Here's the box with most of the stuff in it. I wanted to save a few surprises for the giftee. My bookbinding training came in handy for building a tray for the box. Although the directions specified red velvet or velour for the lining, the velvet was $22 bucks a yard (gulp), and the velour was in very unattractive and inappropriate colors, so I went for a nice brushed corduroy that was the perfect shade, and it is what the original box was lined with after all. So it looks even more mysterious that part of it is old and faded, and part of it is new. More pictures can be found here.
The embroidered piece in the tray is a map. This is what I used:
It's a drawing that my late dad did, probably 35 years ago or so. He was a civil engineer, and a coal contractor for at least part of his career. This is a preliminary plan for a clean coal facility. Now, I don't if this is the same clean coal that all the kids are talking about nowadays and my dad was prescient, or if it's something completely different, but I think it's cool. I dropped out all of the words, and printed it out on fabric for the base of the map.
My mom says she thinks that this drawing is of the same quarry where the classic zombie movie Night of the Living Dead was filmed. My dad was the guy who worked with director George Romero to get all of the location permits. My dad could have been a zombie extra(!) had he not been out of town the weekend the film was shot. Although my brothers disagree with me, as a film fanatic I think that it would have been a fantastic thing for my father to be in one of the most iconic monster movies ever. Oh well, it's enough that he was involved in some small way.
I found this drawing while spending a long weekend with my brother going through boxes of stuff in my mom's garage. I sent many treasures home to myself. If I decide to stick around, I'll post some of them from time to time. Although I try to avoid it, I guess that sometimes being a pack rat can be a good thing.
