JulieLeung.com: a life told in tidepools

As I wrote a couple months ago, I am enjoying putting Ted’s ApacheCon bags to good use. I have now started the new habit of taking my motley crew of canvas bags with me to the grocery stores. For years I’ve been thinking I should do this, but now I finally am doing it. I have one that was a gift from a RI friend, decorated with a pretty painting of grapes, one black one from ApacheCon, a black one from Software Development, and one from OSCON. One ApacheCon year the bag Ted brought home was a narrow one with a zipper, not too good for groceries, but great for hauling my files around with me – especially now that I’ve taken to filing and organizing my life more. I put my shopping file in it or library books. The other day I used that bag to haul the knives to the grocery store for sharpening. I haven’t gotten any strange looks yet from my eclectic collection – although if we still lived in the Valley, I bet by now someone would have asked me about Apache Con or OSCON or something.

What’s amazed me the most is how efficient canvas bags are. I’ve been impressed by how much food can fit in one. Now $100 of groceries only requires three or four bags – only one trip into the house even! (should I be amazed or scared by that?!) And, unlike either paper or plastic, strength is not an issue. These bags don’t have to be doubled or carried carefully. By far, the OSCON bag has the best design, with long handles, so that the bag can easily be carried on a shoulder, and a large bag at that. The little O’Reilly icon is cute too – the girls think it’s a monkey or an owl – by its wide eyes – I thought it was a lemur until I looked it up and found this piece on Making O’Reilly Animals (note: T-shirts are available for sale with this little tarsier on it – also a shirt that says “I’m blogging this” and caffeinated soap, but no bags…) It seems to me that this O’Reilly bag was designed by someone who intended for people to use it…it’s great!

So I am enjoying puttting to use this pile of canvas bags accumulated from all the conferences – otherwise they’d just be gathering dust bunnies under the bed. It’s nice to get 5 cents per bag at the grocery store each time I bring them. And I like using recyclable bags. But most of all now I want to use them because they are the best bags. So much better than paper or plastic options…

But I need a few more to make my collection complete…sometimes I’m still in need of a few sacks at the store in order to bag everything…so I have one reason to look forward to the next ApacheCon, OSCON or whenever it is that Ted has to go away again to a conference…:-)