I just need to get them from California to my shop!

for more info, check out monotype adventures.