ABQ Press Club Skyriting

Post-Script: The Press Club is located at 201 Highland Park Circle, situated atop a hill that overlooks downtown ABQ. It was built in 1903 by the architect Charles F. Whittlesey as his personal residence, who in the early 1900s was the chief architect in charge of hotels and stations for the Santa Fe Railroad, and who designed most of the grand stations and hotels for the railroad, such as the Fred Harvey hotels. The house was designed and built while he was designing El Tovar at Grand Canyon, in the same Norwegian Villa style.



The Whittlesey residence changed hands over the years, but in the 1970s was purchased by the Press Club, in whose hands it remains today.

I still had thoughts on my mind from the day's previous video production, where I mused on the adequacy of manual versus electronic typewriters as writing tools. When Kevin had invited me to the Club, he mentioned bringing his Skyriter. I was planning on bringing the Remington Ten Forty that I've been servicing, but instead decided a pair of Skyriters would be appropriate. My Skyriter still intermittently skips, whereas Kevin's hasn't had that problem. His is a Spanish keyboard version, and he speculates that, even though his machine is a few years older, perhaps it didn't have the wear and tear that mine had. Since I've done about all the cleaning, degreasing and lubricating that I can do, and have also referenced the service manual procedure, I suspect the skipping may be due to worn parts in the escapement. The machine works fine when I type pedantically, two-fingered, at a slow, even pace. So, in keeping with the video I'd just made, I've decided to work within the limitations of the machine, accepting it as imperfect yet "good enough," using it for "slow typing," such as when composing one's thoughts onto paper, rather than transcribing previously written material at a faster pace. A cogitating typer. Other than the skipping, it's a nice machine, and sports the longer carriage return lever than Kevin's version.

The video I posted is also the first one using my new Go Pro Hero 7 Black. It has excellent image stabilization for handheld shooting, and has a linear mode that straightens out the extreme fisheye distortion of these wide angle lenses. I've had to attach some sticky wind muffs to the mic holes in its carrying case, to dampen the effects of wind noise, and will soon be acquiring an adapter dongle for using an external mic.